Maxist View of Rose for Emily and Odour to Chrysanthemums Essay Example

Maxist View of Rose for Emily and Odour to Chrysanthemums Essay Example Maxist View of Rose for Emily and Odour to Chrysanthemums Paper Maxist View of Rose for Emily and Odour to Chrysanthemums Paper Essay Topic: Anthem The Chrysanthemums Marxism was a critical approach used by many writers. Authors, of that period, paid close attention to details and accurate facts. Marxism typically refers to a diverse set of social, economic, and historical realities. Both, A Rose for Emily, written by William Faulkner, and Dour to Chrysanthemums, written by D. H. Lawrence exhibit strong evidence that social interaction, economic status, and historical prospective isolate people from society. 80th stories depict a woman, In different extreme circumstances, alienated from the world around her. In Dour to Chrysanthemums the mall character is named Elizabeth. Elizabeth was an educated, proud, respected woman who was a wife of a coal miner, a devoted mother, and part of the working class. In a Rose for Emily the main character is Emily, at one time an aristocrat, and a symbol of the past generation. To prove that the three realities, mentioned above, could lead to alienation the reader must examine each point of Interest, starting with the historical background. When analyzing the history of a story, the reader must research the period It was written. Dour to Chrysanthemums was written between the end of the Victorian period in 901, and the beginning of WWW in 1914. During this period coal was a main energy source. Mines, the sites where coal was extracted, were dreary and the people involved in this type of work often led bleak, despairing lives. Human labor was needed for this work, and the exhaustion it produced, coupled with life threatening work conditions was often reli eved in pubs, or bars. Unfortunately, as Lawrence shows, the comforts of the pub were paid for at a high price In alcoholism and the disruption of home life. Wives, or Elizabeth, in this case, were burdened with the care f large families on their husbands meager salary. Elizabeth was very alienated from the world around her because of her role as wife and mother in this specific time period. She was also separated from her husband because of his type of work. A Rose for Emily was written after the Civil War. Post Civil War Reconstruction had a profound and humbling effect on Southern society. The birth of Emily Grievers occurs during the Civil War; therefore she was raised with the old south values. Originally, Emily Gridirons town was governed by men of the old south like Colonel Sartorial and Judge Stevens. Men of this stature operated under a code of chivalry that was extremely protective of white women. After the death of Emails father, Colonel Sartorial was unable to allow the town to tax her, and Judge Stevens was unable to confront Emily about the smell coming from her house. As each generation passed the symbolic torch, however, the newer generations were further and further away from the antiquated social mores of their forebears. The men who tried to collect Emilee taxes didnt operate under the same code of conduct as their grandfathers and great grandfathers did. Emily was not a damsel in distress to these men; she was a nuisance, a hindrance to progress. This showed the contrast between the 19th and 20th century society. Emily Grievers is certainly a character trapped In her genteel past, thus making her alienated from the developing world around near. Social Interaction Ana economic status are very closely related. 10 examine the socioeconomic, or the social and economic status of each individual a person has to analyze class structure. In Dour to Chrysanthemums Elizabeth and her family were considered lower class, or part of the working class. Elizabeth, however, regarded herself as being more refined than her husband and her surroundings. Elizabeth Bates was described as a woman of imperious mien (part II, par. 123). Unlike her neighbors, she didnt use the local dialect, an indication of class position. Unlike other miners wives in the community, she refused to demean herself by entering the local pubs to entice her husband home. Most significantly, however, Elizabeth indicated her disdain for the social position of her community by fighting against her husband and his values. Probably lulled into marrying him by his good kooks and his lust for life, she resented him for making her feel like a fool living in this dirty hole (par. 78). She seemed to despise the manual nature of her husbands work, indicated by her unwillingness to wash the residue of pit-dirt from his body when he emerged from his shift in the mine (par. 8). When she finally became aware of the horrible fate of her husband and she viewed the body lying in the naive dignity of death (part II, par. 118), she was appalled and humbled at what appeared to be her husbands new distance from her, but she slowly comprehended that their roomer connection was based solely on an unnamed attraction above and beyond the conditioning of social class, and the lure of compatible personality, common interest, or shared experience. She acknowledged that their relationship was part of a different order of experience, which belonged to a mythic dimension. It is a dimension which included the physical work of the dark mine, the sexual attraction of the body, and the mysterious world of the dead. The story ended with the laws of this new mythic dimension overriding Elizabethan former concerns about social class. She indeed was alienated from her community, and her husband. It wasnt until his death that she realized this truth. In a Rose for Emily, Faulkner depicted Emily and her family as being part of a higher social class. There was a time when her family did have power in the South, and at one time the Grievers name did mean something. This social position isolated Emily from the life she desired, because she was expected to behave a certain way. Emily was not able to make the decisions she wanted to due to her standing in the social community. Homer was not considered a DOD marriage partner for Emily due to her social standing in the old south. Her choice to kill him and preserve him, as one does a rose, may have been, in her mind, her only option. After losing her father and her love, in her younger years, she regressed into a state of fantasy, longing for the times gone by. This fantasy world allowed her to keep Homer for all time in this room of roses. Emily Grievers did indeed become a fallen monument (par. 1). She was a monument of Southern gentility, an ideal of past values. She had fallen becaus e she turned her fantasy into grotesque reality. She was a woman who was alienated by society. In conclusion, both women were separated from the world around them, in both very different ways. How would the stories have changed if Elizabeth was an aristocrat, or Emily was part of the working class? Someones social class depicts their actions and train of thought. What if these stories took place in the 21st century? The outcomes would, also, be much different. Both stories show how a Marxist view exposes how social, economic, Ana analogical really less alienate, or Isolate people Trot one another.