The denial theme in literature show

The Denial Theme in

Literature:A Comparison of

Faulkner, Miller, & Poe

Cheryl BennettLit 125

Prof. RossMarch 2010

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The Denial Theme in Literature:A Comparison of Faulkner, Miller, & Poe

The theme of denial is very prominent in the story

“A Rose for Emily”, the play “Death of a Salesman”, and

the poem “The Raven” because within each piece the

main characters’ refusal to acknowledge reality helps

them to create a dreamlike state where they can remain

indifferent towards the truth. However, it is a momentary

solution to their predicaments.

Faulkner’s A Rose for

Emily

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Faulkner:A Rose for Emily

Emily Grierson resides in her own rose-colored

world. The townspeople perpetuate her denial of reality

because they feel that it would be disrespectful to upset

her. When her lover, Homer, threatens her reality, she

murders him and stows his body away in an upper

bedroom until his discovery after her funeral.

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• She denies the town her father’s body for three days after he died.

– “She told them her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers

calling on her and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the

body” (DiYanni, 2007, p. 81.)

• She denies Homer his life and that their “marriage” never existed.

– “The man himself lay in the bed. . . The body had apparently once lain in the attitude

of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, . . had cuckolded him”

(DiYanni, 2007, p. 84.)

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• She denies the townspeople the right to hang a mailbox and numbers on

her house.

– “When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten

the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it” (DiYanni, 2007, p. 83.)

• She denies that she needs to pay taxes.

– “See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson” (DiYanni, 2007, p. 80.)

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• The townspeople deny that Miss Emily is no longer an aristocratic citizen

because tradition dictates it would be improper to do so.

– “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary

obligation upon the town” (DiYanni, 2007, p. 79.)

– The townspeople “believed that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for

what they really were” (DiYanni, 2007, p. 81.)

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• The townspeople deny that they have a right to tell her that there is a

stench around her house; instead, they cover it up with lime.

– “Dammit, sir, will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad? . . Four men

crossed Miss Emily’s lawn and slunk about the house like burglars . . while one of

them . . . sprinkled lime there and in all the outbuildings” (DiYanni, 2007, pp. 80-81.)

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• The townspeople deny that Emily and Homer could possibly be in love for

several reasons.

– “Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer”

(DiYanni, 2007, p. 82.)

– “Then some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad

example to the young people” (DiYanni, 2007, p. 83.)

– “even grief could not cause a real lady to forget noblesse oblige” (Di Yanni, 2007, p.

82.) Noblesse oblige: the inferred obligation of people of high rank to behave morally

towards other people.

Miller’sDeath of a Salesman

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Miller:Death of a Salesman

Willy Loman exists in a delusional reality where he

exudes success, adoration, and cheerfulness. Linda, his

wife, and their two sons help to perpetuate Willy’s

fantasies because they feel that he will acknowledge

reality eventually on his own and that they do not have

the right to interfere with the patriarch of the family.

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• Willy Loman denies that he is a mediocre salesperson.

– Act 1, scene three, “They know me boys, they know me up and down New England. .

. . I can park my car in any street in New England, and the cops protect it like their

own” (DiYanni, 2007, p. 1789.)

– “I never have to wait in line to see a buyer” (DiYanni, 2007, p. 1790.)

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• Willy is antagonistic towards anyone or anything who threatens to

penetrate his dreamy view of reality.

– “Don’t be a pest, Bernard! What an anemic” when Bernard tells Willy that Biff is about

to flunk out of school.

– Willy expels young Biff out of the house when he calls Willy a fake after the discovery

of Willy’s mistress.

– “I’m always in a race with the junkyard” (DiYanni, 2007, p. 1810.)

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• Linda denies that her husband is trying to kill himself.

– “Remember I wrote you that he smashed up the car again? . . . All these accidents in

the last year weren’t- weren’t accidents” (DiYanni, 2007, p. 1803.)

– She removes the rubber hose from behind the water heater and yet replaces it

because she feels that it might insult Willy (DiYanni, 2007, p. 1804.)

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• Linda always contradicts Willy’s self-depreciating remarks.

– “You don’t talk too much, you’re just lively” (DiYanni, 2007, p. 1792.)

– “. . .you’re the handsomest man in the world” (DiYanni, 2007, p. 1792.)

– “There’s nothing to make up, dear. You’re doing fine” (DiYanni, 2007, p. 1793.)

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• Linda sums up what has pushed Willy into his fantasy world on pages

1802-1803 when she states that,

– When he brought them business, when he was young, they were glad to see him. But

now his old friends, the old buyers that loved him so and always found some order to

hand him in a pinch- they’re all dead, retired. . . . He drives seven hundred miles, and

when he gets there no one knows him any more, no one welcomes him. And what

goes through a man’s mind, driving seven hundred miles home without having

earned a cent? . . . When he has to go to Charley and borrow fifty dollars a week and

pretend to me that it’s his pay? How long can that go on?

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• Happy and Biff deny that something is amiss with their father’s outlook by

playacting out Willy’s daydreams that they are both successful business

people.

– Happy says, “I thought of a great idea to sell sporting goods. You and I, Biff- we have

a line- the Loman Line. . . . It’s a million dollars’ worth of publicity. . . . Baby, we could

sell sporting goods” (DiYanni, 2007, p. 1806.)

– Biff pretends that he has a job interview with Oliver, his old boss, and that he will be a

big success selling sporting goods.

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• Willy has a nervous breakdown when Biff confronts Willy with the rubber hose

and the knowledge that Willy is trying to kill himself, and that Biff is not a

successful businessman but a thief.

• Willy drives away in the car, crashes it, and passes away after one last

argument with Biff; In essence Willy Loman is driving away from the truth about

himself and his American dream.

Poe’sThe Raven

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Poe:The Raven

The narrator attempts to deny that his love,

Lenore, is no longer among the living. The narrator

becomes increasingly angrier with each of the raven’s

declarations of nevermore. In the end, the narrator denies

that the raven is just a bird and nothing more.

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Poe:The Raven

• The narrator denies his love, Lenore is gone.

– In stanza two, “Eagerly I wished the morrow;-vainly I had sought to borrow from my

books surcease of sorrow-sorrow for the lost Lenore” (DiYanni, 2007, p.1173.)

– In stanza five he states that he gazed down the hallway and, “stood there wondering,

fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared dream before; . . . And the

only word there spoken was the whispered word, Lenore! . . . Merely this and nothing

more” (DiYanni, 2007, p. 1173.)

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Poe:The Raven

• He denies that he is lonely.

– The eighth and ninth stanza reveal the narrator’s happiness that the raven’s presence

is a distraction from his solitude (DiYanni, 2007, p. 1174.).

– In stanza ten the narrator believes that the raven will leave “on the morrow . . As my

Hopes have flown before” like all his other friends have before (DiYanni, 2007, p.

1174.)

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Poe:The Raven

• He denies that the raven is just a bird.

– In Stanzas fifteen and sixteen the narrator labels the raven a prophet of evil, fiend,

and a devil (DiYanni, 2007, p. 1175.)

The Similarities

Between Emily, Willy,

and The Narrator

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All Three

• The narrator of The Raven is similar to both Emily Grierson and Willy Loman in

that he allows an outside influence to dictate his actions

• All of these major characters are lonely.

• All three characters are unreceptive towards any person or thing that threatens

to reveal the truth about their delusional reality.

• Death is a consequence of each case of extreme denial because its removal

gives Willy the motivation to commit suicide, it induces Emily Grierson to murder

Homer Barron, and the narrator’s sanity “dies” under the strain of his

questioning of the raven.

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All Three

• Similar to the townspeople of Jefferson, Willy’s family helps to perpetuate Willy’s

fantasies because they assume that they do not have the right to interfere with

the delusions. The narrator of The Raven perpetuates his own fantasies by

allowing the raven’s answer of nevermore to interfere with his acceptance of

Lenore’s death.

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All Three

• Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman, like Miss Grierson in A Rose for Emily

and the narrator of The Raven, denies reality because the truth means

reevaluating his ambitions, his priorities, and his definition of happiness.

• Physical and vocal violent outbursts are Miss Grierson’s, Willy’s, and The

Raven narrator’s defiant resistance of each of their true predicaments between

fact and fiction.

• All three major characters run from the truth about their delusions by either

committing murder, committing vehicular suicide, and/or becoming mentally

insane.

Denial is in use, in some form, within most

writings. A character most often deny their

surroundings, emotions, friends, family, and

themselves. Characters will frequently vehemently

deny any contribution that threatens to alter their

chosen view of reality. These three examples,

Faulkner’s story A Rose for Emily, Miller’s play Death

of a Salesman, and Poe’s poem The Raven use denial

as the catalyst to gain the sympathy of the reader.

Each character’s state of denial promotes the

destruction of their mental and physical health.

References

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Faulkner, W., (2007). A Rose for Emily. In DiYanni, Literature: Reading

Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies

Inc.

Miller, A., (2007). Death of a Salesman. In DiYanni, Literature: Reading

Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies

Inc.

Poe, E., (2007). The Raven. In DiYanni, Literature: Reading Fiction,

Poetry, and Drama. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.

Education

The denial theme in literature show