Symbolism In William Faulkner's 'A Rose For Emily'

When the townspeople come forward with complaints of the bad smell coming from her house. He says, “Dammit, sir will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?” (24) Emily Grierson is a good example of how the Old South functioned. They were proud and unable to accept that times were changing. She had wanted things to stay the same so badly that she shut herself in her house unwelcoming for anyone to enter. She could not handle her father’s death and tried very hard to isolate herself from the world changing.

Though a powerful story the setting only takes place in her bedroom, the stairwell, and by her window. This could symbolize how limited Louise is and how much she is controlled in her own life. She is a trapped in her own home and in her own mind because she cannot speak to anyone about how she is feeling. She is stuck in a marriage with someone she does not want to be married to. Consequently, she feels trapped in her own house, and her only way of seeing the outside world is through her window.

Emily Grierson, the only remaining member of the upper class Grierson family refuses to leave the past behind her even as the next generation begins to take over. Miss Emily becomes so caught up in the way things were in the old South that she refuses to pay her taxes forcing the Board of Aldermen to pay her a visit. Upon entering her home the men realize that her house is still heavily furnished with old leather furniture. Another indication that Emily is clinging to the past by refusing to throw away the furniture even though it is ragged and useless. “Page 1: They could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs...” Holding on to these possessions reminds Emily of the way things used to be before her father passed away.

The dust inside the house appeared everywhere and was virtually undisturbed. The dust covering everything and being undisturbed leads the reader to think that even inside her home, Emily resists changing, or even moving, anything. Her unwavering resistance to change also, along with other things in the story, symbolizes Emily's inability to cope with change in any asp... ... middle of paper ... ...ory, the house ages along with Emily. When she was young and beautiful, the house was ornate and beautifully designed "for the era." By the time Emily dies, the home is dark, broken down, and completely out of place in the now modernized town of Jefferson, just like Emily.

The Grierson house is a visible reminder that Miss Emily can not accept change. Miss Emily refuses to change with the town because her family once dominated it, and change means her family may not be the center of attention anymore. Even the interior of the house provides evidence of her lack of progression. "It smelled of dust and disuse (237)." The leather of the furniture was cracked, and when the chairs were sat upon, "a faint dust rose about [the] thighs (237)."

The flaw with... ... middle of paper ... ...ying in a marriage since divorce was frowned upon during that era. Her decision was a succession for all expectations put on a woman and wife by society. The story A Doll?s House is believable. It stands for every marriage where equality never took place. Many women knew their social status and lived as they were meant to, but for the few that realized there was more to the world then the sheltered life they were living, broke free.

He isolated her in his home which was the eyesore among the town, “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 (Faulkner 308). By the description of the home, Emily was raised by a once wealthy man following the Civil War. During the time of the towns remodeling, only Emily’s house was left untouched, and was unfavorable to the townspeople. The refusal to update or clean up her home symbolizes the unwillingness of Emily to move onto bigger and better things; but her stubbornness does not end there... ... middle of paper ... ...lack of effort from the community, they allow Emily to believe she is superior, but also encourages her to continue living in her past. Emily is never forced to let go and move on by her fellow townspeople.

This passage shows that anywhere the patients go, they will always be found, which also demonstrates how the lack of freedom and privacy can drive someone crazy bit by bit. On the other hand, in “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, the protagonist’s room is in “a colonial mansion […] quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village” (249- 250). Additionally, “the place has been empty for years” (250) and that scares Charlotte as she says that it “spoils [her] ghostliness” (250). Moreover, the residence’s seclusion manifests an emotional isolation on the narrator as she mentions that keeping a journal “is such a relief” (255) for the reason that she “must say what [she] feel[s] a... ... middle of paper ... ...of delusions all along the novel presents an evident relationship between hallucination and lunacy as the mind is being controlled, preventing the characters from having a good sense of self. In conclusion, gothic literature, identified as the genre of literature that revolves around romance and horror, illustrates nonetheless insanity in several stories such as Shutter Island and “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” As both authors employ physical isolation of the locale, disturbing elements and hallucinatory incidences in the narratives, the reader gradually captures the effect the components have on lunacy.

Moreover, the nursery that John recommends his wife to live in includes many confining elements. The bars on windows, bedstead nailed down, and a gate at the top of the stairs suggest an unsafe place. The narrator’s preference of living in the downstairs room is undermined by John’s control over her. Furthermore, John puts his wife into an environment with no communication, making her socially isolated. The protagonist is home alone most of the time while John is at work.

While being isolated in her home, she becomes somewhat of a small legend in the town, after she dies, and her secret is revealed, "it becomes so appalling that no one can forget." (Kazin 162) . "It is the monstrousness of this view which creates the final atmosphere of horror, and the scene is intensified by the portrayal of the unchanged objects which have surrounded Homer in life." (Lewis 157). "Miss Emily Grierson remains in voluntary isolation away from the bustle and dust and sunshine of the human world of normal affairs, and what in the end is found in the upstairs room gives perhaps a sense of penetrating and gruesome horror.