An Analysis on the Causes of Tobe's Enslaved LifeIn A Rose for Emily1 IntroductionA Rose for Emily by William Faulkner is a short fiction that has roots in the southern UnitedStates with appearing overtones of mystery that is a historical context.The novel is set in theAmerican South after the Civil War,when the old order declines and the new orders emerge.Using the decay and corruption of the South after the American Civil War as a background,Faulkner not only portrayed the tragedy to reflect social changes and conflicts in the work,butalso implied a tough life the slaves live in the south of America.In the story,Tobe,as a role of ablack servant,was keeping looking after Miss Emily.It may be a mystery for people what Tobeknew about Emily and why Tobe did not split her but was stayed with her until her death.According to the whole background of the novel,it is not difficult to assume that Tobe was bom toa slave or stayed with a family,that is,Grierson's family,through the Civil and even longer.Hisslavery identity gave him few options of the life.What Tobe was supposed to do is to becomeconvinced of his master.He lost his freedom and options on the day he became a slave,whichmeans he should be loyalty to his master-Miss Emily in his life.Therefore,although Emily'sfather left nothing for her after his death and she isolates herself from the outside in her dustyhouse,nobody has been to her house in ten years,except for her black servant,Tobe still did notleave her alone but stayed with her.On one hand,it is his loyalty to Emily;on the other hand,as ablack servant at that time,Tobe was not sure whether the future life after he left his master wouldbe better and the situation outside the house would be improved.Thus,Tobe's enslaved life in thiswork has many complicated reasons,including social factors,racism,religion and culture.This thesis gives a study on causes of Tobe's enslaved life in the story.The layout of the thesiscan be divided into three parts.The first chapter mainly introduces the author of the novel,William Faulkner,explains the background of the story and gives a whole literature review,inorder to get readers know about the work and understand it better;the second chapter analyzes thecauses of Tobe's enslaved life in A Rose for Emily from the aspects of racial discrimination,whitesupremacy culture and religion;the last chapter is a conclusion for the whole thesis.1.1 A Brief Introduction of the AuthorWilliam Faulkner (1897-1902),one of the most distinguished American southernwriters,won the Nobel Prize for literature of 1949 in the year 1950.His baronialhistorical works with unique artistic style and strong local color make prodigiouscontribution to American literature,even further,the world literature.He believes thatthe Nobel Prize for literature has been made to his work-"a life's work in the agonyand sweat of the human spirit",and that only the problems of the human heart inconflict with itself can make good writing,in which the old universal truth emerges-"love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice".He admires human1beings:"he is immortal...because he had a soul,a spirit capable of compassion andsacrifice and endurance".It can be indicated from one of his creation in his work-ARose for Emily.There is a servant who belongs to Emily in the story.Tobe is anAfrican American,who is Emily's servant.And his voice supposedly rusty from lackof use,who is the only lifeline Emily has to the outside world and he cares for her andtends to her needs.After her death,he walks out the back door and never returns.Heis an even more mysterious character than Emily and also a major connection to thetheme“compassion and forgiveness”.William Faulkner was born in 1987,in New Albany,Mississippi.This giant in therealm of world literature transformed his native soil into the Yoknapatawpha setting,such as The Sound and the Fury (1929),As I Lay Dying (1930),Light in August(1930),Absalom,Absalom!(1936)and Go Down,Moses (1942).In these novels,hewrites about the histories of a number of Southern aristocratic families such as theSartorises,the Compsons,the Sutpens and the Mcvaslins.Thus the Yoknapatawphasaga forms a history of its own,one handed down through oral tradition fromgeneration to generation.All his life Faulkner was a teller of tales,and many of hislonger works are organized around short stories.In Faulkner's fiction,some of his strongest characters are women.In his opinion,women are closer than men to nature,labor and the instinctual life.And in his works,he generally showed a bleak picture of human society,where violence and crueltywere frequently included.His intension was to show the evil,harsh events in contrastto such eternal virtues as love,honor,pity,compassion,and self-sacrifice,and therebyexpose the faults of society.His philosophy was that in the long run the brotherhoodof man would triumph.In addition,because Faulkner was deeply influenced by the southern literarytradition,he appeared in the "Southern Revival of Letters"in America,whose workswere considered as "an evil gallery","the offspring of the morbid culture spirit,"so"grotesquery"made him different and outstanding.Faulkner was considered as one ofthe greatest horror fiction and the important and influential Southern writers.1.2 Background and significance about the novelThe American South is a distinctive area with its plantation economy,itsinstitution of slavery,its traditional gentlemen and gentlewomen.In accordance withits cultural features,tradition received hard blows during the Civil War and went todecline during the"Reconstruction"period which followed it.Different from North's ambition to open and reform for the sake of more profits,the Southerners deliberately cut themselves off from the outside world and dungstubbornly to traditional values.What is worse,proud and confident Southerners hadgreat difficulty in coming to terms with the sound defeat.And in addition to that,almost all the traditional values went to pieces thereafter."For these reasons thesoutherners purpose to adopt a hostile attitude towards the industrialism brought hereby the Yankees,as they call the men living in the north with much contempt"(Hogle,Jerrold E.,2002).The south was afflicted with poverty after the war and it took a long period oftime for the Southerners to recuperate.Precisely because feeling uneasy about such2alarming situation,some Southern writers of this time,who bear sincere concern forthe south,spread no efforts to explore it and try their best to find a way to scrutinizeboth the past and the present of the South.Southern writers were fortunate enough tobe endowed with keen minds which keep providing for them inspirations and they dobegin to take a fresh look.Among them William Faulkner is a particularly distinguished one.As a writer witha strong sense of responsibility,Faulkner was in a fever of telling the truth and stirringup love for life in all human beings,which was heavy enough to amount to create aburden deep down in his sensitive and vulnerable heart.In his works,he exposes the effects of subconscious personality disorders on thedevelopment and formation of one's personality.It is a real for Faulkner that hedecides to dedicate himself to writing as his lifelong cause.For by putting down in anindirect way his experience and inner conflict into his works,he manages to liberatehimself from the spiritual torment and regain access to tranquility.What's moreimportant is that in this way he succeeds in awaking humanity from the state of chaosand encouraging them to change this world towards a more normal,healthy andpositive being.1.3 Literature ReviewA Rose for Emily is William Faulkner's most famous short story.This story is setin the town of Jefferson in Yoknapatawpha County,the center of Faulkner's"mythical kingdom,"and Emily Grierson family,is the central character of the story.Dominated by the father who bore the rigid ideas of social status,the daughter hasbeen prevented from marrying her town followers during his lifetime,and is leftpenniless after her father's death.Later,she falls in love with a Yankee,HomerBarron who is disregarded by the whole town and her relatives.As a member of thestubborn Grierson's family,Emily arrogantly defies her kin and the community byinsisting on marrying Homer.Unfortunately,Miss Emily finds that Homer has nointention to marry her.Desperately,Emily kills her love and keeps his body.ThenEmily remains in voluntary isolation away and from the sunshine of the human worldof normal affairs.She isolates herself from outside world and lives alone in her dustyhouse until her death.So the creation,Emily seems a myth for readers.However,it iseasy for people to neglect another plain character-Tobe,first described as "an oldman-servant,a combined gardener and cook".He is an even more mysteriouscharacter than Emily,and ironically,probably the only one who knows the answers toall the mysteries in the story.He must have been the one to alert the town to bothEmily's father's death and to her own death.Loyal and discreet,he protected herprivacy from the prying eyes and ears of the town.Therefore,he split after her death,to avoid having to divulge her secrets to the town.Also he probably left because hisduty was finally done,and he could escape the stinking,rotting crypt of a house.Assuming he was born with the family or lived with them as a little boy,and hestayed with them through the Civil War,and even all the rest,too.As a black man inthe South his options were limited,maybe even more limited than Emily's.Like her,he might have become convinced that the world outside the house was not the place