In the short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, Faulkner reveals to readers the life of Emily Grierson and her mysterious lifestyle. Emily Grierson, who is the last member of the Grierson family and who was raised by her widowed father, lived in isolation throughout her whole life. She had a house servant named Tobe, who did her errands, and she eventually met up with Homer, who she dated or went out with for some time until he disappeared. Faulkner uses a literature element of identity, and identifies Emily, Homer, and Tobe’s characteristics. As we already know the narrator is not much of reliable source the only way to describe one's character is through the rumors and gossips that had spread over the town of Jefferson. Emily Grierson was a mysterious character. Throughout her whole life she had been secretive and isolated within her own house. Going through a trauma after her father’s death, she received sympathy from the town. As her father had always kept her in isolation, she was never expected to be one of those to go out and date someone. But one day she met Homer Barron, who was not from around Jefferson. They seem to go …show more content…
out for a while, though one day Homer disappears and after that Emily starts living in isolation once again. She did not pay her taxes and starts acting more mysterious than ever when she went out to buy poison. After decades, she was found dead in her house, all by herself, she had grown old with iron-gray hair. Homer Barron was an outsider from the North.
He was working on the pavement of the streets and that’s how he came to one day meet Emily. Homer had a good sense of humor and was friendly with the townspeople. He was admired by many and was to find in the center of most of the activities. He started dating Emily and took her out for Sunday drives in a buggy. Although he was admired, he was seen as an outsider and a day laborer who was not worthy of Emily, because Emily was seen as a woman from the higher class. to discuss this issue. There were also rumors of him being homosexual and that he was not the marrying type. Before anyone knew it, he disappeared and after Emily’s death, a body was found in her attic room which was assumed to be homers because he was wearing the same men’s outfit that she had bought decades
earlier. Tobe was an old servant that was nearly the same age as Emily herself. He was even more puzzling than Emily, he might be the only one who knew about all the activity that went around inside the house because he was the only person entering and leaving the residence. Tobe must have truly cared and loved Emily to have stayed with her till the end. It cannot be proven in any case, what kind of relation were both Emily and Tobe in other than one being employer and the other a servant. If Tobe had known about all that was going on within the house he must have been pretty loyal and trustworthy to have kept all the things a secret. Although all the characters in “A Rose for Emily” have different traits they are all mysterious in some way. Homer was someone who no one knew much about, Emily was someone who isolated herself and Tobe who was never seen talking to anyone, was only seen leaving and entering Emily’s house. The exact relation between these three main characters are hard to define because the narrator(townspeople) is not a reliable source. Anything could have been made up, but the obvious and for sure fact is that if Tobe had stuck around long enough, the plot could have been further explained. Many questions are left unanswered e.g. where did Homer go, why did Tobe leave and why Emily never associated with the townspeople?
One great puzzle in "A Rose for Emily," highlighted by Faulkner's language is the exact nature of Emily's relationship with Homer Barron. That is because Homer himself remains such an enigma. With an initial reading of the story, Homer appears to be an average kind of man. Those things about him that Faulkner reveals to us, such as his being "a Northerner [and] a day laborer"(279), while highly uncomplimentary in the eyes of the people of Jefferson, warrant little attention from a modern reader. We are glad for Emily and do not begrudge her the companionship, but contrary to Hal Blythe's view of Homer in his article, he never appears to be an "aristocratic and . . . chivalric . . . courtly lover"(49). He is, in fact, a construction worker whom the little boys of Jefferson followed to hear shout at the "niggers"(Faulkner 279). Little about him is aristocratic or chivalrous, because his relationship with Emily is h...
The most common technique that is used throughout the story of “A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner would be symbolism. Emily Grierson, an interesting character who shows to be stubborn when she is requested to do such task that she feels are beyond her capabilities. “When the gentlemen came to her door to collect her taxes Emily said, ‘See Colonel Sartoris, I have no taxes in Jefferson’.” By Miss Emily not lonely being rude but also cold hearted towards others she has made herself separated from the townspeople, “I have no taxes in Jefferson…Tobe! Show these gentlemen out.”(Faulkner 1215) Although Miss Emily is an isolated character from most of the townspeople an exception for her butler Tobe, she is still treated as a high class citizen, you could even say that she was looked upon as a stained glass angel that the people would think that “Emily, is a monument,” others would think of her as “Tableau, Miss Emily, a slender figure in white,” (Faulkner 1216) Time has changed people would no longer get away with crimes such as refusing to pay taxes.Afields5 would suggest that Ms. Grierson is a Representation of the “decline of the ‘Old South’.” Meaning she cannot let go of what she holds so dearly to her life, and is unable to change her environment. Until she met Homer Barron, Emily has never socialize or been accompanied with any other character in the story. From the information I have received from “Symbols in ‘A Rose for Emily’” “Homer is her ‘rose’ that she loved and kept to herself even after his body was decaying.” Mr. Barron was the only man that Emily had not only become so dearly to her but has would also do anything to keep him, “’She will marry him’ then we said, ‘She will persuade him yet,’”(Faulkner1218) Homer had...
Along with the passing of her father Emily is then allowed the freedom to finally think for herself and then comes Homer Barron, a man whose Emily’s father would have disapproved of if he was still alive. As Donald Akers stated that Emily dating a northerner as a, “reasonable, explanation for her relationship with Homer would be that is her way of rebelling against her dead father. During his lifetime, her father prevented her from having an “acceptable” suitor. Thus, she rebels by associating with a man her father would have considered a pariah: a Yankee day-laborer” (“A Rose for Emily”). That excerpt suggests since Homer was a Yankee, it was completely against the Griersons legacy to marry a northern man having the post Civil War mentality, so Homer would have never been the perfect suitor for Emily. Regardless to say Emily quickly fell in love with Homer and she couldn’t bare the humiliation of Homer leaving her since he was not the marrying type. Within all of the things happening around Emily and all of the mixed internal feelings Emily repressed throughout the years, especially not having many
We eventually find out in the end that Emily kills Homer. She does this not do this out anger or hatred toward this man. It is the belief on her part, that a man has to play a significant role in her life that drives Emily to do this unbelievable act of violence. In her mind this was not a crazy thing to do.
Emily meets Homer and she soon becomes very attached to him. The town’s people instantly began to notice this, “Presently we began to see him and Miss Emily on Sunday afternoons driving in the yellow-wheeled buggy and the matched team of bays from the livery stable” (Faulkner 301). As the town’s people began to see them together, they all started to wonder if they would get married. Soon they realized that Homer was not interested in marriage and that he was interested in men. Emily is obviously very distraught by this and eventually leads her to commit acts reflecting her character as someone with very little morals.
Homer had lived in the present, and Emily eventually conquered that. Emily’s family was a monument of the past; Emily herself was referred to as a “fallen monument.” She was a relic of Southern gentility and past values. She had been considered fallen because she had been proven susceptible to death and decay like the rest of the world. As for the importance of family, Emily was really close to her father. He was very protective of her and extremely dominating.
I completely agree that Faulkner more than likely did not intent for Homer to come off as gay, but the readers took it a different way than she anticipated. Although some of the evidence that the story provides might be convincing to some, the facts are not there to reverse my thoughts on Homer and his sexuality. The underlying evidence is excessively compact in “A Rose for Emily” to assume that he is gay as well. Anything from assuming saying that “he liked boys” means that he has a love for them as in a relationship, but maybe he likes them as in being friends and cohorts. Along with that statement, Faulkner mentions, “he liked drinking with younger boys at Elk’s Club” which also can conclude that he merely just enjoys their company more. I can see the evidence of him being a pedophile on the other hand because he does not say man, but instead says boy. At the end, the article that Caesar presented did not have enough hard evidence to turn away from my beliefs of Homer’s sexuality from the beginning, considering that I never thought Homer was either gay or straight prior to reading this
“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,
When Homer Baron, a construction worker, comes into Emily's life he sheds hope into her life. He offers Emily a chance to feel love and to receive the affection she has previously only dreamed of. Together they take Sunday carriage rides, and for awhile, the town's people seem to think that Emily will finally wed. It appears to them that Emily has finally found her rose.
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.
Symbolism in literature is using an object to portray a different, deeper meaning in a story. Symbols represent ideas or qualities that the author has maneuvered into his or her story that has meaning. There can be multiple symbols in a story or just one. It is up to the reader to interpret the meaning of the symbols and their significance to the story. While reading a story, symbols may not become clear until the very end, once the climax is over, and the falling action is covered. In William Faulkner’s, “A Rose for Emily,” there are multiple examples of symbolism that occur throughout the story.
Emily’s father rose her with lots of authority, he might had ruined her life by not giving her the opportunity to live a normal lady/woman life; but he build a personality, character and a psycho woman. Mister Grierson was the responsible for Emily’s behavior, he thought her to always make others respect her. Homer’s actions of using her as a cover to his sexuality was not respectful at all, Emily did not know any better and poison him to death.
After all the tragic events in her life, Emily became extremely introverted. After killing Homer, Emily locked herself in and blocked everyone else out. It was mentioned, “…that was the last time we saw of Homer Barron. And of Miss Emily for some time” (628). In fact, no one in town really got to know Miss Emily personally as she always kept her doors closed, which reflects on how she kept herself closed for all those years. Many of the town’s women came to her funeral with curiosity about how she lived, as no one had ever known her well enough to know. This was revealed at the beginning of the story when the narrator mentioned, “the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant… had seen in the last ten years”(623). Everyone in town knew of her but did not know her because she kept to herself for all those years.
In the story, A Rose for Emily, the townspeople gather around to mourn the death of Miss Emily Grierson. As they gather each person reminisce memories of the woman, whether they were good or bad. Emily Grierson was a settled young lady who lived with an over powering father and quiet servant. Emily was never allowed to date or fancy a man because her father would keep her captive and secluded from any relations. On the day of the father’s death, Emily could not let her father go; therefore she kept her father with her for three days, in denial that he had passed. Time went on and Miss Emily decided it was time for a change. Miss Emily crossed paths with a man by the name of Homer Barron. He was an upstate Yankee worker who was on a job nearby the Grierson home. The townspeople were disappointed because of the Grierson name. According to them, they believed that Emily would never fall for Barron. They were wrong. After a while of going out and having fun, Homer was never seen again. Miss Emily would be seen buying odd items for marriage which made the
"A Rose for Emily," the short story by William Faulkner. When Miss Emily died the town reacts to her death with some awe, like it’s really sad to see that she has passed away. They were amazed to go see what the house looks like, because they haven't been in there for so long In section one, I learned that Miss Emily has died, and the town's relationship to her, and in fact, the narrator just says, "we" all the time. We saw Miss Emily do this, we heard that this happened.