William Faulkner’s use of theme is what makes “A Rose for Emily” an iconic American literature. What helps make the story Iconic American literature is Faulkner’s use of setting and plot to contribute to the theme. In “A Rose for Emily” the setting gives readers value and beliefs to help the audience understand the short story. The setting of the short story is post- civil war, in a small town in the south. Faulkner uses the post-civil war as a specific time frame to help readers understand the background and the beliefs of the characters within the story. Since the townspeople are weirdly fascinated by Miss Emily being stuck in the old times, the setting gives the readers the mentality and behavior them. Understanding the events that are …show more content…
Tomas Dilworth says, “According to Terry Heller, an effect of the narrative alteration of chronology "is to prevent us from easily perceiving the possible relation of these seemingly isolated effects’" (Page 2). Faulkner opens up the story with Miss Emily’s death and ends the story off with her funeral. Each section has a role of foreshadowing, Gene Moore says, “These chronologies over a span of 14 years, make us of many different kinds of evidence: not only internal temporal references and cross reference in the story, but also historical, biographical, conical, and even forensic evidence” (495). Faulkner uses this evidence to make it possible to solve the missing pieces readers need to fill in to understand the story more. The plot is not in chronological order but Faulkner gives the plot an important role in how the story is interpreted by the readers. The plot of the story makes readers read on to the next section and also makes you re-read the story to catch on further each time. Faulkner keeps the story back and fourth, not like a story with events that go in the actual order. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction says, “What the convoluted presentation made to the story and how the story would be worse off if the story was told chronologically instead of how Faulkner presented it”. Readers would not nearly find the theme of “A Rose for Emily” so intriguing if Faulkner did not present the plot the way he did. Faulkner’s unique plot is what makes the audience want to stay until the end of his
William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is a story that uses flashbacks to foreshadow a surprise ending. The story begins with the death of a prominent old woman, Emily, and finishes with the startling discovery that Emily as been sleeping with the corpse of her lover, whom she murdered, for the past forty years. The middle of the story is told in flashbacks by a narrator who seems to represent the collective memory of an entire town. Within these flashbacks, which jump in time from ten years past to forty years past, are hidden clues which prepare the reader for the unexpected ending, such as hints of Emily's insanity, her odd behavior concerning the deaths of loved ones, and the evidence that the murder took place.
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.
In William Faulkner’s story, “A Rose for Emily”, Faulkner uses symbolism as a literary element to keep the reader interested in his writing. There are many characters and materials that Faulkner placed throughout the story with hidden meaning. When he describes dust being in a scene, the reader may scan over it, not giving the element much thought. The dust, however, does hold a significant message. Dust was present in Ms. Emily’s home all throughout the story. Ms. Emily spent most of her time in her home. She used her house to recluse herself from society and is also where she died. With this being said, dust is a reoccurring object throughout the story that symbolizes aging, the state of being a recluse, and death.
"A Rose for Emily" is a wonderful short story written by William Faulkner. It begins with at the end of Miss Emily’s life and told from an unknown person who most probably would be the voice of the town. Emily Grierson is a protagonist in this story and the life of her used as an allegory about the changes of a South town in Jefferson after the civil war, early 1900's. Beginning from the title, William Faulkner uses symbolism such as house, Miss Emily as a “monument “, her hair, Homer Barron, and even Emily’s “rose” to expresses the passing of time and the changes. The central theme of the story is decay in the town, the house, and in Miss Emily herself. It shows the way in which we all grow old and decay and there is nothing permanent except change.
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.
As Faulkner begins “A Rose for Emily” with death of Emily, he both immediately and intentionally obscures the chronology of the short story to create a level of distance between the reader and the story and to capture the reader’s attention. Typically, the reader builds a relationship with each character in the story because the reader goes on a journey with the character. In “A Rose for Emily”, Faulkner “weaves together the events of Emily’s life” is no particular order disrupting the journey for the reader (Burg, Boyle and Lang 378). Instead, Faulkner creates a mandatory alternate route for the reader. He “sends the reader on a dizzying voyage by referring to specific moments in time that have no central referent, and thus the weaves the past into the present, the present into the past. “Since the reader is denied this connection with the characters, the na...
Expectations are everything, which is the ringing truth in William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily.” The short story is centered in a post-civil war setting that shows how the views and values of the southern aristocracy change over time. A single narrator acts as the voice of the fictional town of Jefferson to tell the story as a whole through flashbacks and flash-forwards that tell the life of Emily Grierson, a woman from a very rich and elevated family in their society. Through the story, we learn that Emily is never permitted by her father to marry because none of the suitors are good enough for his daughter; after her father’s death, Emily, as the last living member of her family, begins to deteriorate to proportions that are not revealed until the end of the story. The reader learns that the man she falls in love with intends to leave her so she kills him and keeps his body in her bedroom and sleeps by his corpse every night for years until her death (Faulkner 79-84). These extreme situations were not caused by madness inside of Emily; instead, it was Emily’s need to conform to what society expected of her that triggered the craziness to develop. She felt the need to go to extreme measures to keep the expected traditions of her southern family alive, in the only way she knew how too. Because of the townspeople’s expectations of Emily, their involvement to try to change her, and their blind eye to obvious signs of murder, the people from the town of Jefferson become just as guilty, if not more, than Emily herself.
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 ...
In “A Rose For Emily”, by William Faulkner, plot plays an important role in how
Faulkner, William. "A Rose For Emily." The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing. Ed. Michael Meyer. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2008. 91-99. Print.
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. .
Hence, Faulkner seemed to write about what he was acclimated to. In the story “A Rose for Emily” he commences with a brief description of the generation the story will be told upon by saying, “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral” (299). Namely, from the description of her antebellum mansion, tattered and gloomy, to his main characters highly incongruous conduct, Faulkner pellucidly writes this story in the genre of Southern Gothic.
One of the most interesting things William Faulkner used in “A Rose for Emily” was how you really didn’t know who was telling the story about Emily. Going over several events that happened in Emily life William Faulkner set up images that Emily was hiding something. Emily is considered a fallen monument throughout the story. Emily behavior throughout the story symbolized some type of mental illness. Emily was delusional at times to what seemed real to her and was actually reality.
In William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” he uses many literary elements to portray the life of Emily and the town of Jefferson. The theme of the past versus the present is in a sense the story of Miss Emily’s life. Miss Emily is the representation of the Old South versus the New South, mainly because of her inability to interact with the present or come to terms with reality. Holding onto the past and rejecting change into the present led Miss Emily into a life of isolation and mental issues.
In "A Rose for Emily," William Faulkner's use of setting and characterization foreshadows and builds up to the climax of the story. His use of metaphors prepares the reader for the bittersweet ending. A theme of respectability and the loss of, is threaded throughout the story. Appropriately, the story begins with death, flashes back to the past and hints towards the demise of a woman and the traditions of the past she personifies. Faulkner has carefully crafted a multi-layered masterpiece, and he uses setting, characterization, and theme to move it along.