Rose for Emily the Characterization Term Paper

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Later the reader will discover the smell is the rot from corpses, first Miss Emily's father, then her dead suitor. But the women's comments, even when the reader is unaware of the corpse in Emily's home suggest that the women regard Tobe as less competent than a female run home, with a husband and wife -- here, Tobe is regarded in their eyes as a symptom of Miss Emily's eccentricity and solitude, but still not as a character himself.

Faulkner does not present the reader with Tobe's feelings about Miss Emily and her father's oppression of his race or himself, though. Even when Tobe acts, it is in a very muted and decorous way. "When the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray." Unlike Emily, Tobe's actions are not strident or particular to him as a character; rather his presence underlines Miss Emily's class.

Other Black individuals have a presence in the story, but only marginal ones like "the Negro delivery boy brought her the package; the druggist didn't come back." Blacks are functional, not feeling.

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The sparseness of life around Emily's home is underlined by the singular loyal presence of Tobe, "The Negro man went in and out with the market basket, but the front door remained closed." Tobe ages along with Emily as if he and his mistress are the same person, as if he has no independent existence, but while Emily suffers rejection, Tobe simply grows white hairs. Tobe even ends the tale mute, as the townsmen "had long since given up trying to get any information from the Negro. He talked to no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if from disuse." But he does not do so for his own suffering, only because of Emily's solitude, and while Emily's power is the source of Tobe's oppression, Faulkner simply confirms it by including few other details about the man.

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