Luan Phan
Introduction To Literature;Farbman
December 12, 1996

Miss Emily in "A Rose For Emily" by William Faulkner and Iona in "Misery" by Anton Chekhov are two characters that interest me very much. The two stories happened in different places, different periods of time and were written by different authors, but these two characters give me special feelings about human beings similarly. Whoever is born into this world wishes to have a perfect life. Iona and Emily spent their whole lives looking for it. But at the end of their lives, they still lacked something and did not have a chance to have a full human life. They are lonely souls, never fulfilled.

It is so terrible with "A Rose For Emily," The horrible feelings come up immediately when the story ends with two dead bodies in the old and dirty house. One is Homer Barron, Emily's lover. The other is Emily herself. What a pity for a woman like Emily. No, Emily is not really a woman. She is just a child (or a daughter). Since being born, her life was framed strictly by her selfish father." Miss Emily, a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door." Miss Emily could not find her own real life. And then her father died. Everyone in town was very pleased that Emily might have a chance to be happy from then on. But very shortly after the shock of her father's death, Emily had another shock when her sweetheart left her alone and went away. Nobody was expecting that. Poor Emily! She was just a little girl having no experience over thirty years of age. Homer, the young man that everyone believed would marry her, was just a liar, as well. And as a result, Emily killed Homer and lay beside his dead body for years. At the age of forty, Emily was still a child -- an old child with loneliness and unfulfilled soul.

William Faulkner introduces the story with the gathering of the whole town at Emily's death. The author marks a big curious question for all readers. What happened and how? Then he goes back to the past of Miss Emily, leading us to travel around the closed time circle of her life: present back to past and past to present. This is an unusual order. The normal time order consists the progression of the human being from birth through youth, to age and final death. The confusion that Faulkner has given produces a confusion in Emily's life. Emily went to and fro in the lonely circle and did not have any chance to break that circle's wall. Outside time was going by quickly as the natural direction. But Emily was encircled inside and was still where she had been. Yes, Emily is a person of the past. Readers have this feeling in the very first sentences through the description of Emily's house: "lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps." This message of essential ugliness of contrast is a presentation of Emily in present time--"an eyesore among eyesores." During the story, the conflicts of the old and young generations push Emily all the way back to the past. The old generation remitted her taxes and sent their children to her china painting classes. But the young people were not pleased with their father's decisions. They no longer sent children to her and they asked her for payment of taxes. "See Colonel Satoris." Those are Emily's words to refuse her taxes, just as she refused the existence of Colonel Satoris's death -- the existence of present time. Colonel Satoris's words still had its power in Jefferson and Emily lived with that power against present.

Emily is an embodiment of "a fallen monument" which is secret and terrible. Emily's life is "a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies" whose "front door remained closed." Faulkner does not talk much about the inside of the house, just as everyone in Jefferson does not know much about Emily. Emily exists strangely like a ghost's shadow of the past. "She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water and of the pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lamp of dough." In the night, we see "her upright torso motionless as that of an idol." This is like a dead body that can speak. Her voice, " dry and cold," is a reflection of the time immemorial. "I have no taxes in Jefferson" was four times repeated very coldly in the short conservation with The Board of Aldermen. Is the cold in her voice from her cold soul or from the cold of the very far distant past?

William Faulkner gives us an excellent contrast in character's images that is also the key of the story. Emily overcame every trouble in Jefferson. But Homer -- a laborer, a symbol of youth, a northerner -- an image opposite to Emily -- an aristocrat, a symbol of the old generation, a southerner -- was out of her control. Emily could not keep her living lover with her. This is the reason why she murdered him. Emily needed something to fill up her vacant heart and lonely life. She got nothing but Homer. Homer was killed and laid in the wedding room. Beside him, "in the second pillow was the indentation of a head." Emily must have lain next to dead Homer for years. She needed him for her existence in this world, alive or dead. Homer was dead and on the way to paradise (or hell), he brought along "a long strand of iron-gray hair" that Emily had given him with all love, all trust and all her life. What a pity love, the life of poor Emily!

Although Miss Emily is a "fallen monument," at least she has something filling up the vacancy in her life, even just a dead body. How is it with Iona in Anton Chekhov's "Misery"? Right in the very first few lines, Anton Chekhov describes Iona with his extreme poverty. "Iona Patopov, the sledge driver, is all white like a ghost. He sits on the box without stirring, bent as double as the living body can be bent." This description gives all readers the feelings of cold and poverty. Iona must have been very, very cold. He did not have enough clothes to protect his body. The thing way to do was trying to bend in order to use his body heat to warm himself up. Snow kept falling and painted Iona white, like a senseless stone in the late evening of his life. He must have worked very hard all his life. What did he own now? Just a little mare and an old cap which we "could not find a worse one in all Petersburg..." Iona could not "earn enough to pay for the oats, even." He was so miserable. If his misery were "to flow out, it would flood the whole world."

Did Chekhov choose Misery as the title in order to tell readers about Iona's material conditions? Yes, but not only that thing. Iona was not only in misery of matter, he was also miserable in his soul, his heart. Has anyone noticed the snowy, cold weather platform of this story? "The twilight of evening. Big flakes of wet snow are whirling lazily about the street lamp." Iona in white of snow, bent double in his body like a ghost, seemed to be very, very small under the awful space around. The human figure here becomes so thin that everything can step over. The cold weather gets through Iona's skin to his soul and then turns back from his soul flowing out. Cold of weather outside and loneliness in Iona's heart are mixing together in the busy city by night. It makes everything go slowly. The whole story is told in a short period, from the early evening when the street lamps "have been lighted" until when the time was "going on for ten." Very short time, but it passes by "one hour passes, and then another..." Iona counts time by each hour, each minute, each second... The whole world seems to slow down according to Iona's breath, slow and lonely like Iona's heart.

"Now the shades of evening are falling" on Iona's life. Just because "death has come in to the wrong door... Instead of coming for me, it went for my son." His wife is now in "the damp earth." Everybody has gone away from him forever. How big is his loss! Who knows and who cares? Iona tries to open his soul to people, tells them his loss. But he does not receive any concern, except for a few unnoticed words: "what did he die of?" or "we shall all die." All the world turns its back on Iona. How unhappy he is! He feels so tired for the lifetime that he has left. Everything he does "more from habit than necessity" to do. He does not care how poorly his passengers pay him." Twenty kopecks is not a fair price, but he has no thought for that. Whether it is a rouble or whether it is five kopecks does not matter to him now so long as he has a fare." What he needs is not money. It is a listener. But all the concern of this city, this word makes him feel "it is no good to appeal to people. . . . He-he...he-ho-ho..."--all readers hear the sorrowful tone of this laughter. Iona is crying. All his tears flow back deep into his heart, instead of pouring out.

Misery falls down on Iona and pulls him off the present world. Really, in his life from now on, the only friend whom he could talk with is his little mare. The image of the horse is indicated right in the beginning of the story sensitively. This mare understands Iona quite well. He "clicks to the horse, cranes his neck. . . . The mare cranes her neck, too, crooks her stick like legs..." The relationship between human being and animal is closer and more friendly than between human beings. Iona's best and only friend, his mare, "as though she knew his thoughts, falls to trotting" when he wants to go back to the yard. Iona takes his mare very easy and slow while his passengers are in a hurry. He loves his horse very much. He pours out all his thoughts, tells all his losses to her. And "the little mare munches, listens and breathes on her master's hand. Iona is carried away and tells her all about it." By building this character-- the horse, and the relationship with Iona, Anton Chekhov allows the readers to feel Iona's loneliness intensely.

Emily -- a Rose of a fallen monument. Iona -- tears through laughter. They are both so poor in their hearts. This world did not give them any luck during their lifetimes. Their stories ended and everything was all over, but anyone who reaches to these stories will increase his understanding of these characters and of human loneliness.