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Characterization and theme of a rose for emily
Analysis of the story a rose for emily
Analysis of the story a rose for emily
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In his short story, “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner tells the reader of Miss Emily’s life through stream of consciousness. Faulkner utilizes this rhetorical strategy to deepen his examination of the human psyche. In this story, Faulkner also examines the physical and learned helplessness and how this can often result in mental illnesses. “A Rose for Emily” explores how new generations move on, and these generations tend to forget. William Faulkner uses Miss Emily's house to describe Miss Emily in a deeper manner. In the second paragraph, Faulkner writes that the house “was a big, squarish frame house that had once been forgotten,” (2). This is the first time the reader begins to understand the relationship between Miss Emily and the house. Here, the reader becomes aware of the relationship between the townspeople and Miss Emily. With this statement, Faulkner brings attention to the fact that Miss Emily, just like the house, has been forgotten. The new generations have arrived, and they have moved on. This generation has left Miss Emily behind. In the past, Miss Emily's father took care of the house, but since his death, the house deteriorated. This situation parallels Miss Emily’s experience after the death of her father. Shortly after her father’s death, the townspeople tried to take care of Miss …show more content…
Emily, but as time passed, and the new generations arose, the townspeople no longer seek to take care of Miss Emily. To the young generation of townspeople, Miss Emily has been forgotten. Faulkner also describes the house as being in “stubborn and coquettish decay,” (2).
The reader learns later in the story that Miss Emily indeed is stubborn. First, she refuses to let the townspeople bury her dead father, and then she kills Homer and refuses to let go of him. She holds onto him even when he no longer lives. The house she lives in directly parallels Miss Emily. The use of the word “decay” also enables the reader to see that Miss Emily deteriorates both mentally and physically as time passes. This correlates to Miss Emily's inability to let go of her father and Homer. Once again, Faulkner uses the house to give the reader an idea of Miss Emily's
life. William Faulkner also describes this house as “an eyesore among eyesores,” (2). This description offers the deepest insight to Miss Emily. Miss Emily sticks out as a different kind of sinner in a town full of gossips and stalkers. The townspeople think of Miss Emily as an eyesore because she does not live life the same way they do. These townspeople find joy in Miss Emily's loneliness, thus furthering Faulkner's point that Miss Emily, and her house, stand out in this congregation of snobs. The townspeople look down on Miss Emily for being a snob, but in reality, they behave exactly the same way. Describing Miss Emily's house as an “eyesore among eyesores,” (2) allows Faulkner to continue to delve deeper into human psychology, because the reader beings to see just how much Miss Emily gets treated like a misfit in a town of people who act just as she does. It is here that the reader completely understands the hypocrisy in the town of Jefferson. In “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner explores the depths of the human psyche by directly comparing the house to Miss Emily herself. Through this, and the stream of consciousness, Faulkner writes about mental illness: a topic that only begins to be understood in this time period. Faulkner shows the reader the hypocrisy in not only the townspeople, but in our everyday lives. He explores the fact that generations move on and often forget the importance and significance of the previous generations.
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.
Faulkner first tells that shortly after her father’s death Miss Emily’s sweetheart left her. Everybody in the town thought that Emily and this sweetheart of hers were going to be married. After her sweetheart left her the people of the town saw her very little. Faulkner then tells what might be viewed as the climax of the story next. He explains that one day Miss Emily went into town and bought rat poison. By revealing this so early on in the story it challenges the reader to use their imagination. The readers’ view of Miss Emily could now possibly be changed. It has changed from feeling sorry for this woman to thinking she is going to murder someone.
Emily Grierson was not alone after her death, ironically, as all the town came to her funeral even though they never came to see her before. She was laid in the ground more near people than she had ever been in her life. William Faulkner refers to Emily as a “fallen monument” of the town that would also signify abandonment. The house that Emily lived in was on a street that was deserted, and she was the only inhabitant. The house she lived
Faulkner writes “A Rose for Emily” in the view of a memory, the people of the towns’ memory. The story goes back and forth like memories do and the reader is not exactly told whom the narrator is. This style of writing contributes to the notions Faulkner gives off during the story about Miss Emily’s past, present, and her refusal to modernize with the rest of her town. The town of Jefferson is at a turning point, embracing the more modern future while still at the edge of the past. Garages and cotton gins are replacing the elegant southern homes. Miss Emily herself is a living southern tradition. She stays the same over the years despite many changes in her community. Even though Miss Emily is a living monument, she is also seen as a burden to the town. Refusing to have numbers affixed to the side of her house when the town receives modern mail service and not paying her taxes, she is out of touch with reality. The younger generation of leaders brings in Homer’s company to pave the sidewalks. The past is not a faint glimmer but an ever-present, idealized realm. Emily’s morbid bridal ...
In a “Rose for Emily”, Faulkner uses Emily’s house as a symbol of the barrier Emily forms between herself and society. As society moves through generations and changes over the years, Emily remains the same, within the borders of her own household. The house is described as “in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street”(125), but years passed and more modern houses had “obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood” (125). Faulkner set the house apart from the rest of the neighborhood, and Emily is described in the beginning as “a fallen monument” and a “tradition” indicating that she had not changed in an extended amount of time. The symbol of the house, remaining unchanged through the decades that passed becomes stronger when Emily does not permit tax collectors to pass through the threshold of the house, “She vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before”. Emily’s image of a “monument” to the community’s small society caused her to become exempt from the demands of the state that the rest of the population had to adhere to. Emily’s house enab...
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 short story “A Rose for Emily” displays themes of alienation and isolation. Emily Grierson’s own father is found to be the root of many of her problems. Faulkner writes Emily’s character as one who is isolated from the people of her town. Her isolation from society and alienation from love is what ultimately drives her to madness.
While she is still alive, the townspeople have a certain respect for her because she has been there so long; they do not feel a need to change what has always been. Nevertheless, once she dies what is left of her, such as her house, is a disgrace to the town. “Only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores. Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town” (Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily” 119). In the same way, the people of the South followed tradition in their lifestyles.
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.
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.
Faulkner starts his story by showing the amount of respect that is shown at Emily’s funeral. It is said that the entire town attended this event, but also that some only showed up to see what the inside of her house looked like because no one had been inside in over ten years. “The men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant- a combined gardener and cook- had seen in at least ten years”(pg.542). He explains this to show the mysterious interest of Emily. By explaining the mystery in Emily, he carries a dark tone that mystifies the audience.
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 the short story “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner, Emily, the protagonist, is shown as someone who’s life is falling apart and brought down by society. Emily in this story could be described as a victim to society and her father. Emily Grierson’s confinement, loss of her father and Homer, and constant criticism caused her, her insanity.
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.