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Literary analysis of a rose for emily setting
Character of emily in a rose for emily
Literary analysis of a rose for emily setting
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“A Rose for Emily” takes place in Jefferson, Mississippi. The time span of the story of this troubled young woman’s life stretched over forty years, from 1875-1920. “A Rose for Emily” is a fictional story, like most of William Faulkner’s works. In A Rose for Emily, Emily represents the old south. Emily had many traditional beliefs. In my paper I will be writing about how the town reacted to her keeping her father’s body after he passed away, how the town reacted to Emily killing Homer, and if they thought she was guilty of murder or insane. William Faulkner uses “A Rose for Emily” to show how the south reacted to modern times. Body section 1 The day after Mr. Grierson’s death, the women of the town call on Emily to offer their condolences. Meeting them at the door, Emily would continue to say that her father was not dead; she continues to keep this up for three days. She finally, after ministers and doctors called on her turned her father’s body over for burial. As many would believe that she was completely insane for doing this, they people of Jefferson, Mississippi did not. They actually felt sorry for Emily, they believed that her father was controlling and would run anyone that came into Emily’s life off. Her friends believe the only reason why Emily kept the body of her father is because that was the only …show more content…
Emily went to the drug store to purchase arsenic, the druggist asked her what she was using it for, was she using it for rats. Miss. Emily did not respond to him, she just looked at him. Finally the druggist went to the back to get the poison; he made another young man take it back out to her. People of Jefferson said that Emily would kill her own self with it. That afternoon when Homer arrived to Emily’s house that was the last time anyone would ever see or hear from him again. Emily’s front door would stay closed; the only person who would leave the house was the Negro working for Emily. The Negro would leave with the market
The author, William Faulkner, has a collection of books, short stories, and poems under his name. Through his vast collection of works, Faulkner attempts to discuss and bring awareness to numerous aspects of life. More often than not, his works were created to reflect aspects of life found within the south. Family dynamics, race, gender, social class, war, incest, racism, suicide, necrophilia, and mental illness are just some of the aspects that Faulkner explored. In “A Rose for Emily” the aspects of necrophilia and mental illness along with the societal biases that were observed in a small-town setting are seen to be a part of this captivating story. These aspects ultimately intertwine with the idea of insanity that characterizes “A Rose for Emily.
Woman from town came over to visit and give there condolansis to her but shockingly Emily only said he was not dead. (pg98). This was a major point of the story were change is seen as a real problem for Emily. She kept her dad’s dead body in her home for three days teeling herself and everyone else that he was still alive. Eventally force had to be taken by the police and the body was put in a grave. It is not normal for someone to act like this but also her dad was all she ever knew. He ran off men and his own family, so when he died she went into a deep state of denial and refused to accept the fact she had lost the only person she loved.
Upon Miss Emily’s purchase of the poison, it shows her steep transition into obsession of the past. To the public eye it was incredibly out of character in which they believed she was preparing to kill herself after not being able to marry Homer Barron. However, when she fails to prove them right, the disappearance of Homer did not take the public by surprise until the sudden self-seclusion of Miss Emily herself. “Now and then we would see her at a window for a moment, as the men did when they sprinkled the lime, but for almost six months she did not appear on the streets.” (Faulkner 314) It is because of her self-inflicted isolation that Miss Emily dies all alone in a diminished and dilapidated home where “the house is an essence of her crypt, enclosing in its walls all the signs of death, dust, shadows, foul odors, not to mention a corpse that rots into a skeleton.” (Harris 174) Miss Emily’s death signifies her self-inflicted solitude, and her complete and final result of internal and external
Miss Emily was brought into the spotlight the same moment as her father died. Being the last remaining person from the high ranking Grierson family in town, she became the new ambassador of the old days. The people welcomed her with open arms, without actually knowing anything more about her than her admirable name. Her father's death also meant that Miss Emily's unrevealed secret was brought into the grave. It is well known that insanity is a hereditary disposition, and Miss Emily's great-aunt, lady Wyatt, had "gone absolutely crazy"(80) before she passed away a couple of years earlier. Emily's father had since then dissociated from that branch of the family, as if to run away from a dishonorable influence. I believe that he was aware of her condition, and he therefore had kept her from social life and driven away the long road of suitors to prevent her from causing another scandal, which could spot his and his family's remaining reputation.
The reason I chose to analyze “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner is because I am a lover of suspense and terror. The story totally caught my attention because the general tone is one of violence, gloom, and terror. The setting also plays an important role because it gives the reader a better understanding of the different situations. The main character, Emily, plays the role of a tragic figure that seems to be seen only from the outside. Sometimes people judge others from the outside, but they do not realize about the inside of the person. In the story, Emily is constantly judged by the townspeople because of her physical appearance, but they do not understand what she is going through emotionally. Another important character in the story is “Homer Baron” who plays an important role because he becomes Miss Emily’s lover. Moreover, the story is divided into five sections made up of several suspenseful events. Many speculations are made by different literary critics regarding Emily’s character; her lover “Homer Baron”; the meaning of a hidden watch she had in her pocket regarding her progress in life as time passed by; and the setting of the story.
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.
When her father passed away, it was a devastating loss for Miss Emily. The lines from the story 'She told them her father was not dead. She did that for three days,' (Charter 171) conveys the message that she tried to hold on to him, even after his death. Even though, this was a sad moment for Emily, but she was liberated from the control of her father. Instead of going on with her life, her life halted after death of her father. Miss Emily found love in a guy named Homer Barron, who came as a contractor for paving the sidewalks in town. Miss Emily was seen in buggy on Sunday afternoons with Homer Barron. The whole town thought they would get married. One could know this by the sentences in the story ?She will marry him,? ?She will persuade him yet,? (Charter 173).
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.
Emily’s isolation from the townspeople, throughout her life, would have had many negative effects on her psychological development. Her father had an inflated sense of pride; he perceived an exalted power in the value of his family name. He uses this pride to drive away all of Emily’s suitors, leaving her a spinster at age thirty. When he perishes, the narrator feels pity for Miss Emily, even attempting to rationalize the three days she refused to give up his body for burial, and her insistence that he was not dead. “Emily became an emotional orphan in search of the father who had been taken from her” (Scherting 400). Her father was the only relationship available to Emily, and with his death; she has nothing and no one. This makes her intentions to murder and cling to Homer’s body, an act of control because by committing the act in secrecy, no one can destroy her illusions and take Homer away from her like they did her
In “A Rose for Emily”, by William Faulkner, Emily Geierson is a woman that faces many difficulties throughout her lifetime. Emily Geierson was once a cheerful and bright lady who turned mysterious and dark through a serious of tragic events. The lost of the two men, whom she loved, left Emily devastated and in denial. Faulkner used these difficulties to define Emily’s fascinating character that is revealed throughout the short story. William Faulkner uses characterization in “A Rose for Emily”, to illustrate Miss Emily as a stubborn, overly attached, and introverted woman.
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.
In Faulkner’s tale “A Rose for Emily” there are many historical elements throughout the story; Faulkner uses them to give an authentic feel to the story and to add to the setting. A recurring theme that I found was reference to the reconstruction of the South after the Civil War. The setting of the South after their demise in the Civil War adds character to the story and to the characters. The attitudes people had and the way people treated Emily with respect was a tradition of the “Old South” that is presented throughout this tale.
As a child, Emily was unable make friends or even play outside because her father held his family to a much higher standard than other townspeople “The Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were” (Faulkner 36). Emily’s father, selfishly held Emily back from living, loving, and freedom. She was unable to find a soul mate because her father believed that “None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such” (Faulkner 36). Because of this, Emily stuck close to the only man she’s ever known like a newborn to its mother. Emily and her father had such a close bond that when he died, for days she refused to believe he was dead, and she also refused to let the townspeople dispose of the body. For the townspeople, Emily’s reaction to her father’s death was quite normal, but for readers it was our first glimpse at her necrophilia.
Throughout the story, the reader is told about her overbearing father, her reluctance to change her ways for the town of Jefferson, and her new love interest Homer Barron. With hints of foreshadowing and learning about Miss Emily’s past problems with letting her deceased father go, the reader finds the story ending at her funeral with the discovery of the body of Homer Barron kept in her house. Miss Emily did not want to lose her new love, so she poisons him and keeps his body around, letting her maintain a relationship with him even though he has passed on. Characters:.. Emily Grierson – A young southern belle who adored her father and became a shut in after his passing.
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.