A Rose for Emily By William Faulkner

524 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: A rose for emily theme literature

A Rose for Emily Characterization refers to the techniques a writer uses to develop characters. In the story A Rose for Emily William Faulkner uses characterization to reveal the character of Miss Emily. He expresses the content of her character through physical description, through her actions, words, and feelings, through a narrator's direct comments about the character's nature, and through the actions, words, and feelings, of other characters. Faulkner best uses characterization to examine the theme of the story, too much pride can end in homicidal madness.

Miss Emily, the main character of this story, lives for many years as a recluse, someone who has withdrawn from a community to live in seclusion. "No visitor had passed since she ceased giving china-painting lessons eight or ten years earlier" (253-254). Faulkner characterizes Miss Emily's attempt to remove herself from society through her actions. "After her father's death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all" (254). The death of her father and the shattered relationship with her sweetheart contributed to her seclusion.

Though her father was responsible for her becoming a recluse, her pride also contributed to her seclusion. "None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such" (225). Faulkner uses the feelings of other characters to show Miss Emily's pride. Her pride has kept her from socializing with other members of the community thus reinforcing her solitary. But Miss Emily's father is still responsible for her being a hermit.

Her father's over-protection is evident in this passage, "We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will" (256). Her father robs her from many of life's necessities. She misses out on having friends, being a normal "woman," and her ability to be happy. Emily is so used to having her father be there for her, she figures that by keeping his body he can still be part of her life. If he had not refuse the men who wanted to go out with Miss Emily, she may have not gone crazy.

Miss Emily may have wanted seclusion, but her heart lingered for companionship. Her desire for love and companionship drove her to murder Homer Baron. She knew her intentions when she bought the arsenic poison.

Show More
Related

  • Jp Molassas Business Analysis

    969 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are two solutions that provide the optimal profit given the current constraints under which JP Molasses operates. Under these conditions, the optimal profit is $63,571. This profit margin is achieved in both cases with revenue of $942,354 and cost of $412,333 for material purchased and $466,450 for fixed and variable costs in processing, for total cost of $878,783.

    Read More

  • Faulkner's A Rose for Emely and Kate Chopin's Story of an Hour

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    Emily was drove crazy by others expectations, and her loneliness. ““A Rose for Emily,” a story of love and obsession, love, and death, is undoubtedly the most famous one among Faulkner’s more than one hundred short stories. It tells of a tragedy of a screwy southern lady Emily Grierson who is driven from stem to stern by the worldly tradition and desires to possess her lover by poisoning him and keeping his corpse in her isolated house.” (Yang, A Road to Destruction and Self Destruction: The Same Fate of Emily and Elly, Proquest) When she was young her father chased away any would be suitors. He was convinced no one was good enough for her. Emily ended up unmarried. She had come to depend on her father. When he finally died, ...

    Read More

  • Isolation in a Rose for Emily

    561 Words  | 2 Pages

    Isolation dominated the seventy four-year life of Emily Grierson in 'A Rose for Emily' by William Faulkner. Never in this story did she live in harmony with anyone one short time. Even when she died at age seventy four, people in Jefferson town rushed into her house not because they wanted to say goodbye forever to her, but because they wanted to discover her mystic house. Many people agreed that it was the aristocratic status that made Emily?s life so isolated. And if Emily weren?t born in the aristocratic Grierson, her life couldn?t be alienated far away from the others around her.

    Read More

  • A Rose for Emily by Charles Faulkner

    972 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “A Rose for Emily”, Charles Faulkner used a series of flashbacks and foreshadowing to tell Miss Emily’s story. Miss Emily is an interesting character, to say the least. In such a short story of her life, as told from the prospective of a townsperson, who had been nearly eighty as Miss Emily had been, in order to tell the story from their own perspective. Faulkner set up the story in Mississippi, in a world he knew of in his own lifetime. Inspired by a southern outlook that had been touched by the Civil War memory, the touch of what we would now look at as racism, gives the southern aroma of the period. It sets up Miss Emily’s southern belle status and social standing she had been born into, loner or not.

    Read More

  • Clinging to the Past in Faulkner's A Rose for Emily

    1553 Words  | 4 Pages

    The end of the American Civil War also signified the end of the Old South's era of greatness. The south is depicted in many stories of Faulkner as a region where "the reality and myth are difficult to separate"(Unger 54). Many southern people refused to accept that their conditions had changed, even though they had bitterly realized that the old days were gone. They kept and cherished the precious memories, and in a fatal and pathetic attempt to maintain the glory of the South people tend to cling to old values, customs, and the faded, but glorified representatives of the past. Miss Emily was one of those selected representatives. The people in the southern small-town, where the story takes place, put her on a throne instead of throwing her in jail where she actually belonged. The folks in town, unconsciously manipulated by their strong nostalgia, became the accomplices of the obscene and insane Miss Emily.

    Read More

  • Sacrifice In Aztec Society

    1250 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is known that societies in Mesoamerica practiced human sacrifice. This paper discusses the reasons why human sacrifice may have been practiced in Aztec society. Acts of cannibalism occurred during these sacrificial rituals and it will be discussed whether this was purely for ritual purposes, lack of essential nutrients, such as protein, overpopulation, or periods of drought and famine. Information on whether cultivated goods were enough to provide a balance diet will also be discussed. It is possible that lack of essential nutrients such as protein is what encouraged the Aztecs to practice rituals of sacrifice that involved cannibalism. By looking at available information a conclusion will be made on what influences, if any, may have encouraged human sacrifice.

    Read More

  • The Aztec Human Sacrifices

    1181 Words  | 3 Pages

    Center for. “The Mystery of Aztec Sacrifices.” Wilson Quarterly 2.4 (2000):110. History Reference Center. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.

    Read More

  • tuberculosis, the white death

    962 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tuberculosis becomes its most deadly in very crowded and unsanitary conditions, which was the case in the earlier years of Europe and North America, which causes the number of infected to rise once one person is exposed to TB. Now in

    Read More

  • Comparative Analysis of Berniece and Boy Willie

    1083 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Piano Lesson written by August Wilson is a work that struggles to suggest how best African Americans can handle their heritage and how they can best put their history to use. This problem is important to the development of theme throughout the work and is fueled by the two key players of the drama: Berniece and Boy Willie. These siblings, who begin with opposing views on what to do with a precious family heirloom, although both protagonists in the drama, serve akin to foils of one another. Their similarities and differences help the audience to understand each individual more fully and to comprehend the theme that one must find balance between deserting and preserving the past in order to pursue the future, that both too greatly honoring or too greatly guarding the past can ruin opportunities in the present and the future.

    Read More

  • Essay On Tuberculosis

    2104 Words  | 5 Pages

    Tb is spread trough the air and respiration. So when a person breathes in the air around them then they may not knowingly breath in one of the tuberculosis drop lets through there nose. The disease can also spread through the clothing and anything that the contaminated person has touched. If a person were to touch the clothing of an infected person they will most likely get the disease because it is so highly contagious. Many of the main people who are infected by tuberculosis are people who may already have been infected by another disease because their immune system is so week that makes them a main target for tuberculosis. People who may have a high risk at getting TB should avoid areas that have been infected, vaccinate themselves, get regular skin tests, take antibiotics if they know they will be around tuberculosis.

    Read More

  • Great Pacific Garbage Patch

    619 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is sometimes referred to as the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch and the Pacific Trash Vortex is a floating patch of garbage that has collected in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, which is located in the middle of two high-pressure areas between Hawaii and California. The majority of the garbage, which is also called marine debris, in the patch is plastic, but items made from other materials such as glass and rubber are also present. Though the garbage patch is too large and goes too deep under the surface of the ocean for scientists to determine exactly how much garbage is in it, they have collected up to 750,000 bits of plastic one square kilometer (CITE). This sort of debris floating around in the ocean is dangerous for several reasons. One important reason is that marine animals mistake some of the garbage, especially plastics, for food (CITE). Another reason that the floating debris is so dangerous is because it can block sunlight from reaching deeper levels of the ocean, and thus, it removes the energy source for many autotrophs like alga...

    Read More

  • Tuberculosis Essay

    1146 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tuberculosis is sometimes called disease of the poor, poverty restricts lots of people to live in a small space, leading to overcrowding. Smaller spaces increase the possibility of M. Tuberculosis to spread and infect an individual. Also immunocompromised individual are susceptible to acquiring tuberculosis. For example, HIV patients, malnourished individual are more susceptible to tuberculosis compared to the average healthy individual. People that are constantly in close range to infected individual are at higher risk of getting infected because, they are more likely to share and breathe the same air. This will lead to inhalation of M. Tuberculosis and might eventually lead to tuberculosis.

    Read More

  • Literary Elements in A Rose For Emily

    1692 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • A Victim of Society in A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

    558 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Final Essay

    1475 Words  | 3 Pages

    Research from the University of California San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography said that species in the ocean consume a projected 12,000 to 24,000 tons of plastic every year in the Pacific Ocean (Nall, 2014). Pollution of recyclable materials in the oceans is one of the leading causes of why some marine species are nearing extinction. Many authors of articles and books analyzing this topic tend to agree that pollution of our oceans is a problem. The future of this problem is where their ideas tend to differ. The following four literature reviews attempt to demonstrate and support my belief that pollution is getting worse in the ocean and more marine life ecosystems are being affected, but there are things that we as humans can do to change this. Imagine a world where we didn’t have to constantly worry about the vicious cycle of humans affecting animals and then animals in turn affecting us through consumption.

    Read More

More about A Rose for Emily By William Faulkner

Open Document