A Comparative Study of Emily and Granny Weatherall

中圖分類號(hào)：I06文獻(xiàn)標(biāo)志碼：A文章編號(hào)：1674-9324（2013）31-0186-02

Introduction

Emily，the central character of A Rose for Emily，loves a northerner and when she finds that he has no intention to marry her，she kills him and keeps his body in her house until her own death.Granny Weatherall，the heroine of The Jilting of Granny Weatherall，is jilted by her fiancéon the wedding day.She doesn’t complain him，but is brave to live.This paper compares Miss Emily and Granny Weatherall in details.

Chapter One Comparison of Emily and Granny Weatherall

1.1 Different implication of Emily and Granny Weatherall’s name.Emily is a real female name.Usually，we can not link Emily to a murder.The killing implies that she is defeated by the tradition and lives unhappily all her life.While “Weatherall”，means “tide over the difficulty safe and survive after experience hard”.Granny Weatherall works hard all her life and is full of ironic sense.It seems that she is born to be jilted.She must go through all the weather，no matter good or bad.

1.2 The situation of being jilted of Emily and Granny Weatherall.Emily has been prevented from marrying during her father’s lifetime.After her father’s death，she falls in love with Homer Barron，However Homer has no intention to marry her.，so the jilting is fatal to Miss Emily.While Weatherall is jilted on the wedding day by her bridegroom George.She is jilted in public，it is sad news for a woman.

1.3 Different rebellions.At the end，Emily kills Homer Barron by arsenic.She can not bear being jilted by him，so she kills him and lives with his corpse together until death.In the contrary，after bridegroom jilts Granny at the altar，she tries to remember that he never harms her.Even John wants to help her，she refuses.She is generous，though he hurt her deeply，she forgives him and let nobody hurt him.

1.4 Different endings.Emily lives a lonely life.Since she kills Homer，Miss Emily isolates herself from the outside world and lives lonely in her house till her death.Though living in a big house，it is as if she lives in the grave.But Granny Weatherall is different.She works hard all her life.Before she dies，all her children，Doctor Harry and Father Connolly are around her.Though Granny gets through all kinds of hardships，she is still luckier than Miss Emily.

Chapter Two The reasons of their different reactions

Firstly，We know the reasons of Emily’s reaction.The inner factor is her character.Firstly，she is too proud and self-esteemed to adjust herself to the “gross，teeming world”，and to accept the refusal of her lover.She also does not accept the passing of time.The outer factors are as follows： First，Emily’s father，is the representative of the decayed aristocrats’old values.Second，the local community，who represent the southern cultural traditions as well as puritanical concepts of woman morals，has the responsibility of causing Emily the tragedy.Third，traditional culture and Puritanism are the important ideas of American South control people’s material and spiritual life by influencing people’s thoughts and life style，and define the intercourse and behavior code in the South society.