Essay Comparing A Rose For Emily And Barn Burning

"A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner is a short story that gives most people quite a shock when it comes to the ending. The story tells about how Miss Emily Grierson changes after her father dies. Miss Emily lives in a beautiful home with an African American servant named, Tobe. After Miss Emily’s father passed away she would never leave the house. Miss Emily was in denial about her father's death. For three days Emily would tell the townspeople that her father was not dead. The townspeople began to think Miss Emily was crazy because of her behavior, “Emily’s subsequent behavior clearly shows that the death of her father was a piece of reality disavowed by her ego” (Scherting). Including, Miss Emily wouldn't pay her taxes, the eerie smell around her house and the fact she killed her lover. Emily’s life, like her decaying house, starts to suffer from attention. What else could go wrong?

William Faulkner some would say was one of the great writers of American literature during the twentieth century. His stories many times had a gothic plot and contained odd or supernatural ideas and characters. He had many notable works, two of which were “A Rose for Emily” and “Barn Burning”. “A Rose for Emily” and “Barn Burning” are similar in the way that William Faulkner portrays the characters and the tone he uses in both.

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.

Meyer, Michael. "A Rose for Emily." The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing. Ninth ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. 84-90. Print.

Next, we are introduced to the antagonist, Abner Snobes, when he talks for the first time since the trial began. He also establishes the fact that he plans to move himself and his family out of town. We are then introduced to the rest of Sarty’s family.

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

An almost commonly known saying states that there are no bad children, only bad parents. William Faulkner, an author, demonstrates the concept of corrupt parenting within his short stories "A Rose for Emily" and "Barn Burning." Both of Faulkner's short works include horrific fathers that drastically affect the lives of their children. The fathers, Mr. Grierson from "A Rose for Emily," and Abner Snopes from "Barn Burning," share numerous similar characteristics of behavior, such as over-controlling, selfish and abusive.

In the short stories “A Rose For Emily,” by William Faulkner and “The Possibility of Evil,” by Shirley Jackson both authors create similar characters and settings that illustrate daring images of evil. Both Emily Grierson and Adela Strangeworth are women who share similar characteristics yet pose completely different motives. Their stories take place in close-knit towns, which play essential roles in their motives for evil. Emily Grierson and Adela Strangeworth demonstrate similarities and differences that develop their actions, revealing the possibility of evil within them.

Although Miss Emily and Abner's anger toward others has lead them to terrible crimes, Abner is more sympathetic than Emily because Emily’s anger has driven her to kill a person, which is an unacceptable crime compared to Abner. Although both of the characters carry anger in their life, their ways of expressing anger are totally different. Faulkner implies that Emily is a woman who is thirsty for love, since she couldn’t fall in love with others before her father died. When she meets Homer after her father died, she thinks that he is her true love. Yet, Homer is a homosexual and he always drinks with men in the Elks Club, which means he is not a marrying man (Faulkner 102).

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.

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.

The short story “A Rose for Emily” is told by a southerner, a resident of Jefferson, Mississippi. The story by William Faulkner portrays a woman who lived a life of seclusion. Miss Emily Grierson could not accept that important people in her life could leave her. She was a victim of her father, time and her town. The way the story is told is controlled by the storyteller. During the time spent letting it know, he infers his own and his general public's social qualities, which impact states of mind and conduct toward Emily in a manner that embroils him and the townspeople in her destiny. The author may well ask why he recounts the story at all or why he lets it know the way he does,

Sarty has spent the beginning of the trial listening to the proceedings and waiting for Abner to defend himself. When Sarty is called as a witness, he knows from his father’s posture that he, Sarty, will have to lie to defend the family. The fact that Sarty knows this without even seeing Abner’s face shows just how much time Sarty has spent observing his father’s body language and actions. This is reasonable, and even expected behavior from a child who lives with a parent who is as prone to anger and retaliation as Abner. We see how desperate Sarty is about his father’s willingness for revenge when they are moving to the De Spain’s estate and he thinks to himself, “Forever […]. Maybe he’s done satisfied now, now that he has…” (86). But Sarty is unable to admit the truth even to himself, probably because his loyalty to, and dependence on Abner. Even so early in the story Sarty feels that his father is doing wrong, but through all his observation cannot condemn the man. Sarty admires the qualities of independence, courage and conviction in his father but doesn’t recognize that these qualities, along with the righteous indignation that Abner constantly keeps at the ready, are exactly what cause them to be

The saying, “blood is thicker than water” is a term used to imply that family relationships are always more important than friends. However, at times it may be hard to choose between family and friends based on right and wrong. In the short story, Barn Burning, written by “William Faulkner, a Nobel Prize winning novelist of the American South”(“William Faulkner”), choosing between family and doing what is right for honor and justice is highly expressed. The main character, Colonel Sartoris Snopes, nicknamed Sarty, battles his thoughts of doing what is right or wrong throughout the story. After following the orders of his father for ten years, Sarty eventually decides to make his own choice and go against the pull of blood.

Sartoris' moral values are not awakened because he suddenly and spontaneously realizes that his father is a wrong doing man. Instead, Sartoris has undergone a type of spiritual revelation when he first sees Major de Spain's plantation. He feels that the residents of this lovely home are safe from his father. As Sartoris states on paragraph fourty, People whose lives are a part of this peace and dignity are behind his touch, he no more to them than a buzzing wasp: capable of stinging for a little moment but that's all; the spell of this peace and dignity rendering even the barns and stable and cribs which belong to it impervious to the puny flames he might contrive. For the first time in the story Sartoris has described beauty, elegance, and grace, and recognizes these qualities as being new and of a spiritual encounter. They strike a positive attitude in him, and he will never be the same. When Sartoris bursts into the de Spains' living room and informs them that his father is going to burn down the Major's barn, he has made a moral decision against his father. He has realized that his father was wrong when he said that "You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain't going to have any blood to stick to you." What Sartoris has to stick to is his selfhood, his new knowledge of who he is and who he wants to be.