In “ A Rose for Emily,” the entire community conspires to protect both Emily and the small town from the shame and stigma of Emily’s illness and idiosyncratic behavior. The story focuses on Emily Grierson, the last living Grierson. Emily is an older lady living in Mississippi. As new town leaders take over, they make unsuccessful attempts to get Emily to resume payments on her taxes. She says that Colonel Sartoris has told her she has no taxes in Jefferson, though the Colonel had been dead for almost a decade. The main setting of the story is a creepy old house in Jefferson, Mississippi where Emily Grierson, the last living Grierson, lives. The house is not only old, but very rundown. The setting of "A Rose for Emily" helps develop a plot line which examines the effects of loneliness and isolation have on a person’s psyche. As a result, the story conveys a true and timeless main theme: one must change with the times; if one does not change with time, then one falls behind.
In ‘’The Possibility of Evil’’, Miss Adela Strangeworth is depicted as a villain. Miss Strangeworth in fact is similar to a rose, a rose is a simple flower that looks angelic but has thorns that can prick someone and cause harm. Miss Strangeworth gives the illusion of a 71 year-old lady that can cause no harm and has a heart of gold that cares and worries for everyone. But behind the pretty picture, is a villainous woman who is controlling, bullies the other townspeople, and is jealous of others success.
Tradition controls the actions of both the town and Emily herself. “A Rose for Emily” captures the importance tradition holds for her Southern community. The Civil War was an issue of lifestyle. Southerners hung to the lifestyle they had, with the slaves. Tradition was the reason Emily didn’t pay her taxes. Her father was aristocracy and paid no taxes , therefore , Emily refused. When the slavery era passed, the South fell, the lifestyle was torn apart and the economy changed. Old-time families, like Emilie’s, lost their position with their
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.
“A Rose for Emily” reveals the influence that Southern Gothic had on his writing. The story’s setting is a perfect example. His particular story has a moody and forbidding atmosphere; a crumbling old mansion; and decay, putrefaction, and grotesquerie. Faulkner’s work uses the sensational elements to highlight an individual’s struggle against an oppressive society that is undergoing rapid change. Emily herself is stuck in the “Old south” while her town is changing. Another aspect of the Southern Gothic style is appropriation and transformation. Faulkner has appropriated the image of the damsel in distress and transformed it into Emily, a psychologically damaged spinster. Her mental instability and necrophilia have made her an emblematic Southern Gothic
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.
Starting off firstly, in “A Rose for Emily”, it shows that the setting took place around the end of the civil war. After the war, Emily’s father Mr. Grierson in essence, raised his young daughter Emily to believe that nothing had changed after the war. Emily’s
Denial is a recurring theme in both stories rendered by those who believe to be in a higher class. In “A Rose for Emily,” Emily is depicted as an isolated woman who is so attached to the customs and aristocracy of the past to the degree that she cannot accept change. Emily considers herself as a wealthy and powerful spinster, and her family’s position
“A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner, is a story of Miss Emily Grierson, a woman who was born into a wealthy family in the town of Jefferson. She grew up and lived in a huge Victorian home with servants. After the Civil War, it seems that her family’s wealth started to diminish but the Grierson’s were still trapped in the past of their family’s wealth. Emily Grierson’s past and present life is being recalled by a narrator who expresses the attitudes and ideas of the community. The narrator uses phrases like “We knew”, “We said”, and “We believed” to show the towns involvement. The townspeople pity Miss Emily and look at her as “fallen monument.
“Miss Emily” refused to pay her taxes because she believed she was pardoned from them due to the fact that Colonel Sartoris had once loaned money to their hometown. Nobody in her town challenged her on this, or the matter that she still had a negro servant that attended to her in her old fashioned home that she refused to update. The local color of the era Miss Emily wished to live in is particularly apparent. Her home is even described as once being part of the best neighborhood in town, another reason Miss Emily was stuck in the past. Another example of local color in “A Rose for Emily” is the oddity that even though Miss Emily is an outsider in town, nobody bothers to challenge her because she has an “Old South” social standing.
Emily Grierson is a very misunderstood individual. She lived her entire 74 years of life in the same house in the same city of Jefferson, Mississippi and yet, only a very small group of people can claim they know much about the woman, especially during the later years of her life. She had a mysterious way about her which intrigued all of those around her. The story of “A Rose for Emily” does not occur in chronological order and as a reader, it almost portrays the illusion of being a newcomer to Jefferson, Mississippi and learning about her story through gossip which plays a huge role in this story. As the story begins, Mrs. Grierson has just recently passed and the town gathered at her residency to give condolences and subdue their curiosities.
In order to emphasize Miss Emily portrays the Old south to the new, Faulkner represents that change will not prosper when she decays to her death.“A Rose for Emily” is used to address the themes of progression and changes because it is related to the American South. Faulkner phrases how the south refuses to see the Historical fate and social change, and if the south doesn’t accept to the assembled time. The south will have a difficult and lonely death like Miss Emily.
In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” the story is revolved around the character Emily Grierson. The story is told by the townspeople where Emily lives. These people are attending her funeral and pitching in memories and tales they remember from Emily’s life. It is through the collective voices and opinions of the crowd that the reader is able to interpret Emily’s struggles. With Emily Grierson’s choices the reader can tell that she is a dependant woman, with psychotic tendencies, and does not take the thought of change and rejection lightly.
Secondly, “A Rose for Emily” is a short story told in chronological order about the life of Miss Emily Grierson. The narrator is someone who is part of the town who gives and narrates some details about the strange life that Emily had. The story begins with Miss Emily Grierson's funeral; ten years ago no one came into her house except for her servant. The house is old but was once the best in the neighborhood. Since 1894 the town had had a special relationship with Miss Grierson, when they decided to stop charging her taxes. However, the "new generation" was not happy with that deal and they went to visit Ms. Grierson and tried to get her to pay her debt. She did not want to acknowledge that the deal no longer worked and refused to pay. Thirty