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Character and Setting Analysis to A Rose for Emily
Analysis for a rose for emily
A rose for Emily analysis character
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In the short story “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner and the film version directed by Lyndon Chubbuck the dominant theme of love and security is displayed. Faulkner story view the idea of love as a dark obsession plagued by loneliness in search of belonging. It is a story about protagonist Emily Grierson who has been deprived of love due to her controlling father. She lives in a society that has stereotypical views that women should be married therefore they are dependent on men. Based on Faulkner short story, the film version effectively utilizes rhetorical devices to emphasize that hanging onto the past and refusing to accept change will result in isolation and judgment. Faulkner short story is about the character Emily Grierson …show more content…
In the film there were many scenes that each character displayed different facial expressions to help the viewers to understand the plot and the reasons behind the choices Emily makes. This is shown in the scene where Emily goes to purchase poison, Huston who plays Emily has a harsh expression when she speaks to the druggists which infers there is motive behind her purchase. In the film viewers can see she is very calculated on how she asks for the poison leading to the druggists to notice her bizarre behavior. When he starts to ask her questions she just stares at him refusing to answer. Faulkner print version is similar but it takes a few readings to realize how strategic she was in asking to buy arsenic whereas the film version explicitly shows it through her facial expression to her body language as she walks into the store. When reading the print version it seems as if Emily is calm when asking for the poison as seen where Faulkner writes, “I want some poison.” (Page 172). The readers are aware she will use the poison for something deadly but are not fully sure of how Emily is feeling. In the film we see that even though she remains emotionless she is questioning every movement she makes inside the store letting the viewers understand that she is doing this in the hopes of keeping this relationship. The audience could see before Homer death he didn’t believe in the institution of marriage leading for distance within the relationship. The film shows Emily was a meek and fragile woman longing for acceptance and thus she resorts to killing as a way for get her happy
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.
After being reclusive for decades, Miss Emily dies in her dusty house at age 74 (305). After her burial, they force entry into the “room in that region above the stairs which no one had seen in forty years” (306). They find the “bridal suite” and remains of Homer laying “in the attitude of embrace” along with evidence that Miss Emily had also been in that bed with him (306). Readers believe that Emily kills Homer with the arsenic. In her mind, she is not going to allow him to leave her. She prefers to have him dead in her house, rather than gone
She obviously is in great denial of her fathers death: “The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom. Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead” (31). Understandably, Emily doesn’t want to let go of the only person who cares and shows love for her. When the case is such one holds on to a deceased body three days after the death; that’s when we have some serious problems.
In Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose For Emily” it portrays the love of a woman who is disturbed and cannot
...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.
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.
In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," Miss Emily Grierson is a lonely old woman, living a life void of all love and affection; although the rose only directly appears in the title, the rose surfaces throughout the story as a symbol. In contemporary times, the rose also symbolizes emotions like love and friendship. The rose symbolizes dreams of romances and lovers. These dreams belong to women, who like Emily Grierson, have yet to experience true love for themselves.
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.
At the beginning of the story when her father died, it was mentioned that “[Emily] told [the ladies in town] that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body” (626). Faulkner reveals Emily’s dependency on her father through the death of her father. As shown in this part of the story, Emily was very attached to her father and was not able to accept that fact that he was no longer around. She couldn’t let go of the only man that loved her and had been with her for all those years. While this may seem like a normal reaction for any person who has ever lost a loved one, Faulkner emphasizes Emily’s dependence and attachment even further through Homer Barron. After her father’s death, Emily met a man name Homer, whom she fell in love with. While Homer showed interest in Emily at the beginning he became uninterested later on. “Homer himself had remarked—he liked men” (627) which had caused Emily to become devastated and desperate. In order to keep Homer by her side, Emily decided to poison Homer and keep him in a bedroom in her home. It was clear that she was overly attached to Homer and was not able to lose another man that she
As claimed by Crystal, "When she refuses to provide a reason why she wants to buy poison, the druggist scrawls “For rats” (809) across the package, literally and protectively overwriting her silence"(791). Although Crystal mainly argues the invasion of privacy shown in that statement, one could infer Faulkner's underlying theme based on the series of events following that statement. Evidently, after Emily had purchased the rat poison the townspeople stated,"So the next day we all said, “She will kill herself”; and we said it would be the best thing"( Faulkner 808). Later on in the story, Miss Emily Grierson dies, and while the townspeople believed that she was going to commit suicide with the rat poison, it was revealed that she had not committed suicide with the poison, but she had committed murder. She had murdered Homer, the man that was thought to be Miss Emily Grierson's
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.
First, why does Faulkner present the plot in the way that he does? There can be numerous answers to this question, but I have narrowed it down to one simple answer. He presented the story in this way in order to keep the reader guessing and to also provide some sort of suspense. By Faulkner telling the story in the way that he does, the reader has no way of knowing what might be coming up next in the story. The last thing that a reader wants to do is read a boring story that is easy to predict. Faulkner keeps the reader from knowing what might happen next by not placing the events in the actual order that they occurred. He goes back and forth throughout Miss Emily’s life. At the introduction and conclusion of the story, she is dead, while the body consists of the times when she was alive. The body of the story also jumps back and forth throughout Miss Emily’s life. Faulkner brilliantly divided the story into five key parts, all taking place at some key
Although I do not agree with how Miss Emily Grierson behaved, but I do not blame her. Harbored from reality her entire life I can expect for her to do some unordinary things. I feel bad for Miss Emily because she was the center of attention in a modernized town where she still practiced her traditional values. Through the eyes the townspeople we get our views of Emily at a distance. Had the story been told from Emily’s perspective we could better understand her reasoning for her bizarre behavior.
She began by showing fear that her would abandon her when she bought arsenic. Miss Emily said, “I want the best you have. I don’t care what kind” (Faulkner 717). This implies that even if she was not externally showing it, she was feeling frantic and had not fully thought through the plan but felt it was necessary to have something that would keep Homer with her forever. She then began to show signs that she was devolving by buying gifts that were typically for a wedding.
In William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily,” the character of Miss Emily quickly catches the attention of the reader. The audience slowly obtains a grasp as to whom Emily is throughout the story, eventually letting them know that Emily is a murderer, who is still mourning the loss of her father. After losing the only person that she has left, Emily’s character experiences a drastic shift in development, leading to events that suggest a change in the character on a deeper, psychological level. However, the question is raised as to whether she was simply shaken into an unstable state due to her father’s death, or if Emily had possibly been suffering from a mental illness all along. It becomes obvious to the reader that Emily’s father