Symbolism in literature is using an object to portray a different, deeper meaning in a story. Symbols represent ideas or qualities that the author has maneuvered into his or her story that has meaning. There can be multiple symbols in a story or just one. It is up to the reader to interpret the meaning of the symbols and their significance to the story. While reading a story, symbols may not become clear until the very end, once the climax is over, and the falling action is covered. In William Faulkner’s, “A Rose for Emily,” there are multiple examples of symbolism that occur throughout the story.
Symbolism that “A Rose for Emily” displays is Miss Emily’s taxes that represent death. First is the death of her father. The taxes are a symbol of the financial remission her father experiences, but keeps hidden from Miss Emily and the town. Thirty years later, after the initial decline of Miss Emily’s taxes, the newer generation attempts to retract the deal of the past. In the new generation, the taxes now symbolize the death of Homer Barron. Although the taxes are a deal of the past, there is an effort in Miss Emily to keep them a thing in the present. Homer Barron is her new man of the present, and his death symbolizes the taxes she insists she does not have to pay (Shmoop 3).
The gray strand of hair found on the pillow next to Homer Barron’s corpse is the next symbol. The lost love represented by the strand of hair is a perverse action of Miss Emily. The hair represents Miss Emily’s determination to live how she wants while disregarding anyone’s approval. Her eccentric actions proves that she lives by her own moral code, that whatever it takes to be happy is welcome, even if it is murder. “What was left of him, rotted beneath wha...
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...ent meanings. One meaning is the sympathy Miss Emily deserves. The other meaning is the meaning of love that Miss Emily yearns for so badly. Miss Emily is seen as a symbol herself because she represents the old dying South. The most important symbol of all is the house. The Grierson house holds many different meanings. The house symbolizes the dying old South, the power of death, and ultimately Miss Emily.
Works Cited
“A Rose for Emily.” SparkNotes. SparkNotes, n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2014.
Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and writing. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 12th ed. New York: Pearson, 2013. 32-37 Print.
Shmoop Editorial Team. “Death and Taxes in A Rose for Emily.” Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 28. 2008. Web. 09 Feb. 2014.
“Symbolism in “A Rose for Emily.”” N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb 2014.
Symbolism is a major literary device that helps people see a book through symbols that often have a deeper meaning. A symbol is used to explain something in a different way, using images, objects, etc. instead of just saying it in words. As you search for a deeper meaning in a work of art or literature, it can help you understand the authors intentions and the deeper significance of a work. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, symbols help reinforce the major themes of the book. Fire and flames have been used as symbols by many authors.
According to Charmaine Mosby, “A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner, accentuates one of his primary themes: “change and decay.” The reader clearly acknowledges Emily’s denial to change as Faulkner describes how she refused to accept her father’s death. Hence, this foreshadowed why Emily kept Homer Barron’s corpse. Her inability to let go and accept the changing reality forced her “combine life and death in her own person.” Mosby further emphasizes Faulkner’s theme by mentioning that the gray long hair found next to Homer’s corpse symbolized Emily’s interaction between them even after his death. In addition to this theme, Mosby also reveals that another theme: the erosion of the social structure of the 20th century by the industrialized South. Mosby claims that Faulkner emphasized the acceptance of Homer and Emily’s relationship from the Jefferson’s community to enable the reader to realize how the change of views to modern ideals.
Faulkner, William. A Rose For Emily. 10th ed. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2010. 681-687. Print.
Symbolism is used in many ways and writers use symbolism to “enhance their writing.” It can give their work “more richness and color and can make the meaning of the work deeper.” In literary work, the actions of the characters, words, action, place, or event have a deeper meaning in the context of the whole story. The reader needs to see the little things like a dove symbolizes peace, or like the red rose stands for romance. Mostly everything can have a symbolic meaning to it.
Symbolism is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as a representation of a concept through symbols or underlying meanings of objects or qualities, sometimes abstract, other times more literal. Often times in literature an author or poet employs the concept and use of symbolism where one object is used to refer to something else in order to create an emphasis or convey a point without slamming it in the face of the reader. It’s a person’s individual perception or system of belief that brings them to the true meaning of a specific symbol as it applies to their lives. Sometimes an entire piece of work is an extended metaphor for an idea the author is trying to convey such as in Animal Farm. However, the importance of this literary device is undisputed, in any work. Writers insert symbols into their writing to allude to a feeling, mood, attitude or ideology, without directly stating the perspective or mood intended. The authors of Ethan Frome and The House of Spirits use symbolism to convey both emotions such as anxiety and foreboding, and other things such as the ideas of what a woman should be, morality, and representations of revolutionary ideology.
and Writing. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 11th ed. New York: Longman, 2010.
Amidst the discourse, the history and tragedy, upon life and death, of tradition and change, of the struggle to find love in an otherwise hopeless place, we immortalize Emily by giving her the rose she so deserves. To a young woman, you give a rose to signify love and
One of the most prominent symbols in the story is Emily’s house. The house represents the destruction of the primitive Southern families and aristocracy that surrounded the neighborhood. The author describes the house as “a big, squarish frame…decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies” (Faulkner 668). Contrary to the time period the house was built, the setting of the story takes place much later than the 1870s when everything in the neighborhood has changed. The neighborhood which was once considered “[the] most select street” had “garages and cotton gins [encroach] and [obliterate] the neighborhood” (Faulkner 668). Nonetheless, the reader is able to conclude based on the house’s exterior appearance that it also represents mental illness and death. The house has been left untouched and as one of the very few visitors noted” [the house] smelled of dust and disuse—a close, dank smell” (Faulkner 669). By leaving the interior of the house unchanged for years, Emily had created a shrine of the past. Consequently, the author has instilled another chilling symbol in the story: a single strand of grey hair. The hair, which is found on a pillow next to the decaying body, represents the loss of love and the perverse actions committed by people in order to remain happy. The strand of hair also gives perspective to Emil...
Significant Quote: “Alive, Miss Emily has been a tradition, a duty, and a care.” Plot: The plot of “A Rose for Emily” shows the later years of the main character, Emily Grierson, with flashbacks to her life interspersed between. It begins with the reader learning of her passing, developing into a story that provides insight into her reclusive nature and past dealings with family as well as the town of Jefferson. Due to her reclusive nature and high standing in society, she is often gossiped about by her fellow townsfolk.
Symbolism is a type of literary device authors use to add special effect and meaning to their stories. According to The American Heritage Dictionary, symbolism is “The practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships (“symbolism”).” Objects, people, actions, and words often are used to symbolize a deeper meaning throughout the text of a story. As one reads a story, they must realize that each sentence they are reading could have a double meaning; this means that further thought is often necessary, on the part of the reader, to better understand the whole effect the author was trying to portray. Tennessee Williams wrote The Glass Menagerie in a somewhat complex and confusing manor; if the reader does not read into the meaning of the symbols that are scattered throughout the text, the story is misunderstood.
Faulkner uses symbolism to help bring out the main points in the story itself and also uses this symbolism to show how Emily is an allegory for the changes in the South during the time of the Civil War. By using the symbols of the rose meaning love or silence, or the hair meaning that over time things change, or even the house, being set back in the old times of the Civil War, symbolism is shown many ways throughout this short story. William Faulkner wrote "A Rose for Emily," in a way where the reader is able to comprehend and interpret the main points in the story in a different way as to where they will be able to look deeper within the meaning of each part of the story rather than having a dull meaning behind everything.
The theme of "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner is that people should let go of the past, moving on with the present so that they can prepare to welcome their future. Emily was the proof of a person who always lived on the shadow of the past; she clung into it and was afraid of changing. The first evident that shows to the readers right on the description of Grierson's house "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." The society was changing every minutes but still, Emily's house was still remained like a symbol of seventieth century. The second evident show in the first flashback of the story, the event that Miss Emily declined to pay taxes. In her mind, her family was a powerful family and they didn't have to pay any taxes in the town of Jefferson. She even didn't believe the sheriff in front of her is the "real" sheriff, so that she talked to him as talk to the Colonel who has died for almost ten years "See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson." Third evident was the fact that Miss Emily had kept her father's death body inside the house and didn't allow burying him. She has lived under his control for so long, now all of sudden he left her, she was left all by herself, she felt lost and alone, so that she wants to keep him with her in order to think he's still living with her and continued controlling her life. The fourth evident and also the most interesting of this story, the discovery of Homer Barron's skeleton in the secret room. The arrangement inside the room showing obviously that Miss Emily has slept with the death body day by day, until all remained later was just a skeleton, she's still sleeping with it, clutching on it every night. The action of killing Homer Barron can be understood that Miss Emily was afraid that he would leave her, afraid of letting him go, so she decided to kill him, so that she doesn't have to afraid of losing him, of changing, Homer Barron would still stay with her forever.
The past takes on numerous symbols in “A Rose for Emily,” with the most major being the past as the Old South. It may be the Old South, a South that has been beaten and defeated by the North .It is, however, a South, which persistently and rather unreasonably insists on clinging to its previous wonders and one, which refuses to accept the passage of time or confront the changes that have been brought upon it. The South is Miss Emily, embodied in her refusal to pay taxes, She says “ See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson.” Colonel Sartoris has been dead almost ten years. This shows how disconnected Miss Emily is from the world and how she refuses to accept the change that’s going on around her, ending in her indifferent treatment of the town’s authorities and her rejection ...
Miss Emily's house as the setting of the story is a perfect metaphor for the events occurring during that time period. It portrays the decay of Miss Emily's life and values and of the southern way of life and their clash with the newer generations. The house is situated in what was once a prominent neighborhood that has now deteriorated. Miss Emily's "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 of an earlier time," now looked awkward surrounded by "cotton wagons" and "gasoline pumps." The townspeople consider it "an eyesore among eyesores." Time has taken a similar role with Miss Emily altering her appearance from that of a "slender figure in white" (624) to that of "a small, fat woman in black" (622). The setting of Faulkner's story defines Miss Emily's tight grasp of ante-bellum ways and unchanging demeanor.. Through her refusal to put "metal numbers above her door and attach a mail box" to her house she is refusing to change with society. Miss Emily's attitude towards change is ...