Barn Burning vs a Rose for Emily

Emily comes from a family with high expectations of her a sort of “hereditary obligation” (30). Emily has been mentally manipulated by her as so indicated in the line of the story “we did not say she was crazy then we believed she had to do that we remember all the young men her father had driven away” (32). There is already proof of mental illness in the family “remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great aunt, had gone completely crazy last” (32).

Emily the main character in “A Rose for Emily” and Sartoris the main character in “Barn Burning” are similar in many aspects. In “A Rose for Emily” the narrarator states, “Just as they were about to resort to law and force she broke down, and they buried her father quickly.”(Faulkner 4) This quote suggests

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.

Faulkner continues his southern gothic writing style when the story goes back to an earlier time in Miss Emily’s life. Faulkner

William Faulkner has done a wonderful work in his essay “A Rose for Emily.” Faulkner uses symbols, settings, character development, and other literary devices to express the life of Emily and the behavior of the people of Jefferson town towards her. By reading the essay, the audience cannot really figure out who the narrator is. It seems like the narrator can be the town’s collective voice. The fact that the narrator uses collective pronoun we supports the theory that the narrator is describing the life of “Miss Emily” on behalf of the townspeople. Faulkner has used the flashback device in his essay to make it more interesting. The story begins with the portrayal of Emily’s funeral and it moves to her past and at the end the readers realize that the funeral is a flashback as well. The story starts with the death of Miss Emily when he was seventy-four years old and it takes us back when she is a young and attractive girl.

In "A Rose for Emily" and "Barn Burning," William Faulkner creates two characters worthy of comparison. Emily Grierson, a recluse from Jefferson, Mississippi, is an important figure in the town, despite spending most of her life in seclusion. On the contrary, Abner Snopes is a loud, fiery-tempered man that most people tend to avoid. If these characters are judged by reputation and outward appearance only, the conclusion would be that Emily Grierson and Abner Snopes are complete opposites. However, despite the external differences, these two characters have surprisingly similar personalities.

Reason being because Faulkner wanted to indicate the social status of the two protagonists. Emily was an important figure of the town and was greatly respected by her peers. The Grierson family was a super appealing family in the Jefferson community. Emily is a rigid woman who believes in her discernments of her family’s integrity, wealth and again status in society. Miss Grierson is hardheaded and stubborn, she had the mentality that she didn’t have to pay taxes when Alderman arrived to collect compensation. She trusted that she was better than everyone else and that the Grierson family name had the reputation like no other individual in town. Emily’s father was a very respected man from the townsmen. Abner Scopes, on the other hand, despises wealthy people. Resulting in their success and importance, Abner burns down their barns for revenge. Mr. Snopes is a very violent, reckless and cold-hearted man. While being penalized for burning a mans barn, he is forced to leave the country and shows no emotion toward anybody. William Faulkner is attempting to signify the distinctive relationship between wealthy and poor people during the Civil

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.

Another prime example of Faulkner's effective writing is his use of narration. Of course, in most stories the narrator is a key asset. In :A Rose for Emily" Faulkner uses the narrator not only as a story teller, but as an observer from the crowd as well. The narrator's point of view, which is third person, had a positive effect on the way a reader views the story. "Through out the story the narrator uses "we" instead of I revealing to us the way the townspeople judge Emily" (Madden 1988). The narrator thinks back in time throughout the story remembering particular events that occurred in the past. This is important to the reader in that it helps aid the understanding of how the townspeople viewed Emily. The narrator as one of the townspeople viewed Miss Emily as impervious, tranquil, and perverse. If the story had been narrated by anyone else, it may not have been as easy for the reader to completely understand. "With this spectator as the narrator, describing the events of the story through his eyes, one can detect a general impression of Emily" (Madden 1987). The view of the narrator is beneficial in understanding the things that Emily goes through. Also toward the end of the story the narrator gives the reader a feeling if sorrow and pity for Emily. It is apparent Faulkner's use of narration is critical to the enhancement and clarification of the "A Rose for Emily." After analyzing the

I was also baffled at the sanitary state in which her mansion was in when the authorities of the town visited. I could not understand why the daughter of the town’s nobility would neglect her appearance and the condition of her inherited estate. Due to my attempts to wave away her strange actions, I was shocked to find out that Homer Barron, the New Yorker who managed to capture young Emily’s heart, lay on the bed, frozen, with his flesh and clothes rot from forty years of gradual decay. I believe Faulker’s flawless, descriptive ability to capture the gothic themes of the story and his unexpected ending will interest readers. Furthermore, I believe they will find the grave ending in “A Rose for Emily” as shocking and enticing as I had found

William Faulkner's character’s Abner and Emily both emphasize the influence of modernity on traditional southern culture and how they both refuse to give into the modernization. Thus explaining how their grotesque’s behavior relates to the drastic social changes taking place in their lives. Faulkner’s characters grotesque behavior is derived from their misinterpretation of the southern culture foundation, the substitution of their own eccentric beliefs, and lastly their lack of integration into a community.

It is a fact, that the narrator makes judgments both for and against the protagonist and also present outsides observations when he stays “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition , a duty , and a care ; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town “(Faulkner,82) being this to emphasize the responsibility that the people of the town felt whit her and stays also his point pf view in the situation . The narrator is sympathetic to Miss Emily, never condemning her actions. Sometimes unabashedly and sometimes grudgingly, the narrator admires her ability to use her aristocratic bearing in order to vanquish the members of the city and an example is when she go to buy the arsenic and the druggist ask her to tell him for what she is going to use it ,and she just look him eye to eye and the man go and give her the arsenic without ask her anything else . As we could see it is hard to determine the gender of the narrative voice because is talking as the people and never use a word for describe himself . He uses the words “we” and “they” and changes it continuously because he does not want to be involved in all the things the community did and he is blaming the community for Emily’s behavior. Faulkner uses the perfect kind of narrator for develop his genre , a mysterious and creepy narrative voice to develop

I realize that authors have the freedom to write a story from whatever perspective they wish, no matter how biased or misleading it may be, but I also think people should take away valuable knowledge from the text they are reading. In the case of “A Rose for Emily,” I did learn some good morals such as the power of death, but I mostly came away with the idea that I am superior to the women in my life. I am not sure if that is what Faulkner intended, but it is certainly not a

William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily,” was written after the civil war and is often considered a piece of Southern Gothic literature (Davis). Southern Gothic is a subgenre of the gothic culture, which typically relies on the use of supernatural, unusual, and ironic events to drive the plot, all of which can be seen as a driving force throughout the story development of Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” (Davis). Through Faulkner’s ingenious short story, “A Rose for Emily,” he demonstrates the powerful yet internal conflict that comes with change, and the tension it creates between the realms of the past and the future. Upon further analysis, we come to see the story as a representation of the fallen south coupled with societal commentary and a depiction of the characters as spirits from the past stuck in a present time they struggle to come to peaceful terms with. We can see the powerful message Faulkner creates illustrated throughout his use of symbolism, his protagonist Emily, the community that surrounds her, and the incongruent timeline of events he depicts throughout the telling of his story.

In “A Rose for Emily”, William Faulkner adopts copious amounts of interesting techniques to help move the story along from symbolism to the structure of the story itself. Though, one technique that stands out the most is his use of an anonymous narrator whose relationship and role in not only Emily’s life, but the life of the town is quite ambiguous. The way the narrator chose to tell the eccentric Emily Grierson’s story is quite striking, using the word “we” multiple times throughout the piece taking on the feelings of the townspeople. It is clear that the narrator’s placement in the story is to function as the voice of white society in the south, demonstrate the ignorance of society, and symbolize the relationship between society and