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 novelA Rose for Emily was written after the Civil War when slavery had been abolished.However,the slavery did not really disappear in the society.According to the blackservant-Tobe in the novel,the background of that period is obviously seen.After theCivil War,the south was still relying on the thoughts of White supremacy andregarded their landlords as the superiors.The clear class divisions for a long timemade people in the town hardly recognize that black people have equal right withwhite people and never treat the blacks as humans.Even the blacks themselves thinkthey are just tools of their masters,and they need not have any thoughts of their own.Especially in Miss Emily's family with rigorous disciplines,such thought was kepteven better.It is the old thought that suppressed every one in the south.If Emily's lifemeans a tragedy,the servant with her was quite an innocent victim of the old socialsystem.The decline of the south declares that economic social system is inappropriate for the whole society,and it proves that the old system is a hysteresis.The south was afflicted with poverty after the war and it took a long period of2time for the Southerners to recuperate.Precisely because feeling uneasy about suchalarming 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 particularlydistinguished one.As a writer with a strong sense of responsibility,Faulkner was in afever of telling the truth and stirring up love for life in all human beings,which washeavy enough to amount to create a burden deep down in his sensitive and vulnerableheart.In this novel,he exposes the effects of subconscious personality disorders onthe development 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.Falkner shows a real situation of the south at that time by creating the novel whichreflects many sensitive problems,such as the unequal status between the whites andthe blacks,how they get on with each other and their conflicts,etc.For a long time,many reviews focus on the main character Emily,so the servant Tobe is oftenneglected.It is he that spends his life with Emily.With presence of Emily,he"appeared"and after Emily's death,he"disappeared".It implies a fact the blacks didnot get real social identity at that time,there was no change in their life and were stillfacing racial discrimination.Also it reveals the slavery in America was abolishedincompletely..The blacks were called "Negro”or“nigger'”instead ofAfrican-American.These words in the salutation obviously contain discriminatoryand contumelious meanings,and for another thing,the situation that the whitesdiscriminate against the blacks seems not completely to change.Tobe's life in thenovel represents most blacks'existing social condition after war.In the novel,MissEmily stands for old system of the south which was one of downfallen nobles afterwar.The servant seems to be free after her death,getting rid of the position as aservant and having equal rights.However,Tobe did not enter the crowd of whitepeople,but went away in a hurry out of others'sight.It just shows at that time thewhites hardly got well on with the blacks,that is,there was a big gap about socialestrangement and psychological estrangement between the whites and the blacks.Although the servant never said a word in the novel,which just indicates blacks haveno right to give a speech,Tobe himself recognized his humble social status in his deepheart.He would not like to or even dare not to live with the whites as a normal socialstatusBased on the writing of Faulkner,people can see that although the slavery wasabolished in America,the blacks actually did not get real freedom and social approval.The description of abnormal behavior of Tobe reflects suffering the blacksexperiencing.The novel reveals a real situation of blacks after the war.Therefore,the