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Analysis of A Rose for Emily
Analysis of A Rose for Emily
Analysis of Emily in a rose for Emily
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Significant Quote: “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care.” Plot: The plot of “A Rose for Emily” shows the later years of the main character, Emily Grierson, with flashbacks to her life interspersed between. It begins with the reader learning of her passing, developing into a story that provides insight in to her reclusive nature and past dealings with family as well as the town of Jefferson. Due to her reclusive nature and high standing in society she is often gossiped about by her fellow townsfolk. Throughout the story, the reader is told about her overbearing father, her reluctance to change her ways for the town of Jefferson, and her new love interest Homer Barron. With hints of foreshadowing and learning about Miss Emily’s past problems with letting her deceased father go, the reader finds the story ending at her funeral with the discovery of the body of Homer Barron kept in her house. Miss Emily did not want to lose her new love, so she poisons him and keeps his body around, letting her maintain a relationship with him even though he has passed on. Characters: Emily Grierson – A young southern belle who adored her father and becomes a shut in after his passing. Set in her old ways, she is a constant focus of the town’s gossiping ways due to never leaving her residence and having a list of potential love interests rejected by her father in her younger years. As time goes on she is maintained by her single servant and eventually falls in love with Homer Barron. Colonel Sartoris – The mayor of Jefferson in the year 1894, Colonel Sartoris is very protective of Miss Emily and even conjures up a story to stop her from paying taxes to the city due to a fictitious series of loans her father made to th... ... middle of paper ... ...e passage of time and the constant awareness that it is passing. The watch shows that Miss Emily is constantly aware of how much time she has left, and her hair is used by the townsfolk to denote how long it has been since they last saw Miss Emily. Themes: Old ways opposed to new ways – Faulkner uses Miss Emily’s reluctance to change in juxtaposition with the town evolving to show a women set in her ways. Her closeted nature is emphasized to show that even though the world is changing, Miss Emily lives in the ways of the past, holding on to what she has always known. Death – With the passing of Miss Emily’s father, Homer, and herself, Faulkner shows the overpowering nature of death and the fact that no one can escape it. When Miss Emily passes it restates this fact, because it shows that even someone who is a staple of the town will eventually wither and die.
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.
Because of the way she is raised, Miss Emily sees herself as "high society," and looks down upon those who she thinks of as commoners. This places her under the harsh scrutiny of the townspeople who keep her under a watchful eye. The only others who see Miss Emily as she sees herself are the Mayor Colonel Sartoris, and Judge Stevens.
The protagonist of this story is Miss Emily Grierson, an old maid spinster without family who becomes a “tradition” and a “sort of hereditary obligation upon the town” (Faulkner 299). The story begins with the death of Miss Emily, so I will rearrange my analysis of the character to begin with what we first know about Miss Emily.
...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.
Emily Grierson, referred to as Miss Emily throughout the story, is the main character of 'A Rose for Emily,' written by William Faulkner. Emily is born to a proud, aristocratic family sometime during the Civil War; Miss Emily used to live with her father and servants, in a big decorated house. The Grierson Family considers themselves superior than other people of the town. According to Miss Emily's father none of the young boys were suitable for Miss Emily. Due to this attitude of Miss Emily's father, Miss Emily was not able to develop any real relationship with anyone else, but it was like her world revolved around her father.
In the first sentence the reader is informed that the main character, Emily Grierson, has died and that the entire town has attended and everyone for a different reason. The narrator begins a flashback to ten years before her death when the “backbone” of the city began to harass Emily for her taxes; the reader is introduced to a situation. Then flashback another thirty years to when her father passed and that’s when Emily began to live for herself and met Homer Barron. The towns people began to interfere out of jealousy but always stated that it was them having pity on Emily and got her upper class family involved with the socially unacceptable relationship; the reader at this point has received the conflict. The reader receives clues throughout the second flashback to conclude that Emily has killed Homer out of fear; this is where Faulkner provided us with the climax.
Up to the very end of Miss Emily’s life, her father was in the foreground watching and controlling, and Miss Emily unrelentingly held on to the past. She went as far as keeping a loved one’s body locked upstairs in her home for years. While admiring her loved one’s body from up close and afar, she managed to maintain a death grip on the past.
When she finds Homer Barron, a man from the North who likes going out with his friends, she uses arsenic to insure he won’t leave her. Faulkner uses traits such as the theme of unrequited love, theme of social structure, and disturbed personalities. Miss Emily feels unrequited love from Homer. She buys items such as man’s toilet set with his initials on it to symbol their marriage, even though he was described as “not a marrying man”. It’s alluded to Homer not wanting to be with Miss Emily seriously and she can’t take it. Social structure plays a big part, Miss Emily is a woman who’s always been seen as wealthy and at the top of social stature. After her father’s death, when she begins seeing Homer the older ladies in town notice he is of a lower social status and believe “even grief could not cause a real lady to forget noblesse oblige”. Miss Emily has a disturbed personality which is shown by her actions that are revealed at the end. After she killed Homer with arsenic, she laid beside his body, as shown by her hair left on the
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 ...
Miss Emily’s isolation is able to benefit her as well. She has the entire town believing she is a frail and weak woman, but she is very strong indeed. Everyone is convinced that she could not even hurt a fly, but instead she is capable a horrible crime, murder. Miss Emily’s actions range from eccentric to absurd. After the death of her father, and the estrangement from the Yankee, Homer Barron, she becomes reclusive and introverted. The reader can find that Miss Emily did what was necessary to keep her secret from the town. “Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years” (247).
William Faulkner used indirect characterization to portray Miss Emily as a stubborn, overly attached, and introverted women through the serious of events that happened throughout her lifetime. The author cleverly achieves this by mentioning her father’s death, Homer’s disappearance, the town’s taxes, and Emily’s reactions to all of these events. Emily’s reactions are what allowed the readers to portray her characteristics, as Faulkner would want her to be
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 ...
In this literary analysis, the author uses his personal views of A Rose for Emily and focuses primarily on the narrator’s consideration and perspective. The author specifies the gender of the narrator and whether that plays a role in the way Emily’s story is told. If it were to be a female narrator, the audience would receive sympathetic views. If told by a male it would spite Emily as a cold, heartless human being that was the town recluse. The author sheds a more positive light on Emily compared to other analysis which depicts her as a psychotic mess. Burduck is more understanding towards her and realizes that she has trouble facing
In the short story “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner, Emily, the protagonist, is shown as someone who’s life is falling apart and brought down by society. Emily in this story could be described as a victim to society and her father. Emily Grierson’s confinement, loss of her father and Homer, and constant criticism caused her, her insanity.