Motionless as an Idol - Columbus State University

Bullock 22Faulkner had his own influential experiences with Confederate women; during aquestion-and-answer session, a student asked Faulkner if he remembered talking toConfederate veterans as a boy and hearing their war stories. Faulkner replied:Yes. I remember a lot of them. I was five-six-seven years old [...], old enough tounderstand, to listen. They didn't talk so much about the war, Ihad got that fromthe maiden spinster aunts which had never surrendered. [...] (Faulkner in theUniversity 249)I find it valuable to examine how Faulkner's childhood recollections of unvanquishedaunts must have informed his writing of Miss Emily Grierson. Like Faulkner's aunts.Miss Emily was that contradictory maiden-spinster, caught in the liminal asexual positionallowed her. She, too, clung to the past, although she, for more symbolic reasons thanperhaps Faulkner's aunts, as already discussed in her representation as a relic. However,in Miss Emily, the perseverance Faulkner assigns to his aunts can also be seen in hersubversion of the role into which her community forced her; she operates within thesystem but covertly, as revealed through the murder of Homer Barron. By portrayingMiss Emily as dangerous. Faulkner elevates her authority and asserts her autonomy in away not previously done in the story. As Jesse Nash says, "When the cultureacknowledges that women are potentially dangerous, it recognizes their real and potentialpower; dangerous women, as one young woman told me, are women men have torespect" (19-20). Miss Emily is never able to enjoy the benefits gained as a result of hercommunity's newfound respect for her but she possibly paves the way for the changeFaulkner desired to see in the Southern community.