A Rose for Emily
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| - | '''Necrophilia''', also called '''thanatophilia''' and '''necrolagnia''', is a [[paraphilia]] characterized by a [[human sexuality|sexual]] attraction to [[corpse]]s. | + | "'''A Rose for Emily'''" is a [[short story]] by [[United States|American]] author [[William Faulkner]] first published in the April 30, 1930 issue of ''Forum''. This story takes place in Faulkner's fictional city, Jefferson, in his fictional county of [[Yoknapatawpha County]], [[Mississippi]]. It was Faulkner's first short story published in a national magazine. |
| - | ==Necrophilia as represented in the arts== | + | |
| - | :''see [[necrophilia in popular culture]]'' | + | |
| - | [[Shakespeare]], influenced extensively by the tragic [[ethos]] of the Greek biographer [[Plutarch]], has the senatorial conspirators show the bloodied body of [[Julius Caesar|Caesar]] immense reverence, their general state of mind undergoes a radical transformation when it suddenly turns into thanatophilia for the slain [[dictator]]. The conspirator [[Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus|Decius Brutus]] in attempting to persuade Caesar to go to the senate, duplicitously offers Caesar a sanguine assessment of the day's outcome, and yet the sanguinary and necrophiliac imagery of [[Calpurnia|Calpurnia's]] dream persists: | + | |
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| - | <blockquote> | + | |
| - | This dream is all amiss interpreted;/ | + | |
| - | It was a vision fair and fortunate:/ | + | |
| - | Your statue spouting blood in many pipes,/ | + | |
| - | In which so many smiling Romans bathed,/ | + | |
| - | Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck/ | + | |
| - | Reviving blood, and that great men shall press/ | + | |
| - | For [[tincture]]s, stains, [[relic]]s and cognizance./ | + | |
| - | This by Calpurnia's dream is signified.</blockquote> | + | |
| - | (''Julius Caesar'' Act 2, Scene II) | + | |
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| - | [[Cleopatra|Cleopatric]] death cults have often combined elements of both institutional thanatophilia and [[libido|libidinal]] necrophilia, with the latter often dominating. Plutarch relates that [[Octavius]]' admiration for Cleopatra only grew after her death, that he ordered she be buried alongside [[Mark Antony|Antony]] in royal splendor, and that on his return to Rome he incorporated an image of the dying Cleopatra (''cum''-[[asp]]) into his [[Roman triumph|triumph]]. Beginning with the [[Renaissance]] and continuing into later centuries individual artists, as well as artistic movements (e.g. [[Romanticism]], [[Decadent movement|Decandatism]]), have demonstrated a veritable passion for and derived much inspiration from Cleopatra's life and death; among the most well known pictorial iterations of Cleopatra's [[suicide]] are [[Guido Cagnacci|Cagnacci's]] ''[[Death of Cleopatra]]'' (1658) and [[Jean-André Rixens|Rixens's]] work of the same name (1874). A work that may have inspired Rixen's painting is [[Theophile Gautier|Gautier's]] story ''[[Une Nuit de Cléopâtre]]'' (1838), which includes a [[fantasy|fantastic]]—and an undisguisedly [[fetish]]istic—description of the Egyptian queen's body ''post-mortem''. | + | |
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| - | One could argue that the [[Legend of Osiris and Isis]] involved a necrophilic act; [[Isis]] is said to have fathered [[Horus]] with the dead [[Osiris]]'s dismembered penis, albeit miraculously. According to ''Christian Origins in Egyptian Mythology'', "an ancient Egyptian relief depicts this conception by showing his mother Isis in a falcon form, hovering over an erect phallus of a dead and prone Osiris in the Underworld." | + | |
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| - | In [[Toni Morrison]]'s [[novel]] ''[[Song of Solomon (novel)|Song of Solomon]]'', Macon Dead is explaining to his son Milkman that he is disturbed by the relationship that his wife Ruth had with her father, Dr. Foster. Shortly after Dr. Foster's death, Macon caught Ruth lying naked in bed with her father's corpse, while sucking on his fingers. | + | |
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| - | In [[Algernon Charles Swinburne]]'s poem, "The Leper," the speaker is a scribe who had long desired a woman in the royal house where he is employed. When she contracts [[leprosy]], she is deserted by all others. The scribe then takes care of her, and has an arguably necrophilic relationship with her. | + | |
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| - | Published in 1930, [[William Faulkner]]'s "[[A Rose for Emily]]" tells the story of a lonely house ridden woman named Emily Grierson who deals with the strange circumstances of the man she loves, and her secret world of necrophilia. | + | |
| - | The [[My Chemical Romance]] song [[To The End]] is based on this story. | + | |
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| - | The 1994 [[Cormac McCarthy]] novel ''[[Child of God]]'' is a dark tale of a man who takes up life in a cave where he stores the corpses of his victims, and is one of the most remarkably sympathetic depictions of necrophilia in literature. The story is, however, more focused on extreme social alienation and the relationship we have with the outcast. | + | |
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| - | In [[Canada|Canadian]] author [[Barbara Gowdy]]'s short story "We So Seldom Look On Love", a funeral parlour employee learns how to make the penises of recently dead men erect, and she commits sexual acts on the corpses until she is caught. In 1996, the story was adapted into the film ''[[Kissed]]''. | + | |
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| - | A Japanese sub genre of both horror and pornography called [[ero guro]] or "erotic grotesque" often deals with necrophilia. | + | |
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"A Rose for Emily" is a short story by American author William Faulkner first published in the April 30, 1930 issue of Forum. This story takes place in Faulkner's fictional city, Jefferson, in his fictional county of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. It was Faulkner's first short story published in a national magazine.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "A Rose for Emily" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
