A Rose For Emily Analysis

“Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care.” (pg. 121) This is a quote from “A Rose for Emily.” “A Rose for Emily” was written by Williams Faulkner. Throughout the short story Faulkner focuses his attention to Emily Grierson, a small, fat woman whose skeleton was small and spare, who was deemed crazy by her town and proved her craziness consistently. We learn through the passage that Miss Emily didn’t experience a “normal” childhood. As for she was the daughter of a man who wouldn’t allow his daughter be open to the world. He sheltered her, and didn’t allow her to be intimate with men. This took a negative toll on the life of Emily Grierson. As she grew older things became tough for her to understand and realize. In her later

They often complained about a distinct smell came from her house. The “close, dank smell” (pg. 121) left many people wondering why it stunk so badly and therefore they filed complaints. “A neighbor, a woman, complained to the mayor, Judge Stevens, eighty years old.” (pg. 122) As the story progresses you learn there was more than one complaint. “The next day he received two more complaints, one from a man who came in diffident depreciation. “We really must do something about it, Judge. I’d be the last one in the world to bother Miss Emily, but we’ve got to do something.” (pg. 122) Another way the narrator expresses how different Miss Emily was when Miss Emily’s father died. As for it took Miss Emily three days to admit her father was actually dead. “Ministers and Doctors called trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body, Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly.” (pg. 123) Miss Emily was different in the way that she had no one to be there for her and how she often kept reality to the side. Through this Faulkner exaggerates how different he wanted the character Miss Emily to be, but also humanizes her by pitying her and showing exactly how bad off she is. He humanizes her through pity of having no one and by her not being able to find

She simply wanted love and wanted to feel normal. She wanted to have someone to make her feel special. The narrator describes her as “a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing in her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her.” (pg. 122) With this statement in mind we can imagine her wish to feel normal and beautiful. She had no one to be there for her, and she thought for once she had found that someone. The rose, representing love, was never given to Emily and for that she never found sanity. Miss Emily was well-known, different, and insane, but she was also still a human. She had a heartbeat, feelings, and personal desires. She was someone looking for her way in the world, but couldn’t fit the pieces