Monday, February 21, 2011

"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner (p. 89)

The word I have chosen is the word inextricable.

The definition of this word from Dictionary.com says that inextricable is an adjective with three different meanings.
1. from which one cannot extricate oneself: an inextricable maze.
2. incapable of being disentangled, undone, or loosed, or solved: an inextricable knot.
3. hopelessly intricate, involved, or perplexing: inextricable confusion.

A Rose or Emily by William Faulkner
Chapter 5 - Page 94 - 5th Paragraph

"What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and binding dust."

I believe that this word was used to explain more of how Emily felt for this man. I believe she loved him so much and then something horrible happened between them. Instead of just letting him go, she murdered him with the arsenic, and still she couldn't let him go. So, she made him into a shrine for himself laying him in the bed and arranging his room to make it seem like he would always be there with her. I believe this particular word was used to implicate how the man became entangled in Emily's life as well as in his death.