A Rose For Emily By William Faulkner

Since the beginning of time, women have been treated as second class citizens. Therefore, women were forced to face many problems. Because of this women were repressed. At that time, the Napoleonic Code stated that women were controlled by their husbands and cannot freely do their own will without the authority of their husband. This paper shows how this is evident in the "Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin and " A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner. In both stories, the use of literary elements such as foreshadowing, symbolism, and significant meaning of the titles are essential in bringing the reader to an unexpected and ironic conclusion.

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.

Historically, women have been treated as second class citizens. The Napoleonic Code stated that women were controlled by their husbands and cannot freely do their own will without the authority of their husband. This paper shows how this is evident in the "Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin and " A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner. In both stories, the use of literary elements such as foreshadowing, symbolism, and significant meaning of the titles are essential in bringing the reader to an unexpected and ironic conclusion.

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.

In literature, readers often see topics that one can relate to; topics that mimic everyday life, personal anecdotes or situations one has experienced . “A Rose for Emily,” a fictional story written by William Faulkner, shares eerily similar details with an article written in the Philadelphia Inquirer on January 30, 1987, “A Woman’s Wintry Death Leads to a Long-dead Friend,” by Dick Pothier and Thomas J. Gibbons JR. Faulkner’s narrator depicts the reclusive life of Miss Emily Grierson and the events leading to the discovery of a dead man’s body that had been locked away in her 2nd story bedroom for over forty years. In the article, Pothier and Gibbons report how a woman named Frances Dawson Hamilton was found to have “lived with the skeletonized remains” of her long-time companion for over two years after being discovered frozen to death in her home (153). Faulkner’s short story heavily relies on the narrator’s knowledge in addition to his point of view and experiences whereas Pothier and Gibbons report facts observed on scene or learned from interviews of neighbors, police, and investigators. Although fear of solitude initially motivated both women to behave so outlandishly, it is the authors’ distinct portrayal that illustrates each individual’s intentions.

The book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, tells the story of a slave girl named Linda Brent who fought many mental and physical battles throughout her life in order to oppose the system of slavery. This autobiography was written by Harriet Jacobs, known in the book as Linda Brent, and uses a multitude of psuedonyms in order to conceal the identity of those within the book. Harriet Jacobs had succeeded in putting forth a new, unconventional slave narrative that depicted the emotional and mental anguish slave women were subjected to on a daily basis. Through sexual victimization by their masters and the ever-present maternal fear of losing their children to the slave trade, slavery was a far more terrible fate for women than for men. Throughout her twenty-seven year life of being a slave, Harriet Jacobs attempted to defy the idea and social structure of slavery at every turn.

In “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, both authors introduce female protagonists that are confined by men’s authority. By displaying the protagonist's transformation, Glaspell and Faulkner highlight the repercussions of gender roles, to show that when women are trapped, they will go to great lengths to retaliate against their oppressors.

The main theme in As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner is family. It is not a pleasant topic throughout the book. Poor or no communication creates intense barriers of misunderstanding and resentment between family member, but not particularly siblings who are rivals for their mother’s love. The family from the beginning isn 't based off love because of the sort of arranged marriage of Anse and Addie Bundren. Most of the explaining of the families dynamic is all explained in Addies one and only chapter.

Beginning As I Lay Dying, I am already struggling with the dialect of the novel. This confusion is deepened because I had no prior knowledge of the characters and plot. There are many characters that Faulkner mentions in the first twenty five pages of the novels and so I was trying to connect the characters and find out who was who. Faulkner also constantly refers to Addie as “she”. This confused me at first because I didn’t know who Faulkner was referring to and how Addie was related to all of the other characters. I found that as long as I read very slowly and pay attention to detail, I can understand the language of the story better than I expected. I was able to connect all the characters and

The book, Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl starts off by introducing the us to a slave girl who is known as Linda who represents Harriet Jacobs. The books narrates the life Harriet who was born into slavery in 1813 near Edenton, North Carolina. The time period where racial slurs had been widely and slavery was very popular. She had not know she was a slave girl until the solid age of six years after her childhood had been demolished. The main idea for publishing this book was to show the hardship she had faced through her childhood and growing up as a slave. The book is suppose the appeal the sense of empathy towards those that still suffered in slavery or are still suffering in third world countries and provide a better point of view to historian. It was written for everyone to show compassion through her enslaved brothers and sisters. Chapter 1 starts off by introducing a girl that had lived a great life until her mother had died at the age of 6 and she is sent to work for the mistress her mother had worked for all her life and live with her Grandmother. The Grandmother had raised $300 dollars and the mistress had borrowed that money from her. Eventually the mistress dies and instead of letting all her slaves free in her will she gives her slaves to relatives. The slave girls is inherited by a five year old girl. The main point of this first chapter was to argue and support the suffering of slavery. The young girl who had only lived six years of her life is basically

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.

In the story “ A Rose for Emily”, by William Faulkner the narrator introduces the reader to Emily Grierson, a sheltered southern woman who while alive struggled immensely with her sanity and the evolving world around her. Emily's father, a very prestigious man is the cause of Emily's senseless behavior. He kept her secluded from the rest of the town “We remembered all the young men her father had driven away...” (Page 3.) If Emily had been allowed to date and socialize with people her own age would she had turned out differently.

Promoting the authority of men over women in the 19th and 20th century, the Napoleonic code denied and relinquished women’s rights, such as leaving the house , working, and even controlling their own bodies. Due to the limitations that these rules put on women, it made it very difficult to build their own self-identity and have happy and fulfilled lives. The Napoleonic code influenced not only Europe, but also other countries such as the United States, as men and women alike were convinced that women did not deserve the same rights as men. While both women in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” respond to their situations after obtaining freedom in different ways, they illustrate the multiple facets of women’s oppressed social conditions during that era which caused many women various manifestations of depression, other physical and mental ailments, and for many, lead to loneliness and unfulfilled lives.

“Women are the only oppressed group in our society that lives in intimate association with their oppressors” stated by Evelyn Cunningham. Throughout history women have been known not to have freedom or independence to anything without the control of their husbands. The short stories “ A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “ The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin the two main characters Emily Grierson and Louise Mallard are both similar on how they want freedom from the dominant men in their lives, but also dissimilar in how they achieve their happy ending. In “ The Story of an Hour”, Louise Mallard wishes to be free from her marriage while, in “ A Rose for Emily”, Emily wants to get married. One woman seeks the love a man and the other wishes