William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily is a dreary short story told of a traditional woman surrounded by death living in an ever-changing town. Emily’s funeral is the opening paragraph in A Rose for Emily to help introduce the background of the town’s perception of the curiosity known as Emily. Faulkner introduces Emily by stating “She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue.” (323) The sorrow of the main character in A Rose for Emily is illustrated by the reaffirmation of death throughout the story and how it seems to follow her in life by her resistance to change. Faulkner’s description of Emily and the home are underlying symbols to the death that hangs about. Not only do you have the opening …show more content…
“She dies in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her gray head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight.” (327) And again, when Faulkner reveals what truly happened to Homer Barron and the depravity of Miss Emily when the top floor door is broken down. “The man himself lay in the bed.” (327) “For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin.” (327) “Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.” (327) Miss Emily again, scared of change, and being haunted by death, murders the man she wanted to marry to keep him forever. Faulkner’s use of death in A Rose for Emily is repeated throughout each section of the story and almost every paragraph. He starts the beginning of the story with Emily’s funeral and concludes the story with her death. When describing Emily herself, her home, and the men in her life Faulkner uses death to depict the isolated existence that was Miss
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.
In the book Literature by Edgar V Roberts, Faulkner begins the story “A Rose for Emily” with an extremely long sentence which shows the communities reaction to death and immediately displays a scene through gender differences:
The story begins with presenting readers with Emily’s funeral, and ends with the discovery of Homer’s cadaver in Emily’s house. Faulkner’s hardship related to death is reflected in this story from beginning to end. Faulkner’s life was closely connected to death. He was named after her grandfather who was shot to death a few years before Faulkner was born. Faulkner also lost her first daughter, dedicating several stories to her.
...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.
William Faulkner once said, “Given a choice between grief and nothing, I’d choose grief.” This quote may have different meanings to different people depending on their experiences in life, but what does this quote mean to me? For me, grief is a part of life. I believe that if life was easy and we never went through traumatic experiences or had the experience of failure, it wouldn’t be worth it. In “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner tells us about the lonely life of a woman named Miss Emily. Miss Emily has experienced death and refuses to believe the idea because of her denial. When her father dies, the townspeople come to give their condolences, but she tells them that her father is still alive. She does not feel any grief towards the death of her father. William Faulkner shows how Emily’s attempt to overpower death causes her to slowly give in to it. I believe that grieving is indeed important and Faulkner shows why through Miss Emily’s experiences with the deaths of her loved ones and the rapid decline of her mental state.
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).
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...
William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor imply the notions of the present, past, and refusal to change in their stories. While Faulkner does this in a more gruesome way, O’Connor has the grandmother recollect her memories and compare them to her present day. While Miss Emily kills and keeps Homer to have someone to love, The Misfit shoots the grandmother after trying to tell him that he was her child. Both of the protagonists refuse to change their ways from the past, causing problems for them in their present.
...er. Upstairs in her bedroom, lie Homer’s decomposed body wearing remnants of the suit she had purchased for him many years ago. The indentation of a head on the pillow case and the strand of gray hair next to the body, gives us the impression that Emily laid there before her death. These clues give the reader a second and final rectification that Emily had necrophilia.
First, why does Faulkner present the plot in the way that he does? There can be numerous answers to this question, but I have narrowed it down to one simple answer. He presented the story in this way in order to keep the reader guessing and to also provide some sort of suspense. By Faulkner telling the story in the way that he does, the reader has no way of knowing what might be coming up next in the story. The last thing that a reader wants to do is read a boring story that is easy to predict. Faulkner keeps the reader from knowing what might happen next by not placing the events in the actual order that they occurred. He goes back and forth throughout Miss Emily’s life. At the introduction and conclusion of the story, she is dead, while the body consists of the times when she was alive. The body of the story also jumps back and forth throughout Miss Emily’s life. Faulkner brilliantly divided the story into five key parts, all taking place at some key
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 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.