Looking For Emily Foreshadowing Analysis

A statistic shows that “by summer of 1863, in New Bern, N.C., only 20 of the 250 white people remaining in town were men” (Abbott). In a depletion of man, the appearance of Homer Barron is like a light to Emily’s heart. She does not mind about Homer’s origin, as long as she has a man whom can live with her. However, it is not easy to own a man in this period. Abbott states that “widowed women in their 30s faced stiff competition for available men in their age group and suffered constant reminders of their grim odds” (Abbott). This fact explains Emily’s action of poisoning her lover, Homer. She wants to keep him beside her forever. Killing Homer is the only way, she can get him away from all other women and do not lose him. Due to the effect of war on men, Emily is trying to fight over her destiny to own a man for herself, but she seems to go too far with it.

When she finally found a male that showed some interest and emotion, she was attached to them. That’s where Homer Barron comes into the story. He would visit Emily and go for Sunday drives with her. When Homer told Emily that he must move on she found herself on the verge of loneliness once again. If Homer would leave it would be two men that have left her. When she realized that he was about to leave she poisoned him and would keep him forever.

When Miss Emily finds somebody, though, it quickly pushes her to desperation. Her relationship with Homer Barron is a result of the life and death of her father. Ironically, he is a northern, roughneck Yankee, the exact opposite of any connection a Grierson would consider. Unsuspectingly, Emily is attracted to him, which is an oddity itself considering her lack of personality and his obvious charisma, for “whenever you [hear] a lot of laughing...Homer Barron [will] be in the center of the group” (560). He is also the first man to show an interest in her without her father alive to scare him off. The town is doubtful that the pair will remain together, but Emily's attachments are extreme, as seen when she would not surrender her father's body. The circumstance exhibits how her feelings are greatly intensified towards Homer. However, he is “not a marrying man” (561). When it appears as though he will leave her, she kills him with poison. While seemingly the opposite effect of love, killing Homer is quite in line with her obsession. If he is dead and she keeps Homer all to herself, Emily will never lose him; he can never leave her. Other such details that express her extreme attachments appear as she buys him clothes and toiletries before they are even considered married. There is also the revelation at the end of the story that she has been keeping his body for over thirty years and sleeping with it, clearly demonstrating her overt desperation

It is noted in the passage that “Homer himself had remarked--he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks' Club--that he was not a marrying man” (4). First her father runs away men, then when a man finally comes around he is homosexual. One day Miss Emily goes to the druggist and says “I want arsenic” (3). It is after seeing this that the people in town started to think she was going to commit suicide (4). Homer barron leaves and returns after Miss Emily’s two cousins leave. The people in the town never see him again and they say “the one we believed would marry her … had deserted her. The body of Homer Barron was found on the bed with a piece of Miss Emily’s gray hair next to the body.

Some of the townspeople considered this as an inappropriate match for her and said, “That even grief could not cause a real lady to forget oblesse oblige.” Emily could not stand loosing anyone else and murdered Homer. She had missed so many chances of marrying anyone because of her father, so the only resort she had left was to kill homer and hang on to him forever before he would leave her life like everyone else. Once Emily had passed away, the townspeople went inside her house and saw that Homer’s body was there in the bed. Astonishingly they saw “the second pillow (had an) indention of a head… and saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.” Faulkner had described Emily’s hair as iron-gray so it could be assumed that Emily had been lying next to homer all this time.

The smell that upsets the community is the next foreshadowing of the death of Homer. The smell comes "a short time after her sweetheart...had deserted her"(509). The manner of Homer's death is implied in the conversation between Miss Emily and the pharmacist as she is buying arsenic, a poison used to kill rats, as well as the picture of "skull and bones", which is exactly what the town people find left of Homer (511).

Emily’s father, as well as the people of Jefferson, had always pressured Emily to marry. Her father was never able to find a match for her though, and he eventually passed. Emily then met Homer Barron, a contract worker for the town. They begin to see each other more often, and the townspeople are shocked that Emily would lower herself to being with a man of low class. This shows a bit of irony, in that there has always been pressure for Emily to marry, yet when she finally meets a man she loves, people think she is wrong in her decision. Another piece of irony in this relationship, comes after Emily dies. The body of Homer Barron is found in the attic of Emily’s home. Next to the body are signs that Emily had been sleeping next the corpse. It can be assumed that Emily did murder Homer with the arsenic she had purchased earlier in the story. It

While the outside of her house mirrors her physical decay the interior of the house allows the reader a glimpse into her mental and emotional state. Even though the outside may still be somewhat beautiful and dominating with it's classic structure, the inside of the house smelling "of dust and disuse" and with furniture in which "the leather was cracked" (622)shows that the admirable elegance Miss Emily portrays is just a façade. From the "tarnished gilt easel" holding her fathers picture and the "tarnished gold head" of her cane to the "dim hall from which a staircase mounted into still more shadow" Faulkner uses the interiorof her house to allude to Miss Emily's flawed, dark and decaying mind. Miss Emily's appearance on her deathbed with "her gray head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight" (627) not only resembles the objects in her house covered in dust but also prepares the reader for the climax of the story. In the final scene when the townspeople find Homer in the room with "curtains of faded rose-color" and "rose colored lights" (627), the dark side of Miss Emily's rose-colored world is unveiled. Her obvious loneliness, recorded by the indention on the pillow next to Homer's body, makes her sin almost

With this discovery, Emily knew she could never have him and could not bear the thought of another man that she loved leaving her. This must have been the breaking point for her. Emily was determined not to let another man leave her for the third time. Therefore she purchased the arsenic so she could be with him forever. The last person to see Homer was a neighbor as the Negro man was admitting him in at the kitchen door at dusk one evening. Again, Emily submerged herself into the familiar calm of isolation until her death. After her funeral, the narrator (the town) paints the picture of their discovery in the room above the stairs. A room in which no one had seen in for forty years. “The man himself lay in the bed. For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him…. Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted

Her relationship with her father is a total mystery, however it’s well implied that their relationship was more than the typical normal father and daughter relationship. For this reason the community wasn’t at all shocked that Emily was single and turning thirty. In denial about her father’s death, she refused to le the townspeople remove the body for three days. Once she met Homer Barron, Emily begins an undesirable affair. Many of the town people were happy she was with someone. Though it is soon found that Homer played for the other team, Emily goes to the pharmacist for poison, it is then that the townspeople think that she will kill herself. After buying the arsenic, the next time they see her it’s stated, “she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray” (Faulkner 521). This perhaps the result of Homer Barron’s murder and the loss of her dad. At seventy four years old, Emily died in her home “She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her gray head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight” (Faulkner 521). The major plot twist is that the townspeople find Homer Barron in a bedroom upstairs, lying in a lover’s embrace, with the indentation of a head upon the pillow next to him and one “long strand of iron gray hair” (Faulkner 522). Ms. Emily is “jilted” by the death of her father and Homer Barron leaving her. Since her father isolated her so well

Additionally, the death and decay of a character represents the instability of the protagonist while creating suspense. In "A Rose for Emily", Emily experienced death twice as her father dies of unstated causes and she kills her lover, Homer Barron. The death of Homer Barron creates suspense as the last sighting of Homer is going inside Emily 's but is never seen or heard from again. In the end, the townspeople go in Emily 's room after her funeral and find Homer 's decaying body laying in her bed. Moreover, a long piece of gray hair and indention in a pillow is found on an pillow laying next to Homer. Thus, Emily was sleeping next to his rotting body every night until her own death. Moreover, decay is representative of Emily 's life from an well respected figure in her community to a drown woman with an bloated pale figure left to long in the water (Faulkner ). Faulkner, illustrates how Emily was once of high status but now times in the old South have shifted causing her health to decline. Emily 's reluctancy to part ways with the old south causes her to become alone and isolated for the majority of her life. Hence, the reason she unmarried as her father drove away

When creating a story the author has to incorporate elements which give the reader a hint as to what message they are trying to get across. These elements contour the story’s plot and determine whether a reader will remain interested or not. In A Rose for Emily, William Faulkner uses foreshadowing and symbolism to add suspense, keeping the reader on their toes until the story’s conclusion.

Despite all the rumours talk by the towns people, Miss Emily had her own plan, but as Faulkner wanted to let the readers contradict what is the use of the arsenic he didn’t stated why and how does Homer disappeared. But as a clue, Faulkner come out with the smell, however, continues to persist, rapping on the reader’s curiosity. Miss Emily emerges as a figure frozen in a short of stasis, though throughout it all, Faulkner never makes her character any less complex and ambiguous.

Homer Barron was a blatant homosexual, and the whole town knew it. Even though Miss Emily must’ve known this, she still pursues this man. The reader can see that once again the town feels terrible for Miss Emily because Homer has made it clear he is not the marrying type, as he likes to drink with young men (156). They feel bad for her, but no one seems to want to help her. Homer Barron disappears and the reader later learns that he has been laid to rest in Miss Emily’s home while she slept next to him.

One of the creepiest and most corrupt parts of the Faulkner’s story is Emily’s necrophilia. Since she wanted to be with her lover, Homer Barron, she decides to marry him. She fantasizes herself living with Homer as she buys “a complete outfit of men’s clothing” for him, however Homer is “not a marrying man” (Faulkner 798). Refusing to accept this, Emily poisons and kills him in order to “live with him”, even if he is a corpse. Although the phrase loving unconditionally applies here, her love, nevertheless, is still defying the laws of ethics, and to add to the creepiness level, her “long strand of iron-gray hair” is found on Homer’s corpse, which means she had frequent visits with him (Faulkner 800). Her perverse idea of love holds no justification, thus her idea of love is wrong. Not only did she not respect