Reading William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” through Power Relations and Ethics of Care

The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, it aims to read William Faulkner’s seminal short story, “A Rose for Emily”, from the standpoint of Michel Foucault’s notion of power or more precisely power relations. Second, it seeks to enrich the first reading through a reading based on the ethics of care. The idea is that there is a correlation between the amount of care Emily receives and the extent she is entangled in relationship of power. The eponymous Emily becomes the object of care and at the same time is caught in a network of power relations which pseudo-benevolently intends not only to control her life but also to regulate her singular individuality. Under the cover of respect and chivalric treatment, Emily is indulged so much so that she becomes a murderer responding in kind in return for killing her individuality in a patriarchal social system. This means that care and the exertion of power become synonymous when the autonomy of the care receiver is ignored and violated. The paper will conclude that Emily undergoes a double-subjugation: her subjectivity is manipulated at both social and individual levels affirming the probable boundary permeability between strategies of wielding power and giving care.