Reading and watching are totally different
Reading and watching are totally different: one describes things by words, while the other uses visual actions. To some people who enjoy reading, they can find interest in books with imagination. Personally, I like movies more than books, because I can understand more by visualization. When I read “A Rose for Emily,” I couldn’t understand the story at first.
Then when I watched the movie, it helped me to understand more about what’s going on around Emily, with more details and chronological events. The story told in Faulkner’s order is not chronological which is harder for reader to understand. I found out some differences of the story in the book compared with the movie.
In the book, the author mentions about the taxes more than in the movie. The mayors send to Emily a tax notice but there is no reply. They write her formal letter, and even come to her house to talk about it. The only sentence Emily can say to them is that “I have no taxes in Jefferson.”
The movie only shows a scene that Emily received a lot of tax notice letters which she has never replied once. After her father’s death, Emily becomes poor and has no income since she has been only depending on her farther. I guess in the movie, it focuses more on her relationship with Homer which the book doesn’t show much. I didn’t know Emily sleep with Homer until I saw the movie.
As I read the title of the book, I expected something must be related to rose in the story, but I couldn’t find it after I finished the story. I were surprised by the end of the movie, when Emily died, people put a rose in her tomb which made more sense to me due to the title. One more different thing is the strand of gray hair is found in Homer’s hand but not on the pillow as it is in the book.
At the end, the story remains a mystery about Emily and Homer. Why does Emily kill Homer? And when is it in the story? Does she sleep with him everyday or just the last day of her life? Does Tobe fall in love with Emily? These questions were neither answered in the movie nor in the book. The author left us something to think about, something to criticize on our own. In my opinion, I think that Emily kills Homer because she loves him and she wants him to be with her for the rest of her life.
We all know that Emily falls in love with Homer, but what about Homer? Does he love her? All the people in town are saying that Homer is not a marrying man. So, even though they are dating and sleeping together, Emily knows that he will not marry her, and one day he will leave her just like her father. This makes her think about a way to keep Homer with her forever.
I guess this is the reason she wants to kill him. There is a scene where they meet at the door of a drug store, in which Homer doesn’t show any respect or kindness to her. That makes Emily more determined about her plan of poison Homer.
At the end, her cousins find Homer’s body on the bed and a strand of gray hair on his hand. This indicates that Emily does sleep with the death body but we don’t know when Emily has been doing that. So, I still wonder that how come she doesn’t kill herself after him since she has nothing left.
