William Faulkner is a genius. “A Rose for Emily” is one of his Southern Gothic stories; it certainly needs to be read. Extreme isolation, physically and emotionally, is what I can best describe the main character. Faulkner’s literary techniques of jumbled chronology of events and the narrators shifting point of view are unique and have you intrigued to keep reading.
William Faulkner violates all chronological sequences for his own unique way of telling us this story. For example, the story starts with Ms. Emily’s Funeral and goes on to say the only thing left of her is her old house. It then shifts to her being alive in 1894 when Colonel Satoris remitted her taxes in Jefferson. After that he tells us about the aftermath of her father’s death and smell that develops in her house. As you read through the story, notice anything about the narrator? He seems to be sympathetic to Emily. They never once condemn her actions. It is as if they seem to admire her for blue-blooded aloofness, like
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Faulkner’s idea of isolation from society carries itself loud and clear in this story. When Emily’s father dies in the story and all the ladies wanted to give their condolences to her, she met them at the door dressed as usual. This shows she does not care what she looks like since she knows she does not fit into this society. The only person she talked to in her life was Tobe, “the old negro”, who was pretty much her servant. He was the only one to go in her house, other than Homer. Also, whenever she talked to people, she would give short, very brief sentences. For example, when they confronted her about her taxes all she would mainly say was “I have no taxes in Jefferson” and told Tobe to show the gentlemen out. Same thing when she went out to buy the poison, all she said was “I want arsenic.”. These examples show how isolated she is from the world by the way she speaks and always tries to get out of the situation in a
was raised by an upper-class family who resented her and did not want her, therefore
She was aware of the situation of women in her times, especially being a puritan woman. They were restricted to certain modes of behavior, speech
This story takes place throughout the Reconstruction Era from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s in Jefferson, Mississippi. Emily was raised in the period before the Civil War. Her father who was the only person in her life with the exception of a former lover who soon left her as well raised her. The plot of this story is mainly about Miss Emily’s attitude about change. While growing up Emily was raised in a comfortable environment because her father possessed a lot of money. Considering that her father was a very wealthy person who occasionally loaned the town money Emily had everything a child could want. This caused Emily to be very spoiled and selfish and she never knew the value of a dollar until her father left her with nothing but a run down home that started to decay after a period of time. She began to ignore the surrounding decay of the house and her appearance. These lies continued as she denied her father’s death, refused to pay taxes, ignores town gossip about her being a fallen woman, and does not tell the druggist why she purchased rat poison. Her life, like the decaying house suffered from a lack of genuine love and care. Her physical appearance is brought about by years of neglect.
"A Rose for Emily" is a fictional short story written by 1949 Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner. Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is about an aristocratic woman who lived a very secretive and unusual life. Miss Emily had always been very sheltered by her father. He was the only man in her life and after his death, her behavior became even more unnatural. However her father's death cannot be seen as the only cause of Miss Emily's insanity. Miss Emily's behavior was also influenced by her own expectations of herself, the townspeople's lack of authority over her, and her neighbor's infatuation with her.
Faulkner tells the story through primarily a first person narration, primarily through the eyes of the townspeople, which is a white southern society. They too have a type of love affair with "Miss Emily." Emily Grierson is known to the townspeople as an icon. They feel a sense of obligation to her, as the narrator explains, "Alive, Miss Emily has been a tradition, a duty, and a care; sort of hereditary obligation upon the town" (404). The relationship between the town and Emily is symbiotic, in the respects that neither can exist without the other, this in turn, makes the narrator and Emily foils.
...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.
away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had
William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” uses a series of flashbacks to address Miss Emily’s misfortunes. The story begins at Miss Emily’s funeral which everyone in town had attended. Years after her father had passed away; years after taxes had been suspended. She claimed that after he father had loaned a large amount to the town that she owed no taxes in Jefferson, “ I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel explained it to me. Perhaps one of you
She believes herself to be a kind of guardian and spends her days walking around town as she completes her daily routine. She is the matriarch of the town, and she acts the part. She knows everything about her town, and she proudly admits that she has never lived anywhere else during her lifetime. As she stops to chat with other townspeople, she appears to be polite and caring. However, she is concerned about everyone she meets because something seems "wrong" with them. She feels it is her civic duty to stop evil from spreading in her town.
William Faulkner used indirect characterization to portray Miss Emily as a stubborn, overly attached, and introverted women through the serious of events that happened throughout her lifetime. The author cleverly achieves this by mentioning her father’s death, Homer’s disappearance, the town’s taxes, and Emily’s reactions to all of these events. Emily’s reactions are what allowed the readers to portray her characteristics, as Faulkner would want her to be
William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is a short story told from the point of view of an unnamed narrator and opens with the death of Miss Emily Grierson, an elderly woman that the reader quickly learns that the town views more as a character than an actual human being. Through flashbacks, the mysterious and haunting tale of Emily is revealed. As a child, Emily was the member of an aristocratic family, but has now long been living in relative poverty in the former grand home of her family after her father left her with no money. The product of the Civil War South, Emily never moved past the social customs of her youth, and refused to live according to modern standards. This becomes evident when she accepts the mayor’s hidden charity under the guise of her never owing taxes due to a lie that her father had loaned the town money and this was how the town would re...
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
Some might say that because she rarely leaves her house it causes her to have certain illusions. For example, she says that she has no taxes in Jefferson and to see Colonel Satoris and she told the ladies that her father was not dead. From that point on they would just let her get by without paying for
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.