Comparison of Sexual References in My Last Duchess and A Rose for Emily Custom Essay

If possible to use these 3 sources as provided, as used in my annotated bibliography .

Stralen, Hans van A.M Iken. “The Coveted Monument.” Psyart (2013): 4.Academic Search Elite. Web. 24 Apr. 2014
A Dutch Psychologist, Han van Stralen “The Coveted Monument” takes an underexposed Freudian-psyche analytical route that other critics have not touched upon and delves into the sexual innuendos and

subtexts of William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily. Stralen debates the affects the timeline of events in the story that Emily is in fact borne of her house as her body and object, wherein Stralen justifies the

“attitude of the male villagers towards Emily, in which the implicit desire to have sexual relations with this ‘lady’ becomes manifest.” (Stralen 4) From the description of Emily’s house, and the view of the

villagers of it, Stralen sees a direct coloration to of the “scrolled balconies” (Faulkner 457) to a pair of women’s breasts taking on a Freudian analytical standpoint. Literally the entire story from the closing of

her home, as a woman’s vagina reacts to the discomfort of penetration, to when four villagers break into her home to sprinkle lime to quench the awful stench that is reeking, “an obvious symbol for an

ejaculation” (Stralen 4) Stralen counteracts the opinions of Emily’s transgression into a frail old sympathetic woman, and clearly supports a useful Freudian theory.
Stalin’s “The Coveted Monument” will support my paper’s thesis accordingly, as the relationship he defines of the subtexts and sexual propaganda Emily covets from the literal standpoint of her assumed

necrophilia of her late Homer, to the symbolism the old rustic nature that her home has been molded into, the female sexual reproductive system. As extreme as Freudian analytical theory is, it certainly supports

Stalin’s thesis, and for my paper. His approach as is unanticipated, it brought only the fruition of my argument. Taking another read with Freudian theory in mind of A Rose for Emily it can directly relate to my

comparison and evidence of Freudian sexual analysis in this story and My Last Duchess. Though Freudian theory does not clearly match the fundamentals of a direct analysis of Faulkner’s story, there are key

pints evidently supporting my thesis.
Gardner, Kevin J. “Was The Duke of Ferrara Impotent?.” Ang 23.3 (2010): 166-171. Academic Search Elite. Web. 24 Apr. 2014
In Was the Duke of Ferrara Impotent, Kevin J. Gardener’s of Baylor University questions as well a peer agreed stance, like Stralen with A Rose for Emily that the Duke in My Last Duchess is obscenely

paranoid and his last Duchess is innocent. Gardner opposes these roles of the two characters, and asserts, “Though the Duke’s ego may indicate a propensity for jealous suspicions, this does not exonerate his

wife: the paranoid are not always wrong” (Gardner 166) Gardner goes into specific detail of what seems the Duke’s paranoia and agitated suspicions, that in historical contexts pledge the guiltless Duchess is as

indeed unfaithful. And her reasoning to be so, as proof suggests Gardner says, “…he implicitly confesses his impotence.” (Gardner 166). I agree as we read poem as a class, we assumed the Duke need only

get off his high horse, his arrogance and hubris, but it seems Gardner exposes a more vulnerable side of the Duke, that he is sexually unfulfilling as a husband and so only to can watch his beautiful wife strut

around with prospected partners. He supposes the lines, “The bought of cherries some officious fool / Broke in the orchard for her the white mule / She rode with round the terrace” (Browning 27-29) are

actual historical contexts insisting that cherries relate to the loss of virginity and the mule a subject of femininity over her husband.
Gardner cleverly and historically theorizes that the entirety of the plot of My Last Duchess leaks an abundance of subtexts and realizations of sexual innuendos and wordplay, directly relating to the comparison

of Emily and her literal house in A Rose for Emily. I agree not only does his supporting evidence make a plausible and scholarly challenge to the Duke of Ferrara’s assumed paranoia, but with the key credibility

to the Duke’s own inferiority as impotence, in that also his Duchess after critical analysis appears a flirtatious infidel who in extremes endorses her own removal. This article is useful for my argument as

Gardner’s motives of the Duke and his Duchess can be analyzed further to the just exception of Freudian theory.
Getty, Laura J. “Faulkner’s A ROSE FOR EMILY.” Explicator 63.4 (2005); 230-234. Academic Search Elite. Web. 24 Apr. 2014
In Faulkner’s A ROSE FOR EMILY, Laura J. Getty North Georgia University stimulates the debate over the meaning of the story and reasoning, with an unanswered question, who or what is this rose for

Emily? Getty discusses the several theories others have claimed who the rose is or what the pedals on a rose are, but Getty theorizes a different approach, “…however valid as a piece of the puzzle, the focus

should be on the impact of the titular rose itself.” (Getty 231) She clarifies that this literature construct in A Rose for Emily is narrated by an unknown speaker, but how he/she knows the story comes down to

the a hint of sub rosa, with the interpretation of its historical and theological context, that the rose represented secrecy in knowing. Getty goes into detail of the religious implications of the story revolving around

sub rosa, and finalizes her argument that the rose represents not the abundance and seemingly apparent scheme of gossip from the towns’ people on one end and Emily, her corpse, and her watchful servant in

hiding, but on a more metaphorical scope. The rose represents the “…confidential relationship between the author and his character, with all of the privileged information withheld.” (Getty 232)
Although Getty’s argument revolved around a different context of my own, stearing towards the theological aspect of A Rose for Emily, I disagree about the implications that for what the Rose stood for in the

story. I would use her idea of sub rosa as a representation of the secrecy in direct relationship with Stralen’s critical paper and his theory. It can be adjusted to support his comparison and metaphorical

representation with the Friuedin agenda, that Emily’s home is a sexual monument to her womanhood. Secrecy can be attuned to the privacy that is instilled into Emily with the death of her father and her

bereavement over her homosexual interest. I theorize sub rosa, as useful from Getty’s analysis for her argument, is it a branch rooted from to the tree of Freudian analysis. Using Getty’s secrecy theory, I can

strongly tie together my argument to compare the Duchess in My Last Duchess and Emily in A Rose for Emily