Expectations are everything, which is the ringing truth in William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily.” The short story is centered in a post-civil war setting that shows how the views and values of the southern aristocracy change over time. A single narrator acts as the voice of the fictional town of Jefferson to tell the story as a whole through flashbacks and flash-forwards that tell the life of Emily Grierson, a woman from a very rich and elevated family in their society. Through the story, we learn that Emily is never permitted by her father to marry because none of the suitors are good enough for his daughter; after her father’s death, Emily, as the last living member of her family, begins to deteriorate to proportions that are not revealed until the end of the story. The reader learns that the man she falls in love with intends to leave her so she kills him and keeps his body in her bedroom and sleeps by his corpse every night for years until her death (Faulkner 79-84). These extreme situations were not caused by madness inside of Emily; instead, it was Emily’s need to conform to what society expected of her that triggered the craziness to develop. She felt the need to go to extreme measures to keep the expected traditions of her southern family alive, in the only way she knew how too. Because of the townspeople’s expectations of Emily, their involvement to try to change her, and their blind eye to obvious signs of murder, the people from the town of Jefferson become just as guilty, if not more, than Emily herself.
In order to understand the importance of the timeframe in which this story is written, it is imperative to look at the historical background of when this story was set. The story is set over a period of ...
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...e complex relationship between the aristocratic south, the idealistic north, and the values of southern traditions and ideas in a corrupt society.
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Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings. 2nd
As time went on pieces from Emily started to drift away and also the home that she confined herself to. The town grew a great deal of sympathy towards Emily, although she never hears it. She was slightly aware of the faint whispers that began when her presence was near. Gossip and whispers may have been the cause of her hideous behavior. The town couldn’t wait to pity Ms. Emily because of the way she looked down on people because she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and she never thought she would be alone the way her father left her.
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily". An Introduction to Literature, 11th ed. Ed. Barnet, Sylvan, et al. 287-294.
In the short stories A Rose for Emily and The Story of an Hour, Emily Grierson and Louise Mallard are both similar women, in similar time periods but they both are in entirely different situations. This essay will take these two specific characters and compare and contrast them in multiple, detailed ways.
Faulkner, William. “A Rose For Emily.” An Introduction to Fiction. 10th ed. Eds: X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New Yorkk: Pearson Longman, 2007. 29-34.
---. "A Rose for Emily." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 5th ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Compact 4th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers, 2000. 81 - 88.
Faulkner, William “A Rose for Emily”. Schilb, John and John Clifford “Making Literature Matters: An Anthropology for Readers and Writers”, Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. 667-675
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.
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Faulkner, William. "A Rose For Emily." The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing. Ed. Michael Meyer. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2008. 91-99. Print.
In "A Rose for Emily," William Faulkner's use of setting and characterization foreshadows and builds up to the climax of the story. His use of metaphors prepares the reader for the bittersweet ending. A theme of respectability and the loss of, is threaded throughout the story. Appropriately, the story begins with death, flashes back to the past and hints towards the demise of a woman and the traditions of the past she personifies. Faulkner has carefully crafted a multi-layered masterpiece, and he uses setting, characterization, and theme to move it along.