Motionless as an Idol - Columbus State University

Bullock 29male-dominated system while subverting itthrough the creation of her own relic. AsDavid Halle, in a study of the placement and importance of art in American homes,comments concerning religious iconography in the home:The idea that the audience for religious iconography passively absorbs themessages of religious propaganda that are somehow attached to the objects isscarcely borne out by the data. On the contrary, the relation between audience andreligious iconography is strikingly similar to that found already to exist in thisstudy between audiences and other "artistic'genres. In general, the audienceselects (consciously or not) those images, and attributes to them those meaningsthat resonate with their current lives and beliefs, especially as these relate tohouse, neighborhood, and domestic social relations. (191)Itis plain, through the perspective offered through Halle's study, to see the motivation ofthe townspeople to classify Miss Emily in such convenient roles for them, substantiatingtheir own paradigms of "social relations" (191 ).At the end of the story, the communityis shocked to find the very literal relic of Miss Emily's hair along with Homer Barron'sdecomposed body. Their shock comes not only from the gruesomeness of the scene butalso from the betrayal they feel upon discovering that Miss Emily has defied the role theyassigned her, living outside of their allotted space, their idea of appropriate society.Another part of living outside of accepted society in the post-Confederate Southwould be to practice Catholicism. The allusions to relics in "A Rose for Emily" begin ourexamination of Faulkner's observations of how Catholics were treated in his land.DarylWhite and O. Kendall White Jr. examine the state of religion in the South and