Does "A Rose for Emily" have a tragic element?

I believe that it does. Tragedy, as created by the ancient
Greeks and as explored by Shakespeare many centuries later, develops in relation to
their protagonists in drama. The leading character in a tragedy is a person of high
social station, someone who is elevated in society. These characters are placed in
situations in which they confront forces beyond their control, and their lives
subsequently are destroyed.

Both the Greeks and Shakespeare
placed their characters in situations that could not be resolved through intelligence
and human reasoning. Their destruction assumes tragic proportions, however, because they
are destroyed as a result of some flaw within their own characters, often a part of
themselves they fail to recognize until it is too late.

The
protagonist in Faulkner's story is Emily Grierson, an aristocratic woman from a
prominent Southern family who is trapped in the Southern culture long after the South
has fallen. Miss Emily cannot be considered a tragic heroine in the classical sense, not
completely, because Faulkner's subtle story introduces the idea that among her many
problems lies mental illness that she had inherited from her family, and that is surely
not a flaw in her character as a human being.

However,
other tragic elements are found in the story. Miss Emily occupies an elevated social
rank in Jefferson because of her family name; she is not of the "common people" in her
post-Civil War community. She is set apart from them by her exalted Southern family
history.

She is also a woman who is placed in circumstances
beyond her control; her domineering father controls her throughout his lifetime, robbing
her of her own life, demanding her constant attention and preventing her from marrying
by destroying any courtship she might have had with a young suitor. Also, the strict
Southern social conventions of the society in Jefferson dictate that she live her life
in a "respectable" manner required by her family
name.

After her father's death, Miss Emily confronts the
forces of her society, rebels against tradition, and chooses to have a socially
unacceptable love affair with a Yankee construction foreman, Homer Barron. Her defiance
is public and blatant, but soon Emily's rebellion is crushed. Townspeople in Jefferson
call in Emily's relatives to force her to conform in living her life. In the ensuing
days, insanity overtakes Emily Grierson, which is made clear in the story's shocking
conclusion.

The story is not a classical tragedy, but
certain tragic elements exist in it. High-born Emily Grierson confronts forces beyond
her control, the forces of Southern tradition and the judgmental nature of her
community. She cannot use intelligence to reason her way to a solution of her conflicts,
and she is ultimately destroyed.

If Miss Emily has one
"fatal flaw" in her own character, perhaps it is lack of courage as a young woman to
defy her father and make a life for herself, but her will was weaker than his. Like
Shakespeare's five tragic heroes and like Sophocles' tragic hero, Creon, in
Antigone, Emily struggles against the forces she confronts and
tries to overcome her fate, but it is too late.