William Faulkner's use of setting and description foreshadows and builds up to the view of the story “Arose for Emily”. Faulkner uses symbols that will prepares the reader for the touching ending. A great way to keep the readers on their toes. Make them think before the story state what will happen next. Death and being lost is the main theme of the story. Everything in the story can be seen as a symbol of death from the house to the rose at the end of the story. Death and flash back is what can be seen clearly in this story. She couldn’t let go of her past and tried to hang on to it throughout the story. Faulkner has carefully created a complicated work of art, also he uses setting, description, and theme to move it along. The setting in …show more content…
The house is placed in what was once a good neighborhood that has now worsened. Miss Emily's big farm house that used to be white that is decorated with balconies and big chimney with high sealing castell like. Now looked old surrounded by gasoline pumps. Time has taken a related role with Miss Emily changing her appearance a slim lady with white to a fat women with black. The setting of Faulkner's story describes Miss Emily's fitted grasp of ante-bellum ways and unchanging manner. Through her refusal to change anything in the house starting by her refusal of putting metal numbers on her house door she is refusing to change with society. Miss Emily's attitude to change is revealed in an image of her house was old and damaged. “Emily apparently refuses to accept the passing of time or change in any sense” (Hans H. Skei). While the outside of her house reflects her physical decay the inside of the house allows the reader a think about into her mental and emotional state. Although, the outside may still be somewhat beautiful and leading with its classic construction, the inside of the house smelling of dust and some other bad smells. With old
In a “Rose for Emily”, Faulkner uses Emily’s house as a symbol of the barrier Emily forms between herself and society. As society moves through generations and changes over the years, Emily remains the same, within the borders of her own household. The house is described as “in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street”(125), but years passed and more modern houses had “obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood” (125). Faulkner set the house apart from the rest of the neighborhood, and Emily is described in the beginning as “a fallen monument” and a “tradition” indicating that she had not changed in an extended amount of time. The symbol of the house, remaining unchanged through the decades that passed becomes stronger when Emily does not permit tax collectors to pass through the threshold of the house, “She vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before”. Emily’s image of a “monument” to the community’s small society caused her to become exempt from the demands of the state that the rest of the population had to adhere to. Emily’s house enab...
William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily is a dreary short story told of a traditional woman surrounded by death living in an ever-changing town. Emily’s funeral is the opening paragraph in A Rose for Emily to help introduce the background of the town’s perception of the curiosity known as Emily. Faulkner introduces Emily by stating “She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue.” (323) The sorrow of the main character in A Rose for Emily is illustrated by the reaffirmation of death throughout the story and how it seems to follow her in life by her resistance to change.
6. West, Ray B., Jr. "Atmosphere and Theme in Faulkner's 'A Rose for Emily'." William Faulkner: Four Decades of Criticism. Ed. Linda Welshimer Wagner. Michigan State University Press, 1973. 192-198. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Laurie Lanzen Harris and Sheila Fitzgerald. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale Research, 1988. Literature Resource Center. Web. 5 July 2011.
...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.
Setting is place and time, and often provides more than a mere backdrop for the action of a story. William Faulkner uses this device in his complex short story "A Rose for Emily" to give insight into the lonely world of Miss Emily Grierson.
"A Rose for Emily," by William Faulkner, is an interesting character study. Faulkner fully develops the characters in this story by using the passage of time and the setting as well as the narration. The story is not told in chronological order; this allows him to piece in relevant information in an almost conversational way. He tells a tale of a woman who goes slowly insane due to heredity and environment; and describes the confusion and curiosity she causes the watching town.
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.
At the beginning of the story, the reader learns that Miss Emily “is portrayed as ’a fallen monument,’… because she has shown herself susceptible to death (and decay) after all” (West 264). The house can also be perceived as a “fallen monument”(Faulkner 81) as the narrator proceeds to describe the house, magnificent as it once was, and how it has become dilapidated through the years. The same can be said about Miss Emily, as time passed she “looked bloated like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue”(Faulkner 82).
As Faulkner begins “A Rose for Emily” with death of Emily, he both immediately and intentionally obscures the chronology of the short story to create a level of distance between the reader and the story and to capture the reader’s attention. Typically, the reader builds a relationship with each character in the story because the reader goes on a journey with the character. In “A Rose for Emily”, Faulkner “weaves together the events of Emily’s life” is no particular order disrupting the journey for the reader (Burg, Boyle and Lang 378). Instead, Faulkner creates a mandatory alternate route for the reader. He “sends the reader on a dizzying voyage by referring to specific moments in time that have no central referent, and thus the weaves the past into the present, the present into the past. “Since the reader is denied this connection with the characters, the na...
William Faulkner's “A Rose For Emily” eludes from the common short story, developing sympathy for a murderer. The use of figurative language, an non chronological plot structure, and symbolism drives the main themes of the story. “A Rose For Emily” leaves an overall message to the reader about a character resisting to change and serves as an example for future generations to study.
In “A Rose For Emily”, by William Faulkner, plot plays an important role in how
In “A Rose for Emily”, by William Faulkner, Emily Geierson is a woman that faces many difficulties throughout her lifetime. Emily Geierson was once a cheerful and bright lady who turned mysterious and dark through a serious of tragic events. The lost of the two men, whom she loved, left Emily devastated and in denial. Faulkner used these difficulties to define Emily’s fascinating character that is revealed throughout the short story. William Faulkner uses characterization in “A Rose for Emily”, to illustrate Miss Emily as a stubborn, overly attached, and introverted woman.
The characteristics of the house of Miss Emily’s house symbolize her appearance as she becomes older with time. The “… house 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” (CITE). Then it became an “eyesore among eyesore” (CITE). Likewise to the house, Miss Emily also changed the same way as her house did and she too became an eyesore. She was described as once being “a slender figure in white” (CITE). However, as she aged with time, she became “bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water with eyes lost in the fatty ridges of her face” (CITE). At the time of Miss Emily’s death, the narrator describes her as a “fallen monument” (CITE). This implies that Miss Emily was once a beautiful and wealthy lady, but as time progressed, she grew old and poor. These changes that occurred to Emily in the story also happened to the South after the Civil War: from affluence to impoverished.
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...
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 ...