A Rose for Emily, by William Faulkner

1182 Words3 Pages

2011 Everybody Would Hand a Rose In his short story, “A Rose for Emily” William Faulkner gives us a picture of female identity from a male point of view, showing compassion and forgiveness for his central character. Intriguingly, the writer uses the word “rose” in the title even though a rose does not exist in any part of his story; it has highly symbolic implications. Usually, the rose symbolizes love but in this case, it expresses a sympathetic attitude of society towards Emily. In reference to this story, Faulkner, in his interviews never admitted that the roses symbolized love. The story also focuses on the psychological exploration of the interior female world. Faulkner depicts the alienation of one repressed and isolated female in the South of the United States after the Civil War. Many themes might be explored in this short story, but a special interest is the focus on struggling to find love and the social interaction of a repressed female. The repression and isolation in the old Southern society causes degradation and dehumanization of Emily’s personality. The author of the story does not represent main events according to chronological time, which shows the dehumanization of Emily. This is done not only to create suspense or to make the story more interesting, but because Emily’s time has not any kind of importance. The author seems to present the existence of two kinds of times in the life of a person; one is the psychological time and another is the biological time. Emily’s psychological time has stopped since her father died. ... ... middle of paper ... ... around her. Despite, the unusual feelings that the reader experiences from this story, it remains a unique masterpiece in treatment of all literary elements that provides the options to see everybody’s life so clearly and to enjoy it in whatever circumstances everybody lives. Although happiness is a state of mind, outside social and cultural interactions could have a dire influence on our spiritual world. Work Cited Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily” Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Compact 7th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2011. 208-216. Print. Work Cited Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily” Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Compact 7th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2011. 208-216. Print.

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