William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” (1931) focuses on the conflicts of Emily, a lonely lady who isolates herself in her house from the townspeople. The story is divided into five sections. It begins with a brief first-person description of Miss Emily’s funeral. The story then continues in the narrator’s flashback of Emily’s old-fashioned lifestyle and abnormal behavior throughout the years. When Emily’s father died, she refused to accept her father’s death, and kept the body in her house for three days until she gave it away to the representatives for burial. In the next generation, Miss Emily was dissatisfied with the modern culture because she was obligated to pay her taxes that were exempted from her by Colonel Sartoris. Furthermore, the townspeople complained about Emily’s reeking house. She eventually meets and has a light-hearted relationship with Homer Barron. However, she soon discovers Homer does not want a serious relationship with her, so Emily purchases rat poison to kill Homer. After Emily died, the residents found the decayed body of Homer in her house. The author foreshadows the plot and applies first-person point of view to form the theme, which leads to an understanding of Emily’s behavior.
The story opens with the townspeople attending Emily’s funeral, which informs the audience what happened to Miss Emily before the story developed. The introduction also begins with an exposition of the protagonist. “The men through… respectful affection for a fallen monument” (30) briefly portrays Emily as a legend, and someone who made an impact to the town. Moreover, the opening of the story provides background information about Emily’s lifestyle of happiness to tragedy by using her house that was once “white, decorate...
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...) is Emily’s because she became old, which is a symbol of her depression and emotional isolation. In addition, "Emily's need to cling to Homer as she had tried to cling to his father” (Getty) represents Emily’s severe loneliness, and how she is willing to go to have some company. The theme is affective to the reader because isolation is something they come across in his or her life at some point.
What Faulkner may have been getting at in the story was to demonstrate to the audience the relationship between the lonely people, and those that consider themselves “normal”. Furthermore, the message the author is showing to the reader is the importance of understanding and improving along the future generations. Faulkner reveals to the reader that society will not progress if they allow the old generation to have their own way, such as Emily had towards the townspeople.
According to Charmaine Mosby, “A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner, accentuates one of his primary themes: “change and decay.” The reader clearly acknowledges Emily’s denial to change as Faulkner describes how she refused to accept her father’s death. Hence, this foreshadowed why Emily kept Homer Barron’s corpse. Her inability to let go and accept the changing reality forced her “combine life and death in her own person.” Mosby further emphasizes Faulkner’s theme by mentioning that the gray long hair found next to Homer’s corpse symbolized Emily’s interaction between them even after his death. In addition to this theme, Mosby also reveals that another theme: the erosion of the social structure of the 20th century by the industrialized South. Mosby claims that Faulkner emphasized the acceptance of Homer and Emily’s relationship from the Jefferson’s community to enable the reader to realize how the change of views to modern ideals.
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.
Is being attached to something in a great abundance a bad thing? Well, it can be in some cases. Undoubtedly, many people in today’s society live constantly in angst with the fear of losing their loved ones and cope with their anxiety in a variety of ways. However, while many methods are accepted by society’s standards as of dealing with their stressors, some individuals have more extreme methods of coping with their separation anxiety. For instance, in “A Rose for Emily”, the main character, Emily Grierson, loses her father and fears a similar event will occur with her assumed lover. For that reason, it is easy for readers to assume that Emily has a separation anxiety. In this story by William Faulkner, she takes what modern day society would consider drastic measures to make sure the two never leave her.
This represents her father still hovering over her after his death almost controlling what she does. Emily does not listen to her father’s words of wisdom and appears to fall for a man of lesser stature. With the uncommonness of the relationship along with several other events it is evident that Miss Emily is up to something. With that said, the central theme of Faulkner’s story is madness and insanity, and with supporting evidence from the story, I will be able to prove my case. The first case to prove the theme is when her father dies.
...s story he writes about how earlier in Emily’s life she refuses to let the town’s people in her house even though there is a strong odor that is coming from her property. In this section her father has just passed away and was abandoned by a man who she wanted to marry. This section she becomes very depressed. In section three it talks about how Emily is starting to come down with an illness after all of the depressing events she had to endure. In sections four and five Faulkner describes how there is fear throughout the towns people is that of which Emily is going to possibly poison herself. A while later she then she passes away. In section five is when the truth is revealed to the public about her sickness. Faulkner uses the view point of an unnamed town member while he uses a third person perspective to show the general corrosion of the southern town’s people.
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
“A Rose for Emily” 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. William Faulkner introduces us to a number of characters but the most involved being Emily Grierson, Homer Barron, Tobe, and the ladies of the town; who are not named individually. Emily Grierson was once a beautiful and wealthy upper class young women who lived with her father, who has since died, on the towns,
Emily’s isolation is evident because after the men that cared about her deserted her, either by death or simply leaving her, she hid from society and didn’t allow anyone to get close to her. Miss Emily is afraid to confront reality. She seems to live in a sort of fantasy world where death has no meaning. Emily refuses to accept or recognize the death of her father, and the fact that the world around her is changing.
At the beginning of the story when her father died, it was mentioned that “[Emily] told [the ladies in town] that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body” (626). Faulkner reveals Emily’s dependency on her father through the death of her father. As shown in this part of the story, Emily was very attached to her father and was not able to accept that fact that he was no longer around. She couldn’t let go of the only man that loved her and had been with her for all those years. While this may seem like a normal reaction for any person who has ever lost a loved one, Faulkner emphasizes Emily’s dependence and attachment even further through Homer Barron. After her father’s death, Emily met a man name Homer, whom she fell in love with. While Homer showed interest in Emily at the beginning he became uninterested later on. “Homer himself had remarked—he liked men” (627) which had caused Emily to become devastated and desperate. In order to keep Homer by her side, Emily decided to poison Homer and keep him in a bedroom in her home. It was clear that she was overly attached to Homer and was not able to lose another man that she
She could not handle it. The stress began to take a toll on her not only mentally but physically. “She was sick for a long time. When we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl with vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows, sort of tragic and serene (Faulkner).” This loneliness was changing her. “When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray (Faulkner).” She began changing even more as time passed on and the loneness grew stronger. We can only imagine the way she felt. Losing a father, then losing the only man she had ever loved. She held on tight to Homer even after he was gone. She held onto love even though it was gone. The townspeople pitied her when they found Homer’s body locked away in the room and when they saw the hair resting on the imprint of a head on the pillow beside him. She found love and compassion in a man that she had never found in her father. Everyone pitied Emily, but she never knew the feeling of truly being loved. Her dad showed a deep cruelty towards her no compassion or fatherly love. Her mother was never spoken of so we assume she was not around. Never once did we hear of a brother or sister, so no love of a sibling. She never once had a friend, a husband, or any kids. She never experienced any of the things that a woman strives for in life. Every woman should express sympathy for her in the most extreme way. [Faulkner himself sheds interesting
“A Rose for Emily” reads like a sad and tragic biography set in the nineteenth century. The narrator, who speaks as one representing the story from the town’s point of view, begins by narrating Emily’s funeral. As the story unfolds, the reader is taken through a grim sequence of events, some of which only make sense in retrospect upon reaching the end of the story. The narrator begins then to narrate her background since her father’s death. Emily’s father is cast as a protective figure who turns away any male suitors and keeps his daughter away from the townsfolk. When he dies, Emily refrains from acknowledging his death and for three days refuses to let his body out of the house. Eventually she breaks
The theme of "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner is that people should let go of the past, moving on with the present so that they can prepare to welcome their future. Emily was the proof of a person who always lived on the shadow of the past; she clung into it and was afraid of changing. The first evident that shows to the readers right on the description of Grierson's house "it was a 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, set on what had once been our most select street." The society was changing every minutes but still, Emily's house was still remained like a symbol of seventieth century. The second evident show in the first flashback of the story, the event that Miss Emily declined to pay taxes. In her mind, her family was a powerful family and they didn't have to pay any taxes in the town of Jefferson. She even didn't believe the sheriff in front of her is the "real" sheriff, so that she talked to him as talk to the Colonel who has died for almost ten years "See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson." Third evident was the fact that Miss Emily had kept her father's death body inside the house and didn't allow burying him. She has lived under his control for so long, now all of sudden he left her, she was left all by herself, she felt lost and alone, so that she wants to keep him with her in order to think he's still living with her and continued controlling her life. The fourth evident and also the most interesting of this story, the discovery of Homer Barron's skeleton in the secret room. The arrangement inside the room showing obviously that Miss Emily has slept with the death body day by day, until all remained later was just a skeleton, she's still sleeping with it, clutching on it every night. The action of killing Homer Barron can be understood that Miss Emily was afraid that he would leave her, afraid of letting him go, so she decided to kill him, so that she doesn't have to afraid of losing him, of changing, Homer Barron would still stay with her forever.
Faulkner starts his story by showing the amount of respect that is shown at Emily’s funeral. It is said that the entire town attended this event, but also that some only showed up to see what the inside of her house looked like because no one had been inside in over ten years. “The men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant- a combined gardener and cook- had seen in at least ten years”(pg.542). He explains this to show the mysterious interest of Emily. By explaining the mystery in Emily, he carries a dark tone that mystifies the audience.
Through the use of setting, characterization and theme Faulkner was able to create quite a mysterious and memorable story. "A Rose for Emily" is more than just a story though; her death represents the passing of a more genteel way of life. That is much more saddening than the unforgettable scene of Homer's decaying body. The loss of respect and politeness is has a much greater impact on society than a construction worker who by trade is always trying to change things. Generation after generation Miss Emily happily escaped modernism by locking herself in her house the past.
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...