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Wililam faulker "a rose for emily" symbolism
Critics of william faulker rose for emily
Southern gothic essay
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William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” is a famous example of what some critics call the “Southern gothic” genre, in which the close-knit qualities and antiquated customs of a Southern community lead to aberrant , sometimes grotesque behavior. There is a voyeuristic aspect to these stories, as though the reader is invited to observe the bizarre nature of aspects of life and belief in the South. Of course, the observation of ‘exotic’ customs is not enough to explain Emily’s beliefs and motivations for her bizarre and transgressive acts – murdering her lover and then living with his corpse for many years. However, there is considerable doubt regarding the correct way to interpret Emily’s thoughts and actions. There are two principle schools of thought: while some critics search for a personal, psychological explanation, assuming that realism is a dominant factor in this story, other critics conceptualize Emily as a product and a symbolic representation of her society. As such, Emily’s actions are motivated not by an individual psychological profile but by larger social dynamics. This second explanation is more feasible and compelling. Therefore, I would conclude that the character of Emily is an allegorical representation of the South’s struggle between conservativism and progress, and her motivations and beliefs must be understood as those of the South in general.
Some writers present convincing psychological explanations, regarding Emily as a realistic representation of a person. For example, Emily’s relative isolation, living “…at odds with… [a] close-knit community" (O'Bryan-Knight 328) is seen to define her social position. Initially, the strictness of her father and the watchfulness of her community may both have ...
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...outhern Gothic as Signs of Social Dislocation in Faulkner and O'Connor". In Downing, David B. and Bazargan, Susan. Image and ideology in modern/postmodern discourse. New York:SUNY Press, 1991
Cho, Soo Hee. “The Hippodamia Complex in “A Rose for Emily””. 2008. Retrieved November 30 2011 from: http://www.papersearch.net/view/detail.asp?detail_key=0u100694
Dilworth, Thomas. "A Romance to Kill for: Homocidal Complicity in William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily". Studies in Short Fiction Vol. 36 (1999), pp. 251 - 62.
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily".
O’Bryan-Knight, Jean. “From Spinster to Eunuch: William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" and Mario Vargas Llosa's Los cachorros”. Comparative Literature Studies. Vol. 34, No. 4 (1997), pp. 328-347
Volpe, Edmond Loris. A Reader’s Guide to William Faulkner: The Short Stories. Syracuse University Press, 2004.
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:
Faulkner, William. “A Rose For Emily.” Literature Reading, Reacting, Writing. Kirszner, Laurie. Mandell Stephen. 4th edition. Sea Harbor: Harcourt College Publishers. 2001. 87-94
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, ...
We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn 't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized.’ (25) This complete sheltering leaves Emily to play into with in her own deprived reality within her own mind, creating a skewed perception of reality and relationships”(A Plastic Rose,
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." The Norton Introduction to Literature. By Carl E. Bain, Jerome Beaty, and J. Paul Hunter. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1991: 69-76.
Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings. 2nd
Faulkner, William. "A Rose For Emily." 1930. Literature An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 11th ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 29-35. Print.
Brooks, Cleanth. "William Faulkner: Visions of Good and Evil." Faulkner, New Perspectives. Ed. Richard H. Brodhead. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey : Prentice-Hall, 1983.
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.
In “ A Rose for Emily”, William Faulkner tells the complex tale of a woman who is battered by time and unable to move through life after the loss of each significant male figure in her life. Unlike Disney Stories, there is no prince charming to rescue fallen princess, and her assumed misery becomes the subject of everyone in the town of Jefferson, Mississippi. As the townspeople gossip about her and develop various scenarios to account for her behaviors and the unknown details of her life, Emily Grierson serves as a scapegoat for the lower classes to validate their lives. In telling this story, Faulkner decides to take an unusual approach; he utilizes a narrator to convey the details of a first-person tale, by examining chronology, the role of the narrator and the interpretations of “A Rose for Emily”, it can be seen that this story is impossible to tell without a narrator.
---. Faulkner in the University. Ed. Frederick L. Gwynn and Joseph L. Blotner. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 1959.
William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily tells a story of a young woman who is violated by her father’s strict mentality. After being the only man in her life Emily’s father dies and she finds it hard to let go. Like her father Emily possesses a stubborn outlook towards life, and she refused to change. While having this attitude about life Emily practically secluded herself from society for the remainder of her life. She was alone for the very first time and her reaction to this situation was solitude.
Emily’s isolation is evident because after the men that cared about her deserted her, either by death or simply leaving her, she hid from society and didn’t allow anyone to get close to her. Miss Emily is afraid to confront reality. She seems to live in a sort of fantasy world where death has no meaning. Emily refuses to accept or recognize the death of her father, and the fact that the world around her is changing.
"William Faulkner (1897-1962)." Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena Krstovic. Vol. 97. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2007. 1-3. Literature Criticism Online. Gale. Hempfield High School. 31 March 2010.
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Compact 4th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers, 2000. 81 - 88.