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How do you compare "A Rose for Emily" and "Porphyrias' Lover"?
Quick answer:
"A Rose for Emily" and "Porphyria's Lover" both explore themes of fear of abandonment and possessive love. Emily Grierson and the narrator each kill their lovers—Homer Barron and Porphyria—to prevent them from leaving. Emily is driven by pride and fear of loneliness, while the narrator acts from a misguided desire to preserve a moment of love. Both characters ultimately destroy the possibility of reciprocated love through their actions.
Both Emily Grierson and the narrator of "Porphyria's Lover" seem to fear abandonment and desire to be loved. Emily seems to me to be more driven by her fear of being left alone while the narrator seems to be more driven by his or her rather unhealthy love for Porphyria. The narrator of "A Rose for Emily" tells us,
We remembered all of the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.
Emily's father drove away all of her suitors, and then he died himself, leaving her completely alone, with little money and no marriage prospects. When Homer Barron comes along, the complete opposite of the man her father would be likely to find appropriate, Emily seems to be drawn to this. However, Homer says that "he was...
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not a marrying man" because he preferred to be around other men. Rather than allow him the opportunity to abandon her, Emily apparently poisons him so that he can never leave. She is very proud and, given her refusal to accept her father's passing and allow people to remove his body from her home, terribly fearful of being all alone. She would not, it seems, beg Homer to stay because this would be degrading; so she forces him to.
The narrator of the poem, however, hears Porphyria say "how she loved [them]" but could not "give herself to [them] for ever." This narrator tries to find a way for them to stay together, to dissolve the "vainer ties" that would separate them. They feel "Happy and proud" because Porphyria "worshipped" them, and so they consider what to do. They say, "That moment she was mine, mine, fair," and so they strangle her to keep her there and preserve her love.
Both of them kill the person they claim to love in order to avoid abandonment or retain a "perfect" moment. Ironically, by killing the person they claim to love, they destroy that person's ability to return their love any longer. Emily seems to act more out of pride and fear of continued loss while the narrator of the poem seems to act more out of an extremely misguided desire to preserve a loving moment (something that really cannot be done).