A Rose For Emily Criteria Essay

Desperation for love arising from detachment can lead to extreme measures and destructive actions as exhibited by the tumultuous relationships of Miss Emily in William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily” (rpt. in Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson, Perrine's Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 9th ed. [Boston: Wadsworth, 2006] 556). Miss Emily is confined from society for the majority of her life by her father, so after he has died, she longs for relations that ironically her longing destroys. The despondency and obsession exuded throughout the story portray the predicament at hand.

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.

Faulkner used a setting and time to show Emily had a hard time accepting change and moving on with her life. They story took place right after the Civil War. Most African Americans were loathed and discriminated but Emily was relived from her father. Money showed a social statement back then and Emily’s father had money. Since her father loaned the town money she had become a well appreciated woman even after his passing. In stated in the story, “she had chosen not to come out of the house and when the townspeople had saw her they seen a different Emily.” As stated in the book

Faulkner’s use of southern gothic writing style helps the reader build a mental depiction of Miss Emily. When the town sent their ambassadors to discuss the taxes that were owed, Faulkner described Miss Emily as “bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water” (2182). This description gives the reader the sense that the character is not well. Faulkner’s description that Miss Emily looked bloated achieves the desired effect on the reader to show how hideous she appears. This graphic description, combined with the author’s depressing description of the parlor (2182), makes the reader think of death. The reader gets the sense of being in a funeral parlor which helps to strengthen Faulkner’s narrative.

William Faulkner came from a well-respected family line. His grandfather being a Civil War Hero and his father being the treasurer of the University of Mississippi. He worked in Hollywood to make a living and was awarded a Noble Prize in Literature in 1950. An analysis of William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily” shows Faulkner build suspense in three different techniques, Miss Emily refusing her father’s death, the purchase of arsenic, and the smell of the house. Faulkner’s built suspense worked because it gave the reader a discovery to unravel while reading the story.

William Faulkner at one point stated that if he were offered a chance to choose between grief and nothing, he would have chosen grief (Volpe 187). He additional clarifies why he would do this through the story “A Rose for Emily”. However, the story is not about Faulkner but a lonely, selfish and poor woman, Emily Greirson. Emily is incapable of coming to terms with the notion of death and as a consequence suffers an immense deal of denunciation (Anderson 89). While the town folk anticipated that she would grieve upon her father’s demise, she is not. However, she goes on to claim that her father is okay and alive. Faulkner’s notion of anguish is lucid in this story as he shows the readers that it is worth acknowledging death than disregarding it through Emily’s life (Claridge 59). Faulkner’s story is set in the South, during the racial discrimination and key political shift epoch.

In Faulkner's story, an onlooker tells of the peculiar events that occurred during Miss Emily's life. The author never lets the reader understand Emily's side to the story. Instead, the reader is forced to guess why Emily is as strange as she is. In the story, Emily had harbored her father's dead body in her house for three days (par. 27). The reader is told of how the town looked upon what Emily had done, but the reader is never able to fully understand Emily's actions until the end of the story.

Faulkner, William.”A Rose for Emily”. Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Eds.Edgar V. Roberts and Robert Zweig. 10th ed. Boston: Longman, 2012. 91-96.

In “A Rose For Emily”, by William Faulkner, plot plays an important role in how

William Faulkner is an award winning novelist. He has written novels, short stories, plays, poetry, essays and screenplays. Mr. Faulkner graduated from Oxford University, as well as won the two most important awards that anyone can get for writing: Pulitzer Award and the Nobel Prize. A Rose For Emily, is a short story about a Southern women who faces the loss of her father and is criticized by her own town. In William Faulkner’s, A Rose For Emily the author approaches the story with a pathetical appeal, the tone/attitude of the story is set out to be gothic, as well as be a proud a Southerner.

In a long critical analysis, Terry Heller asserts that although Faulkner’s emphasizes the difficulty of accepting change, they are other ideals that influence the way this short story is perceived. Heller argues that since the publication of this story, Miss Emily Grierson has either been sympathized or hated by the readers. He descriptively comments how the townspeople claimed to feel sympathy towards Emily but in reality never reached out to her to help her overcome her loses. Heller mentions that Faulkner highlights “what the town [felt], the things the town [said], [believed], and [did],” in order to help the reader realize that they are incorrect about the assumptions they make concerning Emily. Heller claims that the town’s actions reveal

Faulkner uses Emily’s character to represent the Old South in health and death. Her stubborn attitude and her decorum both reflect the characteristics of the Old South. When the men go to her home and confront her about her unpaid taxes and she asks them to leave, she represents that women in the Old South were not argued with and not questioned as not to insult them. The way that the people of the town treat her reflects this even further. The people of the town treat Emily as a monument just as they had seen the Old South. “It was another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons.” They see her as something to observe and only interfere when she does something they do not like, such as dating a Northerner. Even in death The Old South follows her. “And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those August names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.”

William Faulkner begins the story by telling of the death of Miss Emily Grierson. The people in the town went to Emily’s funeral not because they admired her or had love and affection for her, but mainly out of curiosity. The women could not wait to see the inside of the house, everyone knew that when her father died he only left her with the house, in other words Emily was a pauper.

The story represented to all show an easy-going, relaxed attitude that works perfectly to support its theme concerning the madness of modern life. Faulkner’s division in the story helped to organized the events surrounding Miss Emily’s life supports the story direction and events preceding her death, five sections. The town sees and knows and tells the story for Miss Emily. Miss Emily is dead at the very beginning of the story, but Faulkner paints a picture of a strong reputable

What is going to be analyzed in this paper are the two short stories by W. Faulkner 'A Rose for Emily' and 'Dry September'. Basically, what is to be performed is a comparison/contrast analysis in terms of the writing style and character presentation. More specifically, I will provide first the information from the story 'A Rose for Emily', concerning writing style and character presentation, and following is going to be the same analysis for the other story 'Dry September'. After the necessary data are provided, there is going to be a comparison/contrast of these data, by also citing passages