Set in the Reconstruction Era, when the South was forced to give up control of their power to the North after the Civil War, William Faulkner’s famous short story, A Rose for Emily, focuses on the human struggle for control, through the life of a southern aristocrat, Miss Emily Grierson. The town watches Miss Emily as she matures from a young girl to a mysterious old recluse. Miss Emily’s struggle can be described in a three part process where Miss Emily has no control of her world, then gains control, and is then finally faced with losing that control. The reader follows Miss Emily’s story from the town’s perspective and later discovers what length Miss Emily is willing to go to in order to maintain her control.
As a younger girl, Miss Emily has no control over her world. Instead, every aspect of Miss Emily’s life is controlled by her father. When describing a portrait of the two together, the narrator states, “Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground; his back to [Miss Emily] and clutching a horsewhip,” in order to give a description of the control Miss Emily’s father has over her (Faulkner 3). Miss Emily’s father stands in the front of the picture while Miss Emily remains behind him, which shows that Miss Emily’s father is clearly the dominant figure in their relationship. Dr. Xie Qun of the Zhongnan University of Economic and Law also suggests, “His turned back suggested his disregard for Emily’s emotional welfare” (Qun 67). The unblemished white color of Miss Emily’s dress conveys the idea that she is an innocent child. The dark “spraddled silhouette” that is being cast by Miss Emily’s father hangs over Miss Emily which suggests that Miss Emily is c...
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...y feels she needs to kill in an attempt to keep control over her world. As George Orwell once said, “We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it” (Goodreads). Emily’s power came from the control she eventually achieved; she had no intentions of giving it up.
Works Cited
Dilworth, Thomas. "A Romance To Kill For: Homicidal Complicity In Faulkner's 'A Rose For Emily'." Studies In Short Fiction 36.3 (1999): 251. MAS Complete. Web. 12 Apr. 2014.
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." N.p.: n.p., n.d. 1-8. A Rose for Emily. University of Virginia. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.
Owell, George. "“We Know That No One Ever Seizes Power with the Intention of Relinquishing It.”." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc, n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2014.
Qun, Xie. "Canadian Social Science." Analysis of the Changing Portraits in "A Rose for Emily" 3.2 (2007): 66-69. Print.
5. Roberts, Edgar V., and Henry E. Jacobs. "A Rose for Emily." Literature: an Introduction to Reading and Writing. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/ Prentice Hall, 2008. 76-81. Print.
Faulkner, William. “A Rose For Emily.” Literature Reading, Reacting, Writing. Kirszner, Laurie. Mandell Stephen. 4th edition. Sea Harbor: Harcourt College Publishers. 2001. 87-94
Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” Discovering Literature. ED. Guth, Hans and Gabriele Rico. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Prentice Hall. 1991. 165-172. Print.
Polk, Noel, ed. William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily." The Harcourt Casebook Series in Literature. Fort Worth: Harcourt, 2000.
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." The Norton Introduction to Literature. By Carl E. Bain, Jerome Beaty, and J. Paul Hunter. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1991: 69-76.
Emily was drove crazy by others expectations, and her loneliness. ““A Rose for Emily,” a story of love and obsession, love, and death, is undoubtedly the most famous one among Faulkner’s more than one hundred short stories. It tells of a tragedy of a screwy southern lady Emily Grierson who is driven from stem to stern by the worldly tradition and desires to possess her lover by poisoning him and keeping his corpse in her isolated house.” (Yang, A Road to Destruction and Self Destruction: The Same Fate of Emily and Elly, Proquest) When she was young her father chased away any would be suitors. He was convinced no one was good enough for her. Emily ended up unmarried. She had come to depend on her father. When he finally died, ...
William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is a short story told from the point of view of an unnamed narrator and opens with the death of Miss Emily Grierson, an elderly woman that the reader quickly learns that the town views more as a character than an actual human being. Through flashbacks, the mysterious and haunting tale of Emily is revealed. As a child, Emily was the member of an aristocratic family, but has now long been living in relative poverty in the former grand home of her family after her father left her with no money. The product of the Civil War South, Emily never moved past the social customs of her youth, and refused to live according to modern standards. This becomes evident when she accepts the mayor’s hidden charity under the guise of her never owing taxes due to a lie that her father had loaned the town money and this was how the town would re...
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Shorter 5th ed. Ed. R.V.Cassill. New York: W.W. Norton & Comp., 1995.
In Faulkner’s tale “A Rose for Emily” there are many historical elements throughout the story; Faulkner uses them to give an authentic feel to the story and to add to the setting. A recurring theme that I found was reference to the reconstruction of the South after the Civil War. The setting of the South after their demise in the Civil War adds character to the story and to the characters. The attitudes people had and the way people treated Emily with respect was a tradition of the “Old South” that is presented throughout this tale.
With every turn of the page, the dark and twisted storyline of “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner leaves the reader in a stronger state of shock and inevitably speechless. Faulkner cleverly uses symbols, characters, and theme to illustrate the inner thoughts of Emily Grierson and the community’s ongoing struggle between tradition and modernism. .
Faulkner, William. “A Rose For Emily.” An Introduction to Fiction. 10th ed. Eds: X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New Yorkk: Pearson Longman, 2007. 29-34.
Emily was kept confined from all that surrounded her. Her father had given the town folks a large amount of money which caused Emily and her father to feel superior to others. “Grierson’s held themselves a little too high for what they really were” (Faulkner). Emily’s attitude had developed as a stuck-up and stubborn girl and her father was to blame for this attitude. Emily was a normal girl with aspirations of growing up and finding a mate that she could soon marry and start a family, but this was all impossible because of her father. The father believed that, “none of the younger man were quite good enough for Miss Emily,” because of this Miss Emily was alone. Emily was in her father’s shadow for a very long time. She lived her li...
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Compact 4th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers, 2000. 81 - 88.
---. "A Rose for Emily." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 5th ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.
...she believed might be the only way to keep the man she loved from leaving her. Out of desperation for human love, when she realized Homer would leave her she murdered him so she could at least cling to his body. In his death, Emily finally found eternal love that no one could every take from her.