A Rose For Emily Literary Analysis Essay

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Joseph Martinez Ms. Noh A.P. Literature Period 5 1 November 2014 Fictional Elements in A Rose for Emily There are many elements of fiction; some are more prominent than others. In A Rose for Emily, by William Faulkner, elements such as point of view, characterization and character development as well as symbols are used to convey the authors intended theme of the memory and the past. Through the story Faulkner includes details about things such as hair and writing styles, as well as the fact that the point of view is that of the townspeople, to symbolize time and to reference the concept of memory. He develops Emily as a character in order to further his capability of conveying his intended theme of memory and the past. There are many things that can represent time. At the end of the story, the people enter Emily’s house to attend her funeral and come across a room in which they find the rotting corpse of her old suitor and an iron-gray hair resting in the indention of a …show more content…

The author states that Emily writes the letter "on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink". The attention that the author draws to this detail helps to show the attachment to the past that Emily refuses to remit herself from. As seen with her relationship with Homer, the stationery serves to emphasize the theme of the story. It also points to the tensions of the past, present, and future which is explored in the work. This is shown through the numerous tax collectors and sheriffs that arrive at her doorstep to, hopefully, collect the taxes that she refuses to pay for a long while. These collectors begin as the men of her father’s time and progress into men of a younger, newer generation. This is shown in the beginning of section two as it says that “[Emily] vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the

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