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. Growing up in Mississippi in the late Nineteenth Century and the early part of the Twentieth Century, young William Faulkner witnessed first hand the struggles his beloved South endured through their slow progression of rebuilding. These experiences helped to develop Faulkner’s writing style. “Faulkner deals almost exclusively with the Southern scene (with) the Civil War … always behind his work” (Warren 1310. His works however are not so much historical in nature but more like folk lore. This way Faulkner is not constrained to keep details accurate, instead he manipulate the story to share his on views leading the reader to conclude morals or lessons from his experience. Faulkner writes often and “sympathetically of the older order of the antebellum society. It was a society that valued honor, (and) was capable of heroic action” (Brooks 145) both traits Faulkner admired. These sympathetic views are revealed in the story “A Rose for Emily” with Miss Emily becoming a monument for the Antebellum South. “A Rose for Emily” is a story about Emily Grierson who kills her Yankee boyfriend Homer Barron and lives with his body in her bedroom for over forty years.
Emily Grierson was not accepting of the changes that were taking place in the world outside of her home. Of course, William Faulkner will be remembered for his southern literature that explored racism, social classification, and modernization of the “old south.” Faulkner’s works painted a vivid picture of the America through the eyes of his numerous characters. He explored the discrimination and struggles that blacks faced following the American Civil War. Faulkner also analyzed the part that social classification and status played in society during a time of traditional living.
Throughout cultural changes and extreme events such as the Great Depression and World War I, “A Rose for Emily” turned out to be a twisted version of the normal cheerful stories that are read. The real-world events that occurred greatly influenced topics of the time. Faulkner was able to produce a demented story that lies on the roots of the Great Depression and World War I.
As a person one might find that we follow a specific routine on the day to day basis. Sudden changes to these routines feels weird and out of place. In William Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily” based in a fictional town called Jefferson taking place during the twentieth century. The time period is indeed an important factor because southern tradition was above all of the highest importance. This short story gives the audience details of life during that time in which they followed the values of southern tradition and the importance to never stray away from those traditions. The context of the story is laced with subliminal messages of humanities resistance to change.
William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily" was originally published April 30, 1930 in an issue of Forum. It was his first short story to be published in a major magazine. "A Rose for Emily" is the story of an abnormal older woman, Emily Grierson. The unnamed narrator who of which sounds like the town speaking (certainly does not sound like any certain individual)really details the bizarre circumstances of Emily's life and her unusual relationships between her father, lover, and the whole town of Jefferson, and the horrible secrets she is hiding. Most readers have found this story to be the most understandable by Faulkner, and it is favored for its gruesome ending. Faulkner uses Flashback, Foreshadowing and suspense to symbolize and show the story's Tragedy, Pride, and loneliness.
William Faulkner is widely considered to be one of the great American authors of the twentieth century. Although his greatest works are identified with a particular region and time (Mississippi in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries), the themes he explores are universal. He was also an extremely accomplished writer in a technical sense. Novels such as The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! feature bold experimentation with shifts in time and narrative. Several of his short stories are favorites of anthologists, including "A Rose for Emily." This strange story of love, obsession, and death is a favorite among both readers and critics. The narrator, speaking for the town of Jefferson in Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, tells a series of stories about the town's reclusive spinster, Miss Emily Grierson. The stories build up to a gruesome revelation after Miss Emily's funeral. She apparently poisoned her lover, Homer Barron, and kept his corpse in an attic bedroom for over forty years. It is a common critical cliche to say that a story "exists on many levels." In the case of "A Rose for Emily", this is the truth. Critic Frank A. Littler, in an essay published in Notes on Mississippi Writers regarding the chronology of the story, writes that "A Rose for Emily" has been read variously as ". . .a Gothic horror tale, a study in abnormal psychology, an allegory of the relations between North and South, a meditation on the nature of time, and a tragedy with Emily as a sort of tragic heroine." These various interpretations serve as a good starting point for discussion of the story.
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.
Faulkner writes “A Rose for Emily” in the view of a memory, the people of the towns’ memory. The story goes back and forth like memories do and the reader is not exactly told whom the narrator is. This style of writing contributes to the notions Faulkner gives off during the story about Miss Emily’s past, present, and her refusal to modernize with the rest of her town. The town of Jefferson is at a turning point, embracing the more modern future while still at the edge of the past. Garages and cotton gins are replacing the elegant southern homes. Miss Emily herself is a living southern tradition. She stays the same over the years despite many changes in her community. Even though Miss Emily is a living monument, she is also seen as a burden to the town. Refusing to have numbers affixed to the side of her house when the town receives modern mail service and not paying her taxes, she is out of touch with reality. The younger generation of leaders brings in Homer’s company to pave the sidewalks. The past is not a faint glimmer but an ever-present, idealized realm. Emily’s morbid bridal ...
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Shorter 5th ed. Ed. R.V.Cassill. New York: W.W. Norton & Comp., 1995.
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.
In Faulkner’s tale “A Rose for Emily” there are many historical elements throughout the story; Faulkner uses them to give an authentic feel to the story and to add to the setting. A recurring theme that I found was reference to the reconstruction of the South after the Civil War. The setting of the South after their demise in the Civil War adds character to the story and to the characters. The attitudes people had and the way people treated Emily with respect was a tradition of the “Old South” that is presented throughout this tale.
Unable to admit to her father’s death, followed by months of people thinking she was planning to commit suicide. Then it tells the reader about the man she had been seen with homer, eventually he disappears too, suspected he had fled town. You find that she was ultimately just a special sort of crazy, after her death they found homers dead body lying on the bed. “A Rose for Emily” is all about isolation and different views on reality, shown by her actions. In “A Rose for Emily” the theme isolation is pretty resounding, while young she wasn’t but after her father’s death she became increasingly estranged from the entire town. Emily is not only physically but mentally isolated. For the different views on society, this is the idea of normal for Emily is different from the view of normal from everyone else’s. Throughout Emily does not seem to get a grip on time or any kind of change everyone else sees. On page 731, “’See Colonel Sartoris’ (Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years.) ‘I have no taxes in Jefferson’” (Faulkner). This shows her complete disconnect with time. The themes in “A Rose for Emily”
The plot of “A Rose for Emily” shows the later years of the main character, Emily Grierson, with flashbacks to her life interspersed between. It begins with the reader learning of her passing, developing into a story that provides insight in to her reclusive nature and past dealings with family as well as the town of Jefferson. Due to her reclusive nature and high standing in society she is often gossiped about by her fellow townsfolk. Throughout the story, the reader is told about her overbearing father, her reluctance to change her ways for the town of Jefferson, and her new love interest Homer Barron. With hints of foreshadowing and learning about Miss Emily’s past problems with letting her deceased father go, the reader finds the story ending at her funeral with the discovery of the body of Homer Barron kept in her house. Miss Emily did not want to lose her new love, so she poisons him and keeps his body around, letting her maintain a relationship with him even though he has passed on.
The rise and industrialization of the South began with the end of the Civil War. This aided in the transition from Old to New South, from a time of poverty and slave labor to a more progressive time. The decline of the Old South was often unaccepted and ignored by southerners as they tried to cling to their past ways. Faulkner highlights the cultural shift from Old to New South through character relationships and personalities in his short stories “A Rose for Emily,” “That Evening Sun,” and “Red Leaves.” The main character in William Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily,” Miss Emily, is a representation of the Old South.
In William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” he uses many literary elements to portray the life of Emily and the town of Jefferson. The theme of the past versus the present is in a sense the story of Miss Emily’s life. Miss Emily is the representation of the Old South versus the New South, mainly because of her inability to interact with the present or come to terms with reality. Holding onto the past and rejecting change into the present led Miss Emily into a life of isolation and mental issues.
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.