Faulkner's Elderly Ladies

Abstract

This essay, written for Dr. Michael Burduck’s Faulkner course, examines the complexities behind three of William Faulkner’s elderly female antagonists in order to show how their inability to accept change directly contributes to their infamy. These three characters—Miss Emily Grierson, Howard Boyd’s mother, and Ailanthia—resort to murder, vampirism, and blackmail respectively in their attempts to maintain their hold on the old and familiar, completely dismissing the stereotype of the helpless, harmless old woman.This essay, written for Dr. Michael Burduck’s Faulkner course, examines the complexities behind three of William Faulkner’s elderly female antagonists in order to show how their inability to accept change directly contributes to their infamy. These three characters—Miss Emily Grierson, Howard Boyd’s mother, and Ailanthia—resort to murder, vampirism, and blackmail respectively in their attempts to maintain their hold on the old and familiar, completely dismissing the stereotype of the helpless, harmless old woman.