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Everyone has been told a legend or a story that has taken place in there town rather it be true or not. Some may be good but most of the time they are dark or creepy tails to scare local residents. Like in many places, there are a lot of dark and mysterious moments in William Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily.” However, this all hides the battle between Mrs. Emily and not wanting to accept change. Throughout this short story Emily is presented with change. One of the first main points I noticed while reading the story was her house. The story tells about how her old square framed house was the last of its kind, surrounded by cotton gins and buissnes (pg 96). Even though something like her house may seem small, it is a piece that helps build up to emilys unwillingness to change. The most …show more content…
Woman from town came over to visit and give there condolansis to her but shockingly Emily only said he was not dead. (pg98). This was a major point of the story were change is seen as a real problem for Emily. She kept her dad’s dead body in her home for three days teeling herself and everyone else that he was still alive. Eventally force had to be taken by the police and the body was put in a grave. It is not normal for someone to act like this but also her dad was all she ever knew. He ran off men and his own family, so when he died she went into a deep state of denial and refused to accept the fact she had lost the only person she loved. Of all that we see her struggle with and reject, there is something I see in the story that must be inferred because it is not said for sure. When homer is introduced into the story as a yankee from the north it is a surprise that he is in Alabama, aspecailly with the time period thye are in. so when the story says that people around town have seen homer going into emiys house it is a shock due to all the rejection to change that we have seen in the
Emily had a servant so that she did not have to leave the house, where she could remain in solitary. The front door was never opened to the house, and the servant came in through the side door. Even her servant would not talk to anyone or share information about Miss Emily. When visitors did come to Emily’s door, she became frantic and nervous as if she did not know what business was. The death of Emily’s father brought about no signs of grief, and she told the community that he was not dead. She would not accept the fact that she had been abandoned because of her overwhelming fear. Emily’s future husband deserted her shortly after her father’s death. These two tragic events propelled her fear of abandonment forward, as she hired her servant and did not leave the house again shortly after. She also worked from home so that she never had a reason to leave. Emily did not have any family in the area to console in because her father had run them off after a falling out previously. She also cut her hair short to remind her of a time when she was younger and had not been deserted. Even though people did not live for miles of Emily Grierson, citizens began
The house smells of dust and disuse and has a closed, dank smell. A description of Emily in the following paragraph discloses her similarity to the house. "She looked bloated like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that palled hue" (Norton Anthology, 2045). But she had not always had that appearance. In the picture of a young Emily with her father, she was frail and apparently hungering to participate in the life of the era. After her father's death, she looked like a girl "with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows--sort of tragic and serene" (Norton Anthology, 2046). This suggests that she had already begun her entrance into the nether-world.
This story takes place throughout the Reconstruction Era from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s in Jefferson, Mississippi. Emily was raised in the period before the Civil War. Her father who was the only person in her life with the exception of a former lover who soon left her as well raised her. The plot of this story is mainly about Miss Emily’s attitude about change. While growing up Emily was raised in a comfortable environment because her father possessed a lot of money. Considering that her father was a very wealthy person who occasionally loaned the town money Emily had everything a child could want. This caused Emily to be very spoiled and selfish and she never knew the value of a dollar until her father left her with nothing but a run down home that started to decay after a period of time. She began to ignore the surrounding decay of the house and her appearance. These lies continued as she denied her father’s death, refused to pay taxes, ignores town gossip about her being a fallen woman, and does not tell the druggist why she purchased rat poison. Her life, like the decaying house suffered from a lack of genuine love and care. Her physical appearance is brought about by years of neglect.
The end of the American Civil War also signified the end of the Old South's era of greatness. The south is depicted in many stories of Faulkner as a region where "the reality and myth are difficult to separate"(Unger 54). Many southern people refused to accept that their conditions had changed, even though they had bitterly realized that the old days were gone. They kept and cherished the precious memories, and in a fatal and pathetic attempt to maintain the glory of the South people tend to cling to old values, customs, and the faded, but glorified representatives of the past. Miss Emily was one of those selected representatives. The people in the southern small-town, where the story takes place, put her on a throne instead of throwing her in jail where she actually belonged. The folks in town, unconsciously manipulated by their strong nostalgia, became the accomplices of the obscene and insane Miss Emily.
William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is a story that uses flashbacks to foreshadow a surprise ending. The story begins with the death of a prominent old woman, Emily, and finishes with the startling discovery that Emily as been sleeping with the corpse of her lover, whom she murdered, for the past forty years. The middle of the story is told in flashbacks by a narrator who seems to represent the collective memory of an entire town. Within these flashbacks, which jump in time from ten years past to forty years past, are hidden clues which prepare the reader for the unexpected ending, such as hints of Emily's insanity, her odd behavior concerning the deaths of loved ones, and the evidence that the murder took place.
The main character in the short story “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner is Emily Grierson. She lives in Jefferson Mississippi, in a fictional county called Yoknapatawpha County. The people of Yoknapatawpha saw Miss Emily as "a small, fat woman" who was very cold, distant, and lived in her past. Her home "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...”. She lived in a little community that was changing and becoming more modern unlike her house. Her house, as Faulkner describes, "...smelled of dust and disuse-a close, dank smell"; "it was furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture". The look of Emily’s home bothered Emily’s community along with many other things about her. Emily has a "hereditary obligation upon the town". She is from a family of wealth that brought tradition to Yoknapatawpha County. When the town started making modern changes fitting into the next generation Emily became stubborn and showed this by refusing to pay taxes to her county. Emily repeats, "I have no taxes in Jefferson" four times before dismissing the deputation. Thomas Robert Argiro, the author of a critical essay called “Miss Emily After Dark” states that, “[Emily]… struggles with personal grief, a restricted social life, socio-economic decline, and romantic misfortune…” (par.2). Miss Emily is misunderstood by the townspeople and is resistant to the changes around her as well in her life.
One of the many indications that Miss Emily is stuck in the past is her refusal to accept that her father is dead after holding on to his body for three days. “She wants to keep him as she has known him instead of allowing him to return to dust”(Kurtz 40). Miss Emily’s father had such an impact on her life, that she was left powerless in every aspect, thus her decision to live in the past where she knew she could be in control.
... occurring in her life. The stubbornness of Emily is then also shown when the narrator describes the house as "stubborn and coquettish" (315).
In the short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, the story starts out with the townspeople attending the funeral of Emily Grierson, who has been the town’s responsibility for generations. Emily is a black sheep of the town she refuses to pay taxes and doesn’t take part in daily life. After the death of her father and the disappearance of her fiancé, she secludes herself in the old decrypt house her father left her. Throughout the story the townspeople excuse the strange behavior of Miss Emily from the horrible smell coming from her home to holding on to her father’s dead body for three days. Finally after Emily passes the curious townspeople search her home and find the decaying remains of her dead fiancé. In the short story “A
“A Rose for Emily” 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. William Faulkner introduces us to a number of characters but the most involved being Emily Grierson, Homer Barron, Tobe, and the ladies of the town; who are not named individually. Emily Grierson was once a beautiful and wealthy upper class young women who lived with her father, who has since died, on the towns,
The story is clearly an illustration of the passing of the old to the new, and of the real character of human nature - decadence. The townspeople had an equal share in the crime that Miss Emily committed, and they were instrumental in its cover-up. She is described as "dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse." (85) This description sums up the people's outlook of both her, and themselves in their willingness to embrace her. Even today the fetters of certain types of ignorance and other forms of evil acts are on view anywhere in the country if one looks. A Rose for Emily illustrates it in its purest form in its own time.
who had lost the person she really knew. This repression of Emily’s father dying was
Faulkner then shifts the story toward explaining what Emily’s house had once looked like. It was a big grim house that was once white. “It was a big, squarish frame house that has once been white, decorated with cupolus and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies”(542). It was the only one left on the street and many believes that it was an abomination to the community. “set on what had once been our most select s...
After her father passed, she developed Attachment Disorder, which led to Major Depression throughout the story. The town was very critical of Emily because she never associated with anyone outside her house. The passing of her father left Emily emotionally disturbed. She kept her father’s corpse in the basement and lay next to it. Emily’s father never let her date anyone, so she never was able to form a relationship with anybody.
William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily is written in the third person limited point of view. Third person limited point of view is when the narrator focuses on the thoughts, feelings, and mind of one character. This point of view presented Faulkner more freedom when writing this piece of literature than he would have had if he used the first person point of view (Wiehardt 3). In his story, Faulkner uses the words “he” and “she” a majority of the time. The use of these words indicate he is using the third person; however, he also writes some parts of the story in the first-person point of view.