Murder In A Rose For Emily Essay, Research Paper

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Love, Murder, and Revenge

Murder in A Rose for Emily and Killings

History says the first crime ever committed by one person against another is murder. There are so many things that can motivate a murder such as love, hate, jealousy, and, revenge. Both Faulkner s short story A Rose for Emily and Dubus s story Killings represent ideas of murder, love, jealousy, and revenge. However, love and murder are presented in different ways in the two stories. In A Rose for Emily Miss Emily kills her beloved Homer because he deserts her, and in Killings Matt Fowler murders Richard to take revenge of his son s brutal death. In fact, love and affection play a great role on these murders. Love is blind and sometimes it might lead a person to be a murderer. Both stories tell us how passionate love motivates a person to commit a murder for the sake of love.

Both characters commit murder in order to quench their thirst for mental satisfaction. In Faulkner s story Emily meets Homer shortly after her father s death. She wants love from Homer to be rescued from being lonely. Her liking to Homer is great, however, his feeling about the relationship is different. He is not really like a marrying man. Faulkner says, Homer himself had remarked he liked men, and it was known

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that that he drank with the younger men in the elks Club that he was not a marrying man (75).Homer leaves the town for a while and then comes back. She prepares for the weeding while he is away. Her deep love makes her paranoid about his departure, because she does not want to be left alone. She cannot think of another woman by his side. Finally, she decides to poison him and keep his dead body in her house. In fact, her eternal love to Homer motivates her to kill him and keep his dead body by her side forever. She feels that if she does not have him alive, she could at least see him in her house everyday if he is dead.

In Dubus s story Richard kills Frank, Matt s son with jealous motives of romance, betrayal and rage. Revenge captures the heart of both Matt and Richard in different forms. Matt becomes outrageous when Richard is out on bail and faces minimal jail time for murdering his son. His wife breaks apart with grief when she sees her son s killer in the town. In the story Matt describes She sees him all the time. It makes her cry. In order to quench his thirst for revenge, he decides to take the law in his own hands and plans to execute Richard with the help of a friend. On the other hand, Richard kills frank because he is so jealous about his wife s relationship with him. Matt loses himself in revenge, and begins to carry an unregistered gun. He loves his son very much. In fact, both fatherly love and indomitable thirst of revenge to the killer motivate him for this murder.

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I am more sympathetic to Matt than Emily. Matt s murder has more justifiable reason than Emily. Emily kills Homer because she cannot think of another woman by his side. But it s not fair to kill some one just because of blind love. Her attitude seems like she is the only one Homer has to be with and no one else deserves him. Although she kills him for passionate love but it is really inhumane and weird to poison someone and keep the dead body years after years. Matt kills Richard to take the revenge of his son s death. His heart cries when his son s murderer is roaming around the town independently. It s really hard for any father to endure the grief of a dead son. The writer says, So he and his children had survived their long distance, and then he lose Frank in a way no father expected to lose his son, and he felt that all the fears he felt swept him out of see. Matt commits murder for murder. Matt s murder makes me feel good because he takes revenge of his son s brutal killing and Emily s murder just for her crazy love to Homer makes me feel bad. I really feel bad for Homer because he dies for one-sided love.

Both the writers create the story based on killing and love. These stories teach us how a person can be revengeful and bold in love. Love teaches us to be generous. But Emily s blind love makes her a murderer. Love does not make her generous. She does not let his beloved go away and she kills him. Matt s murder satisfies his revenge. His heart does not endure the pain and that makes him revengeful.