rose for emily Essay examples

At the beginning of the short story, Faulkner does not elude too much to the coming events in the story. Perhaps our first clue of things to come, comes from this text on page 90

Compared to many writers, Faulkner’s sentence structure is long and drawn out, making the story appear more complicated. The novel’s themes and storylines are relatively simple, but the intricate writing makes the narrative difficult to understand. A wise, old

2) What does the title of the story suggest about the townspeople’s feelings toward Miss Emily? Why do they feel this way about her? (Or: What does she represent to them?) Is there anything ironic about their feelings?

Understanding literary elements such as patterns, reader/writer relationships, and character choice are critical in appreciating William Faulkner's Barn Burning. Some literary elements are small and almost inconsequential while others are large and all-encompassing: the mother's broken clock, a small and seemingly insignificant object, is used so carefully, extracting the maximum effect; the subtle, but more frequent use of dialectal words which contain darker, secondary meanings; the way blood is used throughout the story in many different ways, including several direct references in the familial sense; how Faulkner chooses to write about poor, common people (in fact to the

The manner that Faulkner applies point of view in "A Rose for Emily" provides the readers with the idea of the dying values, traditions, and customs of the “Old South”.

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

Faulkner has characterized all the characters in the best possible way. Emily Grierson, Homer Barron, Judge Stevens – the mayor of Jefferson, Mr. Grierson – Emily’s father, Tobe – Emily’s servant, and Colonel Sartoris – a former mayor of Jefferson are the major charters in the story. The narrator describes Emily as a monument, but with a lot of negativity. The story shows us how she was a smart young girl and then how she end up being an overprotective and secretive old woman. She refused to accept the change when her father died and that’s why she kept telling all the people in town that her father is still alive. Homer Barron is much like Emily. Like Emily, Homer is an outsider and becomes the topic of gossip. The narrator describes Homer as a big man with dark complexion with a good sense of humor. Tobe’s character in the story plays an important role. He is a loyal and dutiful servant. He cared for Emily till she died, but he walked out of the back door and never returned after Emily’s death. Mr. Grierson was a well-maintained person. When he was alive, Emily’s house was always beautifully maintained. He earned a lot of respect in the society but when he died the respect towards his family died with him.

Miss Emily lives in an environment where she is surrounded by people she loves. After her father dies, she shuts herself in the house. The house, to Miss Emily, was like a symbol of her father, protecting her from the outside world. Her father's death takes a toll on her body physically and emotionally, and makes her to never want to feel abandoned again. To keep from feeling lonely, Miss Emily drugged Homer and stashed his body in the attic after his announcement that he was leaving her.

1. Discuss the ways in which Faulkner uses Miss Emily 's house as a symbol and/or metaphor both her character 's personality and circumstances and for the narrative 's broader themes. What does the description of Emily 's house—at the beginning of the story, particularly, but also throughout the narrative—reveal about her character? About the story 's historical setting? About the narrative 's central concerns?

Emily is a character surrounded by mystery, leaving a mark on the influence of others, causing them to create their own scenarios about her life. It happened when she met Homer, when everyone hoped she will marry him, or when she bought poison and everyone thought she would poison herself. Her high wealthy status and respect were emphasized when she kicked out the people who

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.

The main theme of the Faulkner's short story is the relationship between the past and present in Emily Grierson, the protagonist. She did not accept the passage of time throughout all her life, keeping everything she loved in the past with her.

Examining the narrator’s manipulations of the timeline may indicate a motive or motives that, when taken into consideration with the directions in which the narrative steers reader attention when horror results from the text’s final image. Nebecker rightly questions earlier interpretations of the narrator as singular and male, suggesting a more plausible first-person collective and multi-generational narrator. Furthermore, narrator’s strategy for presenting Miss Emily Grierson’s story when Homer Barron mysteriously disappears and his remains are found after Emily dies years later on a bed which Emily appears to have slept in as well in upstairs room of Emily’s house, Nebeker concludes that “by abetting if not aiding these acts, the narrative “we,” representative of the Old South, triumphs over the later “they,” representative of the New South.”

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.

Bleikasten concludes that Faulkner, like many of his contemporaneous authors, recognized the inability of language to express beauty, truth, and perhaps womanhood, and so could only explain by not explaining, narrate by not narrating, and write by not writing. I think one could additionally argue that this is why Faulkner does not “write” Caddy, or give her a voice, because language would (apparently) spoil her beauty (which I cannot help reading as an excuse). When Bleikasten insists that Faulkner’s “insistence on his failure was no pose,” I get frustrated with him, because I simply want to ask, “How do you know?”. I already have trouble taking Faulkner’s introductions seriously when he describes the development of The Sound and the Fury for they seem to include much idealization and dreamy hindsight.