Foreshadowing in William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily Essay

An important idiosyncrasy of Emily's that will help the reader to understand the bizarre finale of the story, is her apparent inability to cope with the death of someone she cared for. When deputies were sent to recover back taxes from Emily, she directed them to Colonel Sartoris, an ex-mayor that had told her she would never have to pay taxes, and a man that had been dead for ten years. Years before this incident, however, after her father had died, she continued to act has if he had not, and only allowed his body to be removed when threatened with legal action. Considering the fate of her lover's corpse, one suspects she would have kept her father's corpse also, had the town not known of his death.

William Faulkner paints a tragic tale about the inevitability of change and the futility of attempting to stop it in "A Rose for Emily". This story is about a lonely upper-class woman struggling with life and traditions in the Old South. Besides effective uses of literary techniques, such as symbolism and a first plural-person narrative style, Faulkner succeeds in creating a suspenseful and mysterious story by the use of foreshadowing, which gives a powerful description about death and the tragic struggle of the main character, Miss Emily. In general the use of foreshadowing often relates to events in a story, and few are attempted to describe character. Faulkner has effectively

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 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.

William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is a tragic tale of a Southern aristocrat, Miss Emily Grierson, who is the subject of a town's obsession.  The narrator, a member of the town, tells the story of what transpires in a decaying old Southern house that is always under the watchful eye of the townspeople.  They witness Miss Emily's life, her father's death, her turn to insanity and the death of both her and her lover.  The theme of death runs throughout this tale, which is understandable considering the events that take place in the story.  Faulkner uses foreshadowing to foretell events that will transpire later in the story.  Because of this foreshadowing, a reader

“When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral- (Faulkner,1)”, this is the opening sentence to Faulkner’s short story. Immediately the reader is left wondering who is Miss Emily and how did she die. As the story begins to unravel, more suspense is built. The first major instance is after Emily’s father dies. She claims he is not dead

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.

In the short story, the town of Jefferson, Mississippi shows sympathy towards Miss Emily Grierson for the loss of her father and her soon to be husband.

In addition, Faulkner uses the skewed timeline to capture the reader. Since the reader is expecting a chronological tale, the reader pays attention to the use of time. As Faulkner begins with the death of Emily, the reader expects the upcoming events to succeed Emily. Faulkner uses the expectations of the reader to create the voyage by immediately shrouding the reader’s expectations with various, disruptive links to time such as “ in last ten years,” “that day in 1894,” and the “next generation” (Faulkner 668). This method leaves “a residue to be organized by the reader (Perry 36). As the reader becomes more involves, suspense follows inherently. If this story were told from perspective of Emily, it would make sense for her to tell the story chronologically. Unless Emily is stricken also with Alzheimer’s disease or another memory-losing ailment, it is illogical for Emily to tell the story in a distorted order. Even if Emily did have illness, this changes the nature thus providing that the story is untellable without the narrator. The suspense of this story comes with the presence of the narrator who is allowed to distort the story as he sees fit.

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

This passage, although several lines in length, consists of only two sentences. The first is very brief, consisting of only seven words. As this sentence relates to Emily's cousins, it is also reflective of her relationship with her extended family: it exists, but to a degree that is barely worth mentioning. The second sentence is far lengthier, relates to the townsfolk and her father, and as such is useful in elaborating on her tortuous relationships with these people. It is a compound sentence, dealing with many discrete ideas at once. There is the funeral and the compulsive, socially driven reaction of the townsfolk to all attend. Next, there is the element of progress (“bought flowers,” where once people would have brought cut flowers from their own gardens) as compared to Emily's passing being representative of a bygone era. The very old men continue this theme of a bygone era, although they were in fact older than Emily (“...as if she had been a contemporary of theirs...”), and are also reflective of Emily's failed attempts at relationships with men, as well as the infinite influence of her father upon her life. And, of course, there is the element of time, which pervades the entire story, and is

Emily behaves the way she does for numerous reasons. She is born into an aristocratic family. Emily is brought up as a Southern belle by her father and is placed on a pedestal by the townspeople. The Grierson’s are known in town for being extremely wealthy and having the nicest house in Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County. Due to the fact that her father, Mr. Grierson, keeps her isolated and socially restricted as a child, she behaves abnormally. Emily feels as if she is pressured to live up to her father’s expectations. Because Emily is kept away from everything, she is not yet exposed to the real world.

No one would have ever suspected that Emily Grierson was capable of murder, much less keeping that murder a secret for over thirty years. Under the watchful, judging eyes of the townspeople, she kept up the pretense that she was a sane-minded, upper class individual, while she spiraled privately into a heinous madness that would claim the life of her beloved. Through stream of consciousness, the townspeople show the reader how Emily’s descent was as much their fault as it was

Emily Grierson, who is the main character in the short story, was the daughter of Mr. Grierson. It was said that Mr. Grierson had “loaned money to the town” by Colonel Sartoris and hereby granted Emily the exemption of paying taxes Mr.. Grierson is very controlling over Emily and would not allow any man to court his daughter. He kept her under watchful eye and lock. It is noted that once Mr. Grierson died, Emily cut her hair as if to rid herself from the confines of the way Mr. Grierson had kept her. The Grierson’s were viewed as having a high stature among the society in which they lived in. When she came to engage

When Emily first entered the cemetery, she was hesitant. Soon after talking to Mama Gibbs, Mrs. Soames and Simon Stimson she becomes