A Rose for Emily tells the tale of a lonely woman named Emily Grierson and the events that occur since her father died up and up until her death. The unique thing about this story is that it isn’t told in chronological order. Faulkner transitions from the past to the present all throughout the story. The events being out of order make the story more interesting and it also creates suspense. The audience might be confused at times but at the end of the story everything adds up and makes sense. I think that if Faulkner had told it in chronological order it would have been boring and predictable. The story is divided into five sections. The first section says that Miss Emily has died and the whole town goes to her funeral. The men go to pay their respect and condolences but the women are more concerned with what is going on in her house. They are curious because no one has been in that house for so many years. The unknown narrator describes the house saying it was big and it was, “set on what had once been our most select street.” (Faulkner 209) In the next section, Faulkner goes back to the past to tell us more about Emily's life while she was alive. Her neighbor's smell a horrible odor coming from her house and they complain to Judge Stevens. Then later four men are sent at night to clean up. They arrived at her house, opened the cellar door and applied lime everywhere. Since the story is out of order, we don’t know that Miss Emily has killed Homer, who the hideous order is coming from. If the story was in chronological order there would be no suspense or curiosity about what’s causing the smell. In the third section, the narrator introduces the relationship that develops between Homer and Emily Grierson. Emily mee... ... middle of paper ... ...le dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.”, indicates that she has been sleeping next to a dead corpse. (Faulkner 215) This story was very unique and unlike anything I have ever read before. William Faulkner’s way of telling the story was both interesting and suspenseful. All throughout the story, I had mixed emotions because at first I felt sympathy for her because she was so lonely and unfairly scrutinized by the townspeople but then I found out she killed Homer and I wasn’t sure whether to still feel sorry for her. It was very clear in the story that Emily was a bit crazy. Overall, I enjoyed reading this story; the out of order events gave this story a unique touch. Works Cited Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily.” Literature: Reading, Reacting, and Writing Compact 7th Edition. Boston: Waldsmorth, 2010. 209-215
The order in which events are told in a story can create suspense while letting the reader use their imagination. Faulkner’s events are by far not ordered chronologically. He starts off by telling the death of Emily Rose who is the protagonist of the story. Throughout the rest of the story he describes Emily’s life and the changes that accompany it. "Miss Emily was a women deeply admired by the community in which she lived" (Faulkner 80). The death of her father, although years before her death, brought her grief, but also gave her hope. While her father was around, Emily was never allowed to date. Her father thought that no man was good enough for Emily. Once her father passed away Miss Emily became somewhat desperate for human love.
The second foreshadow to be analyzed is Emily’s inability to perceive death as a finality. Around the middle of the story the narrator informs the reader about how Emily had handled her father’s death. In fact the passage is quite detailed; Emily tells the town that “…her father was not dead. She did that for three days…” (p.93) Faulkner uses this foreshadowing text to aid us recognize that Emily could not let go of things that brought her grief easily or at all in Homers case.
The story makes it harder for first time readers to comprehend what is going on since things are backwards, but in the movie version we see the courtship of Emily and Homer, see her buy poison, and then a rancid smell omitting from her house (Moore). That confusion is what makes the reader craving more instead of the expectedness that comes along with the film. When the reader is lost, he/she is more focused on trying to figure out where they are on the timeline and what is going on causing them to miss the subtle clues thought the story. In the story, Emily wouldn’t automatically be assumed as a murder, but rather she would be seen as a lonely woman secluded from the outside
The main symbolism running throughout A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, is the theme of how important it is to let go of the past. Miss Emily clings to the past and does not want to be independent. The Old South is becoming the new South and she cannot move forward. The residents of the South did not all give in to change just because they lost the Civil War. In A Rose for Emily time marches on leaving Miss Emily behind as she stubbornly refuses to progress into a new era. In the story, symbolism is used to give more details than the author actually gives to the reader. Symbolism helps to indicate how Emily was once innocent but later changes, how her hair, house, and lifestyle, helped to show her resistance to change. The story is not told in chronological order. The events of her life are revealed slowly and create suspense over the telling of the story by the narrator. The narrator represents the town and its residents.
Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” Literature for Composition. 4th ed. Ed. Sylvan Barnet, et al. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
...s story he writes about how earlier in Emily’s life she refuses to let the town’s people in her house even though there is a strong odor that is coming from her property. In this section her father has just passed away and was abandoned by a man who she wanted to marry. This section she becomes very depressed. In section three it talks about how Emily is starting to come down with an illness after all of the depressing events she had to endure. In sections four and five Faulkner describes how there is fear throughout the towns people is that of which Emily is going to possibly poison herself. A while later she then she passes away. In section five is when the truth is revealed to the public about her sickness. Faulkner uses the view point of an unnamed town member while he uses a third person perspective to show the general corrosion of the southern town’s people.
It is so terrible with "A Rose For Emily," the horrible feelings come up immediately when the story ends with two dead bodies in the old and dirty house. One is Homer Barron, Emily's lover. The other is Emily herself. What a pity for a woman like Emily. No, Emily is not really a woman. She is just a child (or a daughter). Since being born, her life was framed strictly by her selfish father." Miss Emily, a slender figure in white in the background, her father a large silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door." Miss Emily could not find her own real life. And then her father died. Everyone in town was very pleased that Emily might have a chance to be happy from then on. But very shortly after the shock of her father's death, Emily had another shock when her sweetheart left her alone and went away. Nobody was expecting that. Poor Emily! She was just a little girl having no experience over thirty years of age. Homer, the young man that everyone believed would marry her, was just a liar, as well. And as a result, Emily killed Homer and lay beside his dead body for years. At the age of forty, Emily was still a child -- an old child with loneliness and unfulfilled soul.
William Faulkner used indirect characterization to portray Miss Emily as a stubborn, overly attached, and introverted women through the serious of events that happened throughout her lifetime. The author cleverly achieves this by mentioning her father’s death, Homer’s disappearance, the town’s taxes, and Emily’s reactions to all of these events. Emily’s reactions are what allowed the readers to portray her characteristics, as Faulkner would want her to be
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.
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Shorter 5th ed. Ed. R.V.Cassill. New York: W.W. Norton & Comp., 1995.
The theme of "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner is that people should let go of the past, moving on with the present so that they can prepare to welcome their future. Emily was the proof of a person who always lived on the shadow of the past; she clung into it and was afraid of changing. The first evident that shows to the readers right on the description of Grierson's house "it was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street." The society was changing every minutes but still, Emily's house was still remained like a symbol of seventieth century. The second evident show in the first flashback of the story, the event that Miss Emily declined to pay taxes. In her mind, her family was a powerful family and they didn't have to pay any taxes in the town of Jefferson. She even didn't believe the sheriff in front of her is the "real" sheriff, so that she talked to him as talk to the Colonel who has died for almost ten years "See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson." Third evident was the fact that Miss Emily had kept her father's death body inside the house and didn't allow burying him. She has lived under his control for so long, now all of sudden he left her, she was left all by herself, she felt lost and alone, so that she wants to keep him with her in order to think he's still living with her and continued controlling her life. The fourth evident and also the most interesting of this story, the discovery of Homer Barron's skeleton in the secret room. The arrangement inside the room showing obviously that Miss Emily has slept with the death body day by day, until all remained later was just a skeleton, she's still sleeping with it, clutching on it every night. The action of killing Homer Barron can be understood that Miss Emily was afraid that he would leave her, afraid of letting him go, so she decided to kill him, so that she doesn't have to afraid of losing him, of changing, Homer Barron would still stay with her forever.
Faulkner used the theme of Tradition versus death and change which are most commonly discussed in this story; since the story informs us of the passing of Emily, Mr. Grierson, the town's mayor and Emily's suitor. After her dad's passing Emily lost all hope and she becomes ill. The anticipation of Emily purchasing poison from the drug store is exceptionally shocking for the townspeople. They imagined that Emily purchased the poison to confer suicide, yet she murdered her suitor Homer and shrouds his body in the house until she is dead at the age of
„A Rose for Emily”, a story of horror first published in 1930, is considered by many scholars one of the most authentic and the best narratives ever written by William Faulkner. It is a story of a woman, Emily Grierson, and her relationships with her father, the man she was in love with and the community of Jefferson, the town she lived in.
In William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose For Emily,” he tells a story in which Emily Grierson’s life is told by an unknown narrator. The Narrator tells how in Emily’s life, she has kept to herself inside her house for the majority of her life, causing the townspeople to grow more and more curious as the distance from her grew. He tells of her unsuccessful love life and how eventually they would find Homer Barron, the only man that she had showed interest in, dead, laying in a bed, in a room that had collected a large amount of dust.
Miss Emily's house as the setting of the story is a perfect metaphor for the events occurring during that time period. It portrays the decay of Miss Emily's life and values and of the southern way of life and their clash with the newer generations. The house is situated in what was once a prominent neighborhood that has now deteriorated. Miss Emily's "big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies of an earlier time," now looked awkward surrounded by "cotton wagons" and "gasoline pumps." The townspeople consider it "an eyesore among eyesores." Time has taken a similar role with Miss Emily altering her appearance from that of a "slender figure in white" (624) to that of "a small, fat woman in black" (622). The setting of Faulkner's story defines Miss Emily's tight grasp of ante-bellum ways and unchanging demeanor.. Through her refusal to put "metal numbers above her door and attach a mail box" to her house she is refusing to change with society. Miss Emily's attitude towards change is ...