The Nature of Time and Change in William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily
In "A Rose for Emily," William Faulkner's use of language foreshadows and builds up to the climax of the story. His choice of words is descriptive, tying resoundingly into the theme through which Miss Emily Grierson threads, herself emblematic of the effects of time and the nature of the old and the new. Appropriately, the story begins with death, flashes back to the near distant past and leads on to the demise of a woman and the traditions of the past she personifies. Faulkner has carefully crafted a multi-layered masterpiece, and he uses language, characterization, and chronology to move it along, a sober commentary flowing beneath on the nature of time, change, and chance-as well as a psychological narrative on the static nature of memory.
Faulker begins his tale at the end: after learning of Miss Emily's death, we catch a glimpse of her dwelling, itself a reflection of its late owner. The house lifts "its stubborn and coquettish decay" above new traditions just as its spinster is seen to do, "an eyesore among eyesores" (Faulkner, 666). The narrative voice suggests the gossipy nature of a Southern town where everyone knows everyone else, and nosy neighbors speculate about the affairs of Miss Emily, noting her often antiquated ways and her early retirement. In fact, it appears as if the town itself is describing the events of Miss Emily's life, the first-person plural "we" a telling indication. The first explicit example of this occurrence takes place during the flashback in the second section, when, in speaking of her sweetheart, the narrator parenthetically adds "the one we believed would marry her" (667).
In the opening characterization, many de...
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...hich no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years" (672). This description would seem to explain the static nature of an unchanging Miss Emily-"the carven torso of the idol in a niche" (671)-the tableau vivant framed by the "back-flung front door" (668) through which the secret might be unlocked-and the unchanging nature of the manservant. It would seem Faulkner has woven a multifaceted tapestry with its warp and woof firmly anchored to universal-and therefore timeless-truth, while his historical particulars form the aesthetic shag bedecking its surface: the changeless world of being beneath, the straining world of becoming above.
Works Cited:
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." Literature: The Human Experience. 8th ed. Ed. Richard Abcarian and Marvin Klotz. Boston: Bedford, 2002. 666-672.
William Faulkner paints a tragic tale about the inevitability of change and the futility of attempting to stop it in "A Rose for Emily". This story is about a lonely upper-class woman struggling with life and traditions in the Old South. Besides effective uses of literary techniques, such as symbolism and a first plural-person narrative style, Faulkner succeeds in creating a suspenseful and mysterious story by the use of foreshadowing, which gives a powerful description about death and the tragic struggle of the main character, Miss Emily. In general the use of foreshadowing often relates to events in a story, and few are attempted to describe character. Faulkner has effectively succeeded in both. The foreshadowing used in A Rose for Emily are referred to death, which is the more apparent than the second type of foreshadowing which describes the portrait of Miss Emily.
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In Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily” the lead character is the center piece of resistance to change. Emily’s image is described on multiple accounts revealing a steady change in her life. Early on in the story the narrator a member of the civilization describes her as, “small, fat woman in black” (Faulkner 30). He mentions her appearance again by saying, “When we saw her again her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl." (Faulkner 31). This statement is made after the untimely death of her father. The subject of her image is mentioned one last time saying, “She had grown fat and her hair was turning gray...pepper and salt-iron gray."
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...
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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.
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
In the first paragraphs of the book Faulkner uses descriptions to add to the setting of the story and the people in the town. An obvious quote from the story is, “And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.”(Faulkner 91) This statement proclaims that the city Emily lives in was part of the Civil War; the people who live there were ...
The plotline of standard narratives would most aptly be diagramed as a triangle, with the rising action on one side, the falling action on the other side, and the climax marking the angle at the apex. The diagram of the plotline of William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," however, would look like a simple line with a positive slope. The story's chronology is abandoned in favor of a simpler and more effective geometry. Faulkner discards the method of unfolding events in the order of their occurrence. Instead, he raises tension in the reader and creates a climate of curiosity through revealing events in ascending order of intrigue.
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. .
In William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” Miss Emily Grierson holds on to the past with a grip of death. Miss Emily seems to reside in her own world, untarnished by the present time around her, maintaining her homestead as it was when her father was alive. Miss Emily’s father, the manservant, the townspeople, and even the house she lives in, shows that she remains stuck in the past incapable and perhaps reluctant to face the present.
William Faulkner’s Southern background plays a constituent part of the creation of his story “A Rose for Emily”. With his creative mind Faulkner created a county in Mississippi called Yoknapatawpha. Like the southern town he was born and raised in, Faulkner peopled this story with both African American and Caucasian people of the late 1800’s. Faulkner’s idea of writing this story was to focus on the events causing destruction and suffering in one’s inner and outer situations.
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.
The internet has influenced, and is still influencing the way society communicates in many different ways. The rise of the internet has caused people to communicate differently in areas never dreamed of before the internet came into existence. Education has been revolutionized through the world of the “Information Super Highway”. Medicine has also seen reform as the internet improves research and communication. Individuals are starting businesses from scratch, while others are selling household items for extra cash. This internet “typhoon” sweeping the globe has become a way of life for many individuals all across the globe.