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Characterization and theme of a rose for emily
Analysis of the story a rose for emily
Analysis of the story a rose for emily
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In his short story, “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner tells the reader of Miss Emily’s life through stream of consciousness. Faulkner utilizes this rhetorical strategy to deepen his examination of the human psyche. In this story, Faulkner also examines the physical and learned helplessness and how this can often result in mental illnesses. “A Rose for Emily” explores how new generations move on, and these generations tend to forget. William Faulkner uses Miss Emily's house to describe Miss Emily in a deeper manner. In the second paragraph, Faulkner writes that the house “was a big, squarish frame house that had once been forgotten,” (2). This is the first time the reader begins to understand the relationship between Miss Emily and the house. Here, the reader becomes aware of the relationship between the townspeople and Miss Emily. With this statement, Faulkner brings attention to the fact that Miss Emily, just like the house, has been forgotten. The new generations have arrived, and they have moved on. This generation has left Miss Emily behind. In the past, Miss Emily's father took care of the house, but since his death, the house deteriorated. This situation parallels Miss Emily’s experience after the death of her father. Shortly after her father’s death, the townspeople tried to take care of Miss …show more content…
The reader learns later in the story that Miss Emily indeed is stubborn. First, she refuses to let the townspeople bury her dead father, and then she kills Homer and refuses to let go of him. She holds onto him even when he no longer lives. The house she lives in directly parallels Miss Emily. The use of the word “decay” also enables the reader to see that Miss Emily deteriorates both mentally and physically as time passes. This correlates to Miss Emily's inability to let go of her father and Homer. Once again, Faulkner uses the house to give the reader an idea of Miss Emily's
In a “Rose for Emily”, Faulkner uses Emily’s house as a symbol of the barrier Emily forms between herself and society. As society moves through generations and changes over the years, Emily remains the same, within the borders of her own household. The house is described as “in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street”(125), but years passed and more modern houses had “obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood” (125). Faulkner set the house apart from the rest of the neighborhood, and Emily is described in the beginning as “a fallen monument” and a “tradition” indicating that she had not changed in an extended amount of time. The symbol of the house, remaining unchanged through the decades that passed becomes stronger when Emily does not permit tax collectors to pass through the threshold of the house, “She vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before”. Emily’s image of a “monument” to the community’s small society caused her to become exempt from the demands of the state that the rest of the population had to adhere to. Emily’s house enab...
Near the end of the story, after describing Miss Emily’s life, Faulkner catches up to present day where Miss Emily has died. He explains how Emily’s cousins came once they heard of her death and buried her. The cousins all walk into Miss Emily’s room which greeted them with a bitter smell.
William Faulkner’s "A Rose for Emily" is perhaps his most famous and most anthologized short story. From the moment it was first published in 1930, this story has been analyzed and criticized by both published critics and the causal reader. The well known Literary critic and author Harold Bloom suggest that the story is so captivating because of Faulkner’s use of literary techniques such as "sophisticated structure, with compelling characterization, and plot" (14). Through his creative ability to use such techniques he is able to weave an intriguing story full of symbolism, contrasts, and moral worth. The story is brief, yet it covers almost seventy five years in the life of a spinster named Emily Grierson. Faulkner develops the character Miss Emily and the events in her life to not only tell a rich and shocking story, but to also portray his view on the South’s plight after the Civil War. Miss Emily becomes the canvas in which he paints the customs and traditions of the Old South or antebellum era. The story “A Rose For Emily” becomes symbolic of the plight of the South as it struggles to face change with Miss Emily becoming the tragic heroin of the Old South.
Faulkner begins the story upon the arrival of Miss Emily's burial service. The state of mind is nostalgic as the storyteller thinks back about Emily's home and how it once enraptured the general population of the town, yet now lies in vestiges. We learn Miss Emily has been falling flat in her obligation by not paying duties, which Colonel Sartoris states is because of a credit that was given to the town by her dad. This we learn turns into an issue with Colonel Sartoris' successors and they in the end meet with Emily. The meeting happens at Emily's home, which is old, with worn furniture, and appears to have not been under any fundamental consideration. All through the meeting Emily is uncooperative, demanding the course of action in the middle of her and Colonel Sartoris, and declining to pay charges. Emily eludes the town's authorities to Colonel Sartoris, not realizing that
William Faulkner takes us back in time with his Gothic short story known as, “A Rose for Emily.” Almost every sentence gives a new piece of evidence to lead the reader to the overall theme of death, isolation, and trying to maintain traditions. The reader can conclude the theme through William Faulkner’s use of literary devices such as his choice of characters, the setting, the diction, the tone, and the plot line.
At the beginning of the story, the reader learns that Miss Emily “is portrayed as ’a fallen monument,’… because she has shown herself susceptible to death (and decay) after all” (West 264). The house can also be perceived as a “fallen monument”(Faulkner 81) as the narrator proceeds to describe the house, magnificent as it once was, and how it has become dilapidated through the years. The same can be said about Miss Emily, as time passed she “looked bloated like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue”(Faulkner 82).
In “ A Rose for Emily”, William Faulkner tells the complex tale of a woman who is battered by time and unable to move through life after the loss of each significant male figure in her life. Unlike Disney Stories, there is no prince charming to rescue fallen princess, and her assumed misery becomes the subject of everyone in the town of Jefferson, Mississippi. As the townspeople gossip about her and develop various scenarios to account for her behaviors and the unknown details of her life, Emily Grierson serves as a scapegoat for the lower classes to validate their lives. In telling this story, Faulkner decides to take an unusual approach; he utilizes a narrator to convey the details of a first-person tale, by examining chronology, the role of the narrator and the interpretations of “A Rose for Emily”, it can be seen that this story is impossible to tell without a narrator.
Faulkner writes “A Rose for Emily” in the view of a memory, the people of the towns’ memory. The story goes back and forth like memories do and the reader is not exactly told whom the narrator is. This style of writing contributes to the notions Faulkner gives off during the story about Miss Emily’s past, present, and her refusal to modernize with the rest of her town. The town of Jefferson is at a turning point, embracing the more modern future while still at the edge of the past. Garages and cotton gins are replacing the elegant southern homes. Miss Emily herself is a living southern tradition. She stays the same over the years despite many changes in her community. Even though Miss Emily is a living monument, she is also seen as a burden to the town. Refusing to have numbers affixed to the side of her house when the town receives modern mail service and not paying her taxes, she is out of touch with reality. The younger generation of leaders brings in Homer’s company to pave the sidewalks. The past is not a faint glimmer but an ever-present, idealized realm. Emily’s morbid bridal ...
Emily Grierson was not alone after her death, ironically, as all the town came to her funeral even though they never came to see her before. She was laid in the ground more near people than she had ever been in her life. William Faulkner refers to Emily as a “fallen monument” of the town that would also signify abandonment. The house that Emily lived in was on a street that was deserted, and she was the only inhabitant. The house she lived
William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” displays themes of alienation and isolation. Emily Grierson’s own father is found to be the root of many of her problems. Faulkner writes Emily’s character as one who is isolated from the people of her town. Her isolation from society and alienation from love is what ultimately drives her to madness.
In “A Rose for Emily”, by William Faulkner, Emily Geierson is a woman that faces many difficulties throughout her lifetime. Emily Geierson was once a cheerful and bright lady who turned mysterious and dark through a serious of tragic events. The lost of the two men, whom she loved, left Emily devastated and in denial. Faulkner used these difficulties to define Emily’s fascinating character that is revealed throughout the short story. William Faulkner uses characterization in “A Rose for Emily”, to illustrate Miss Emily as a stubborn, overly attached, and introverted woman.
While she is still alive, the townspeople have a certain respect for her because she has been there so long; they do not feel a need to change what has always been. Nevertheless, once she dies what is left of her, such as her house, is a disgrace to the town. “Only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores. Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town” (Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily” 119). In the same way, the people of the South followed tradition in their lifestyles.
Faulkner then shifts the story toward explaining what Emily’s house had once looked like. It was a big grim house that was once white. “It was a big, squarish frame house that has once been white, decorated with cupolus and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies”(542). It was the only one left on the street and many believes that it was an abomination to the community. “set on what had once been our most select s...
Miss Emily's house as the setting of the story is a perfect metaphor for the events occurring during that time period. It portrays the decay of Miss Emily's life and values and of the southern way of life and their clash with the newer generations. The house is situated in what was once a prominent neighborhood that has now deteriorated. Miss Emily's "big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies of an earlier time," now looked awkward surrounded by "cotton wagons" and "gasoline pumps." The townspeople consider it "an eyesore among eyesores." Time has taken a similar role with Miss Emily altering her appearance from that of a "slender figure in white" (624) to that of "a small, fat woman in black" (622). The setting of Faulkner's story defines Miss Emily's tight grasp of ante-bellum ways and unchanging demeanor.. Through her refusal to put "metal numbers above her door and attach a mail box" to her house she is refusing to change with society. Miss Emily's attitude towards change is ...
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...