Analysis Of William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

On the surface, William Faulkner 's short story, A Rose for Emily, is about the life, gradual aging, financial decline, and death of Emily Grierson, a reclusive spinster who locks herself up in her house and avoids most human contact after losing the two men who figured most prominently in her life: a father who died of natural causes and Homer Barron, a lover that perished at her hand. However, a deeper reading of the story also takes place on its surface in a very literal sense. Faulkner conceives of the progression of Emily 's life as a story of decay that is reflected on various physical surfaces, be they faces, body parts, or furniture and clothes. Although he works in the medium of writing, Faulkner approaches storytelling from the
In fact, the way the story conveys Emily 's reduced vigor is by portraying her as metaphorically dead even while she is physically alive. In her old age, the narrator describes her body as a conglomeration of flesh that barely moves but rather passively floats. He writes that "she looked bloated like a body submerged in motionless water." Flesh that doesn 't move but is carried by water may call to mind images of a corpse at sea. The narrator metaphorically moves Emily from life to death by showing that, even at the rather young age of thirty, the flesh on her face was losing its expressive quality and becoming rigid and motionless just like her flesh in general. Instead of possessing the elasticity to take on different expressions, the skin of her face had become tight and "strained across the temples and about the eye sockets." At one point, to emphasize the lifelessness and the lack of expressiveness on her face, the narrator describes it as a "strained flag." Comparing a face to stretched-out fabric deprives it of human properties. It becomes mere material that does not express human emotions. Her general demeanor is equally characterized by a lack of emotion and warm human engagement. As she is confronted with suspicion in her attempt to purchase poison, Emily meets the druggist 's defiant questions with "cold, haughty eyes,"
Her possessions, originally luxurious, lose their luster and begin to look squalid and shabby.(Note: although Emily Grierson comes from a rich and distinguished family, her financial resources dwindle after the death of her father.) Her ebony cane with a gold head is a fancy item; but the gold on that head is tarnished and doesn 't look quite that beautiful anymore. The same can be said about the gilt easel standing before the fireplace; it too has become tarnished. During a visit to insist that she pay taxes, government officials notice that a stairway in her house doesn 't seem to have been dusted off often enough—it "smelled of dust." The seating furniture seems to have suffered exactly the same fate; "a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs" when the officials sat down on it. Neither has Emily invested funds in reupholstering or replacing this worn-out furniture whose "leather was