A Rose For Emily And Barn Burning By William Faulkner

Is there any case in which a murderer would be justified in killing? What if the murderer suffered from a severe form of mental illness? In William Faulkner chilling short story called A Rose for Emily, we see a character who murders her lover, but was it her fault? Emily had been mentally unstable for a long time and her family had a long history of suffering from mental illnesses as well, but at the end of the day there is no justification for murder. Some of the most notorious serial killers and murderers have suffered from one form or another of mental illness. People like Ed Gein, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer all suffered from some form of mental illness ("Dangerous Minds: Mental Illnesses of Infamous Criminals"). Although there is an understanding on how a person with mental illness is more susceptible to commit violent crimes, it is still wrong. In a study it was found that “no significant difference in the rates of violence among people with mental illness and other people living in the same neighborhood” (Publications). Emily killed Homer due to lack of morality caused by a combination of terrible parenting and a system that put her above the law. The relationship she had with her father was a distinct one, he pushed her into a little bottle and never let her out. She wasn’t allowed to be a person, but instead a trapped soul yearning for attention and love. The town in which she lived, held her on this pedestal that separated her from the rest of the

In “A Rose for Emily”, Charles Faulkner used a series of flashbacks and foreshadowing to tell Miss Emily’s story. Miss Emily is an interesting character, to say the least. In such a short story of her life, as told from the prospective of a townsperson, who had been nearly eighty as Miss Emily had been, in order to tell the story from their own perspective. Faulkner set up the story in Mississippi, in a world he knew of in his own lifetime. Inspired by a southern outlook that had been touched by the Civil War memory, the touch of what we would now look at as racism, gives the southern aroma of the period. It sets up Miss Emily’s southern belle status and social standing she had been born into, loner or not.

William Faulkner has said that when you are writing a novel, there is a lot of room to add some fluff and be a bit careless with your ideas, but when writing a short story there is no room for “trash”, as he calls it. However, this can be a tough thing to do when you have a lot to say. Even Faulkner could have difficulty following along with his beliefs. After having read and considered A Rose for Emily and Barn Burning, I do believe that William Faulkner has been true to his beliefs in both of these short stories.

In “A Rose for Emily,” Faulkner employs a narrator to describe Emily Grierson, a recently deceased old woman. Apart from her manservant, she does not interact with others, save for a short period of time in

In William Faulkner’s Barn Burning, Abner Snopes is a main character and father of Colonel Sartoris Snopes (Sarty), who is also a main character. Abner is a very poor looking man, unclean and unshaven. He always seems to wear the same thing, a dirty white button up shirt with a dirty black hat and coat.

If we compare William Faulkner's two short stories, 'A Rose for Emily' and 'Barn Burning', he structures the plots of these two stories differently. However, both of the stories note the effect of a father¡¦s teaching, and in both the protagonists Miss Emily and Sarty make their own decisions about their lives. The stories present major idea through symbolism that includes strong metaphorical meaning. Both stories affect my thinking of life.

In William Faulkner’s short stories “A Rose for Emily” and “Barn Burning” the characters are both guilty of committing terrible crimes. However, Miss Emily in “A Rose for Emily” and Abner Snopes in “Barn Burning” are both portrayed very differently from each other. A few things to consider while reading these short stories is how each of these characters is characterized, how the author generates sympathy for these characters, and the order in which the events in these stories occur.

In the short story “A Rose for Emily”, William Faulkner escorts the reader through the peculiar life of the main character Miss Emily Grierson. The gloomy tone of the story is set by the author beginning his tale with the funeral of Miss Emily. During course of the story, we are taken through different times in Miss Emily’s life and how she was lost in time, with the town around her moving forward. Through the use of southern gothic writing style, narrator point of view, and foreshadowing, Faulkner aids the reader in creating a visualization of Miss Emily and the town in which she lives while also giving an insight into her sanity.

Colonel Grierson limits the people Miss Emily is allowed to see and to the point that she has no friends or even acquaintances. So after her father dies, she does not know anyone and has no idea how to socialize and make friends. Just as Miss Emily is isolated from the townspeople, they feel isolated from her. She is thought of not as someone to befriend, but as a member of the aristocracy, like a princess or queen of the town. She is far removed from the rest of society. As usual, common townspeople do not socialize with the high-class citizens, so neither does the community get to know Miss Emily. The town puts together rumors they hear and forms the story of her life. At her funeral, all the people come and are "talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression" (58). However the true reason they go is not because she was a close friend. The people go for two reasons: "the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house" (47). They view her as "a tradition, a duty, and care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town" (47). She is never a true, genuine person in anyone's mind, only an unreachable object.

William Faulkner is a writer from Mississippi. Faulkner is a very famous writer with most of his most famous works being short stories. Two of his most popular short stories are “A rose for Emily” along with “Barn Burning”. Faulkner has many other popular works, but “Barn Burning” was one of his well-known stories because of the many different of elements of literature in which Faulkner chose to include. Faulkner was known as a writer who could properly convey many different elements of literature, such as symbolism, conflict, tone, and many other elements of plot within his stories. In “Barn Burning”, William Faulkner most commonly uses symbolism and conflict to emphasize the obstacles that Sarty has to face in his youth years.

William Faulkner’s O. Henry Award winning short story, “Barn Burning” was written in 1938 and published by Harper’s in 1939 (“William,” par. 12). In many ways the story is a product of “both a turbulent time in America’s history and Faulkner’s personal history” (Parker 101). America was emerging from the Great Depression just in time to see World War II looming on the horizon while Faulkner was struggling with “finances, a drinking problem, and a new mistress” (Parker 102). In “Barn Burning” Faulkner makes extensive use of his own life experiences and symbolism, elements that characterize many of his other stories. However, in “Barn Burning” there is a hard edge to the story theme that may match the hardness of the times it was

In the story, To Build a Fire, we follow a man that has no name. Along with this lack of name, he has little to no intuition and he focuses only on his plan and nothing else. Not only this, but he completely disregards the instinct that begs him to stay out of the cold freezing weather that he is journeying through. He only believes that he will arrive at his destination slightly delayed because of his frozen hands and feet.

E.F. Schumacher once said that: “Man talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing side.” Nature is

In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” the story is revolved around the character Emily Grierson. The story is told by the townspeople where Emily lives. These people are attending her funeral and pitching in memories and tales they remember from Emily’s life. It is through the collective voices and opinions of the crowd that the reader is able to interpret Emily’s struggles. With Emily Grierson’s choices the reader can tell that she is a dependant woman, with psychotic tendencies, and does not take the thought of change and rejection lightly.

Miss Emily was part of the highly revered Grierson family, the aristocrats of the town. They held themselves to a higher standard, and nothing or