For Richer or Poorer A Rose for Emily

Just because someone is blessed with an abundant amount of money, doesn’t guarantee them happiness. In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily� and Ernest Hemmingway’s “A Clean Well Lighted Place”, the main characters do not suffer from inadequate wealth but lack something that is priceless. In “A Rose for Emily,� Emily’s loneliness creates emptiness inside her she struggles to fulfill. The old deaf man in “A Clean Well Lighted Place� lacks the ability to have a good night sleep. But the similarities between these two characters are represented through two completely different points of view. “A Rose for Emily� is told through the townspeople’s point of view while “A Clean Well Lighted Place� is told through both the young and old waiter. Though both story’s points of view are the third person, the narrators in each story share differing views towards the main characters. The main characters are similar in riches and emptiness.
In “A Rose for Emily,� because of Miss Emily’s social status, the townspeople never would confront her about issues that they were concerned about. She came from a very prosperous family that provided funding for the town and demanded respect from the people aroun

Another example of when the townspeople refused to confront Miss Emily was when her house reeked of a nauseating smell. After complaining to the judge about the smell, he stated, “will you accuse (the) lady to her face of smelling bad”(30)? In fact, because the townspeople could not stand the smell of her home, they snuck into her home and removed the smell by sprinkling lime all over her property. When the townspeople disapproved of Miss Emily’s relationship with Homer Baron, they could not work up the courage to tell her. Instead they relentlessly persuaded the Baptist minister to confront her (33). Being the lady of a higher social class, the townspeople felt it was not their custom to make their feelings known to those of higher social class.

Understanding that money is not the root to all happiness and the escape from all troubles is an illusion that the young waiter must learn and a virtue the townspeople and older waiter must keep. It is how people are able to empathize with another person’s plight that gives our lives a sense of value and equality. As the townspeople were able to see Miss Emily with needs like their own, they were able to sympathize with her. Because of the young waiter’s ignorance and selfish ambitions, he was never able to empathize with the old deaf man. Opposite that of the young waiter, the older waiter, through first hand experience, understood the old deaf man’s actions. Therefore, he did not condemn the old deaf man or think his life was worthless.

around them. She was even exempt from paying taxes to the city because of her family prestige. “Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily’s father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this way of repaying. Only a man of Colonel Sartori