A Rose For Emily Theme Essay

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I will be analyzing three concepts/themes from the short story "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner. The first theme I will go over is the ever-present notion of death throughout the story. We learn from the beginning that Emily has experienced the death of someone dear to her at a young age. Glooming over Emily for a majority of her life. For some reason though Emily feels that she can overcome death in some weird way. By refusing to let go of the corpses of both her father and Homer. As if she can through sure will bring life into them by being alongside them forever. With this plague of death hanging over Emily the town describes even her physical characteristics to be unliving. With descriptions such as "drowned woman, a bloated and pale …show more content…

Seeing that Homer wasn’t the "settle down marrying type.". Due to this she may have potentially saw Homer breaking up with her and moving away. Thus, in her mind the only way that he would be with her until the end was to kill him. Even though in her eyes she is not killing him, but just giving him true life with her. Emily sees this as victory over death. While in reality death has already prevailed in taking Homer away, but just without Emily's acknowledgment. Another theme in "A Rose for Emily" is this rooted tradition. Both with the town and for Emily. The biggest way we see this tradition with Emily is her refusal to pay taxes since she didn’t have to pay before. Going off the declaration of Colonel Sartoris as if word was law for all of time. Showing that Emily does not care what changes go on around her, and she will carry on doing whatever she wants to do. Sticking to her old ways like a unmoving boulder. As a relic for the towns people to look back at and see how things use to be. Which is shown when former Confederate Soldiers gather in uniform for her funeral. Both seeing the positive and negatives

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