the first draft

1. Kings Floyd<br />Per J<br />The Widow of Windsor Summary<br />Gary Kriewald saw an uncanny connection between Emily Grierson and Lytton Strachey’s Queen Victoria. He, Gary, thought that Victoria, which was published before A Rose for Emily, could have been a possible inspiration for Faulkner’s short story. Queen Victoria and Emily Grierson had some very similar characteristics, all throughout their lives. <br />Faulkner and Strachey both described their main character’s similarly. The leading women were short, with a cane, and leaning on the older side of their lives. While Victoria is a queen, Emily does a good job of acting just like one. In both their stories, there is a scene where both women are seeing guests in their own home. The parties in each book are not invited to sit, and both of the dialogues are strained. Both heroines thought they were above the law, because Victoria was the queen and Emily didn’t pay taxes. Both women also share certain general characteristics; they are both inflexible, remote and they both live in their own world. <br />Emily and Victoria also lost a lover. For Emily, it was Homer Barron, the yank. For Queen Victoria it was Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The lovers in this story both come to an untimely end. Albert dies of typhoid fever at 42 while Homer is poisoned by Emily when he refuses to marry her. Both men were strangers to the heroine’s main setting, because Homer was a Yankee and Albert was from a small and insignificant German principality. When both men died, they were kept in private rooms. Albert was kept in a sacred shrine, while Homer was kept in Emily’s bed. After their lover’s death, both women, for the most part, spent the rest of their lives in seclusion. <br />Emily Grierson and Queen Victoria represented the history of their setting. Emily was the last living relative of the Griersons in Jefferson, and Queen Victoria was an idol for England. Both women had a history of mental illnesses in their family. Finally, both women were widowed for about forty years before they died themselves. These women are very similar, and both can be compared to the poem “The Widow at Windsor” by Rudyard Kipling. <br />Kings Floyd<br />Young<br />Per J<br />Works Sited<br />Kriewald, Gary L.” The Widow of Windsor and The Sipnster of Jefferson: A Possible Source for Faulkner’s Emily Grierson” Literary Criticism <br />