...A Close Reading of William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” portrays itself as sort of a gothic sort of story. The elements of a gothic novel are meant to fashion a sense of trepidation, obscurity and unknown, which are vital in creating compelling stories. It has its fill of suspense and madness throughout its entirety, resulting in fastidious conventions in its type of writing structure, characterization, point of view, theme, and setting. Gothic novels are also known to contain an element of romance, which are often exaggerated to the extremes. I would say that the main point of view of this selected passage comes from an unknown narrator, told in the first person, who clearly is a resident of the town of Jefferson and knows the little-known life of the protagonist, Miss Emily. The “they” that is in the second sentence refers to the group of townsfolk who arrived at her house. The emotions of the crowd are a mixture of respectful condolences and curiosity. The men are present merely out of respect, giving off an air they only attend because it is an expected behavior and not because she was popular in the community. The women go out of curiosity to see the inside of the house. There certainly seems to be a general consensus among the group that she was living almost a secret life which was clearly meant to stay that way. The phrase “would have to be forced” makes it clear the group is anxious about finding out what has been kept from the...
Words: 1790 - Pages: 8
...A Rose for Emily Miss Emily Grierson becomes and isolated old woman who is pitied by the people of the town. She seems to be one of the last people that is left in the town from the older generation. In William Faulkners’ story “A Rose for Emily”, the nonlinear narrative indicates that time will aid in the development of the story as well as the characters. However, a close look at the manipulation of time, suggests that Miss Emily, herself will come to represent time and change in her community over the decades. The tension between the new generation and Miss Emily indicates her inability the grasp the realism of time. William Faulkner uses progressive time shifts to compare the past and present and their influence upon on another. Miss Emily made an agreement with Colonel Sartoris to not pay taxes because her father had loaned the town money. When the next generation came into office, “this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction” (Faulkner). Miss Emily failed to respond to the tax notice that was sent to her by the new aldermen and mayor. She believed that the new generation should honor the non-official agreement set forth by her and Colonel Sartoris and “perhaps one [of the new aldermen] can gain access to the city records and satisfy [themselves]” (Faulkner). After a non-successful visit to Miss Emily house to collect her taxes, she puts the gentlemen out of her house because she still believes she “has no taxes in Jefferson” (Faulkner). Miss Emily struggles to...
Words: 895 - Pages: 4
...short story “A Rose for Emily” and “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor there are characters to which these attributes apply. In “A Rose for Emily,” Emily is from a proud, aristocratic family only then that had made through the Civil War era; Miss Emily used to live with her father and servants, in “a big squarish frame house, decorated with cupolas” (Faulkner 82). The town’s people conspire unconsciously to protect both Miss Emily Grierson and the community from shame and Emily’s unusual behavior after her father’s death. This was a devastating loss for Miss Emily. The setting in “A Rose for Emily” is post civil war Jefferson, a small town in the south where the Confederacy is a thing of the past. The people within “this class and its attributes cannot be separated from each other by a change in outward appearances” (Owens 1). Miss Emily ‘s behavior influenced by her own expectations of herself and the townspeople’s lack of authority over her years after “Colonel Sartoris invented the tale that Miss Emily’s father had loaned money to the town” and “remitted her taxes” (Faulkner 82). The narrator leads the reader to believe the Griersons had always thought very highly of themselves; after her father’s death Emily is the last Griersons. Therefore, the responsibility of upholding the family name now lay with Miss Emily; “these qualities are fixed in blood and are passed directly from one generation to the next” (Owens 1). There is no doubt Miss Emily shares the same...
Words: 771 - Pages: 4
...“A Rose for Emily” Tajia Kelly English 201 Prof. Elise Denbo “A Rose for Emily” To many resistance to change is the underlying theme of American author William Faulkner’s short story entitled “A Rose for Emily”. To others, resistance to change merely did not exist at all, Tyriese Simone states “the main idea of Emily was to show the willingness to change, changes brought on by the post-Civil war, death, change in society and loss of wealth”. Upon review, the real theme of this story is the resistance to change yes, but especially when it comes to adults modeling their relationship’s base on the relationship that they had with a parent of the opposite sex. Faulkner himself stated “Given a choice between grief and nothing, I'd choose grief” yet he wrote this story of this egotistical, impractical, isolated old woman, Miss Emily, who not only have mental and emotional problems but who is also unable to come to terms with the idea of death and suffers great deals of denial. Unlike Faulkner, Emily chooses grief, but nothingness came along with it due to the attachment with her father. The relationship she had and had always known with her father altered any relationship she had all her life. After the death of her beloved father she was very adamant about not changing and keeping things the way she knew. From a Psychoanalytical perspective, It is very much accurate to state that Emily “the monument of society” not only resists change but she models her relationships with the...
Words: 2049 - Pages: 9
...Literary Analysis – A Rose For Emily “A Rose For Emily” is a short story by William Faulkner. This story is about a lonely upper-class woman that has trouble letting go of the past and adjusting to change. Faulkner uses foreshadowing in this story to create suspense and mystery. Several events occur which foreshadow the murder of Homer Barron and of Emily sleeping with his dead body. The first act of foreshadowing is when Emily buys arsenic and refuses to tell the druggist what she intends to use it for. Since Emily does not say what it is for, the druggist assumes it will be used to kill mice. The people of the town suggest she will use it to kill herself because she has become very lonely. She seems to be no longer involved with her love interest, Homer Barron. Once more of the foreshadowing is brought into the story, you see that it seems to be her intention to use it on Homer Barron so that he will never leave her again. The second use of foreshadowing was the disappearance of Homer Barron. “A neighbor saw the Negro man admit him at the kitchen door at dusk one evening. And that was the last we saw of Homer Baron.” (Faulkner 33) The narrator interprets this as a sign that Homer has ended his relationship with Emily and left town. This foreshadowing actually tells us that he never left the house after that night and that was the last time he would be seen alive. Another event of foreshadowing is when a smell begins to come from Miss Emily’s...
Words: 407 - Pages: 2
...Dorie Love-Ashby P. Elmore Composition II 1302-7420 5/25/11 FAULKNER Faulkner was born in 1897, to a genteel southern family. His father, Murry Cuthbert Falkner, was a railroad worker, owner of a cottonseed oil and ice plant, livery stable operator, hardware store employee, and secretary and business manager at University of Mississippi. His mother was Maud Butler Falkner. Falkner grew up and spent most of his life, off and on, in Oxford, Mississippi. He trained for the Royal Air Force in Canada, and later the British Royal Air Force during World War I, but the war was over before he saw action. After the war he briefly attended the University of Mississippi. He married Lida Estelle Oldham Franklin, June 20, 1929. The Faulkner works were greatly influenced by his family history. The area in which he lived had a great deal to do with his sense of the doleful position of Black and WhiteAmericans. This also influenced his sense of humor and is said to be the legacy of earlier writers like Mark Twain. Faulkner was best known for his novels, but he also wrote short stories, poetry and occasional screenplays.. Film versions have been made of several of his works: Sanctuary (1961), Intruder in the Dust (1949), The Sound and the Fury(1959), The Reivers (1969), and Pylon (1957; or Tarnished Angels). Others (Requiem for a Nun, 1951, and "Barn Burning") have been filmed for television. (Pierce, Constance, and Heller) Faulkner received the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature for "his...
Words: 2838 - Pages: 12
...Hien Cao English 101 online Assignment 4 A Rose for Emily Author: William Faulkner A life of a dependent woman We are human beings. We all depend on something or someone to live. But depending too much on a specific pattern is not good at all. In the short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, Miss Emily’s life is marked by some male individuals. After her father’s death, she felt depressed and wanted to be alone. Then Colonel Sartoris helped her remit her taxes. And in the end, she killed her lover Homer Barron and kept him in her upstairs room. Miss Emily was never independent. The influences from her father made her feel dependent on every single male of only a few throughout her life. She extremely depended on her father, Colonel Sartoris and Homer Barron. Miss Emily was a woman who never learned to be independent. Her father’s dominant behavior completely influenced her whole life badly. It made her become such a male-dependent person. That led to her to deny her father’s death. She didn’t want to pay any taxes because Colonel Sartoris told her that she was able not to. At last she killed Homer in order to prevent his leaving. Emily’s dependency upon her father made her depend on every important man in her life; she tried to keep each of them as close to her as she could. Essay Outline Introduction: The influences from Emily’s father made her feel dependent on every single male of only a few throughout her life: her own father, Colonel Sartoris, Homer Barron...
Words: 398 - Pages: 2
...A rose for Emily In his short story, “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner intends to convey a message to his audience about the unwillingness in human nature to accept change and more specifically the secretive tendencies of aristocrats in the South during the early 20th century. In order to do this, Faulkner sets up a story in which he isolates and old aristocratic woman, Miss Emily, from her fellow townspeople and proceeds to juxtapose her lifestyle with theirs. In doing this he demonstrates her stubborn refusal to change along with the town, but also Among several literary devices the author employs to achieve this contrast, Faulkner sets up his narrator as a seemingly reliable, impartial and knowledgeable member of the community in which Miss Emily lives by using a first person plural, partially omniscient point of view. The narrator is present for all of the scenes that take place in the story, but does not play any role in the events, and speaks for the town as a whole. Faulkner immediately sets up his narrator as a member of the community in the first line of the story, saying that when Miss Emily died “our whole town went to her funeral.” Although it’s never directly explained, it appears as though the narrator is an older member of the town. This is demonstrated in statements like “the next generation, with its more modern ideas;” because the narrator does not say “with our more modern ideas” he makes it clear that he is not one of the younger members of the community...
Words: 855 - Pages: 4
...Faulkner’s Creative Use of Time in A Rose for Emily William Faulkner must have not believed in writing in chronological order when he portrayed the events in A Rose for Emily, and in good reason. The story begins at, if written in chronological order, what would be right before the end. He then continues the story jumping backwards and moving forwards. A key part is skipped in the retelling of Miss Emily Grierson’s life, which is told at the end of the storyline, and it is perhaps the most interesting part of the story. The story starts off at Miss Emily Geirson’s funeral. Emily is the main character in the story, and Faulkner has her dead in the first sentence. It should be noted that neither Faulkner, nor Emily are the narrator for the story, and instead the narrator is the viewpoint of the general townspeople that knew, or thought they knew, Emily Grierson. Faulkner then has the narrator explain Emily’s house, which plays a mysterious role in the story. It was said for the women that attended her funeral, “mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house.” (Faulkner 91) The story then goes on to tell the origin of Miss Emily’s tax evasion, a settlement she got away with, until the newer generation of mayors and aldermen came in to power. It goes on to tell the time before her death where a deputation from the Board of Alderman visited Emily to settle the dispute of the taxes. When Emily answered the door, it gives an external glimpse of Emily’s life at the time...
Words: 890 - Pages: 4
...Midterm card report Katiria Bernardi Story: “A Rose for Emily” Author: William Faulkner (1897 –1962) Central character: Emily is a solitary southern belle restrained from society by her dominant father. She inherits her father controlling behavior. Other characters: Homer Barron a Northern laborer, who comes to the South to work in the town’s sidewalks and poisoned by his lover Emily. Mr. Grierson- Emily’s controlling and selfish father. Setting: Post-Civil War in a mysterious house in the town of Jefferson. Narrator: An unnamed Jefferson’s resident that was respectful and considerate toward “Miss Emily” but at the same time irritated since she pay no tax; he had to be a tax official since he includes “Each December we sent her a tax notice” (Faulkner 5). Tone: Sympathy towards Emily’s unfortunate life caused by her dominant father and hereditary insanity from her “great-aunt, had gone completely crazy at last” (Faulkner 2). Style: The language was in a conversational style but it was puzzling at times since he used flashbacks from the past and then back to present along with mystery and suspense effect. Irony: The title is ironic since a rose symbolizes love, long lasting beauty which is what she is missing in her life. Theme: To put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Symbols: Emily’s house symbolizes her life old-fashion, mysterious, decaying; her own prison. The Rose symbolizes love, long lasting beauty something she missing. Emily‘s hair...
Words: 265 - Pages: 2
...What Repression Can Do to a Woman Since the beginning of time women have been treated as second class citizens. Women were repressed and were forced to face many problems. At that time women were mainly controlled by their husbands and could not freely do things without the consent of their husband. This paper shows how this is evident in the "Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin and "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner. In both stories, the use of literary elements such as foreshadowing, symbolism, and significant meaning of the titles are essential in bringing the reader to an unexpected and ironic conclusion. The similarities begin with both of the authors being raised in the south. We can presume that is one way they could described the situations that they faced so accurately; situations like political and social presumptions problems especially for women at that time. Chopin writes how “women are to be seen and not heard”. That was the standard for women in those days. Women had no basic rights like voting and generally lived under their husband’s rule. Chopin's stories seemed very modern even though it was written over 120 years ago. Chopin stretched boundaries with her writing. The late eighteen hundreds were a rough time for women and there were not the options like divorce that is available now. Through Mrs. Mallard, we could see the social repression that women felt at that time. Therefore, in this story there is so much domination, Chopin said "They were...
Words: 1268 - Pages: 6
...entails. This is no less true in southern gothic writing and in the writings of William Faulkner. Published on April 30, 1930 in a major magazine at the time, Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” showcases the life of Ms. Emily Grierson, a local townswoman, and is captured in a mysterious and eventually horrific context that allows the reader to understand the sadness and morbid side of death. The story is a set in a southern context that Faulkner knew all too well and contains implications of contrasts between northern and southern society. Faulkner uses many different elements in this work to portray death in its entire grotesque and horrifying splendor. Particularly, Faulkner uses two certain elements to accomplish this task. Faulkner successfully conveys the theme of the power of death in “A Rose for Emily” by incorporating the use of the literary elements of foreshadowing and narrative voice. Faulkner’s use of foreshadowing works to reveal the theme of death in this work rather well. The story is divided into five different passages, each detailing a progression towards death – the end of Emily Grierson’s life. Just by listening to Faulkner’s tone in the first sentence and throughout the rest of the work, the reader can easily determine there is a definite presence of foreshadowing: “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see...
Words: 1677 - Pages: 7
...300 December 10, 2014 A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner A Rose for Emily written by William Faulkner captures the life of a wealthy woman coping with life after the death of a loved one. Death is an indescribable feeling that can cause pain, anger, and sorrow for almost everyone. Early on in the story, Emily’s father passes away leaving her with all of these emotions concealed on the inside. After her father’s death Emily was left alone to grieve which caused her to react to his death in an unusual manner eventually leading to a state of depression. Emily barricades herself in her home away from the outside world for a long period of time trying to cope with her loss, but it seems as if life has moved on without her. Once she emerges from her home, it is like she is trapped in the past. Emily no longer has a sense of place and time. Emily finally finds happiness in a man by the name of Homer, but because of her family’s status in the community it causes a rift between Emily and herself on whether to keep him around or not. This caused Emily to go into a deeper depression, hiding from the world once again. Although death is a reoccurring theme in the story, it is not the only thing that has critics striving to understand the story even further. For starters, the title of the story has one scholar by the name of Laura Getty extremely interested because Faulkner does not come right out and say why he titled this story “A Rose for Emily.” It is almost as if one has...
Words: 2577 - Pages: 11
...Writing about Literature COM1102 10 October 2015 "A ROSE FOR EMILY" Visual vs. Reading William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is a short gothic horror story that has also been adapted into a short film. Both story and film have been largely debated, with a plethora of opinions. Faulkner’s lack of normal chronology and situation-triggered memories generates a story that has many interpretations among its readers, but surprises everyone at the end. When asked about the title of his story, Faulkner said," [The title] was an allegorical title; the meaning was, here was a woman who had had a tragedy, an irrevocable tragedy and nothing could be done about it, and I pitied her and this was a salute . . . to a woman you would hand a rose." (Faulkner, William 1966 ;) He gave a humble explanation, for such a complex story. The film portrays the story straight forward, and leaves nothing left to the imagination. Death and transformation are the main theme in Faulkner’s short story, being a sign of the crumbling of the Old South after their military defeat by the North, as Emily’s suggested necrophilia echoes the desire to hang on to the past and its traditions. Through flashbacks and foreshadowing, Faulkner addresses the struggle of traditional versus progress in the city of Jefferson. The south being a region bound by history and tradition, class and social influence, Emily represents, to generations before and after her, old...
Words: 1780 - Pages: 8
...willing to sacrifice in exchange for the need to fill the void in your heart? When we look at stories about desperate love and the longing of the human heart we might look at William Faulkner. Born in 1897 into an old Mississippian family, the reader may find that most of his stories focus on the vast emotions that one feels when trying to understand the heart and the soul in small town southern life. “A Rose for Emily” written by Faulkner in 1950, tells the story of a proud southern belle robbed of her chances for love and to belong, by an overbearing father and a culture so stifling as to lock her away her with desire forever. Faulkner writes this story from an objective point of view as the reader is told only what Miss Emily does with her life as it is picked apart by the town gossip. “The Griersons held themselves a little too high”, as most would say and Miss Emily, a well bred southern daughter, described as “a slender figure in white”, (Faulkner, 84) a young woman, to be envied and hated for her privileged status. Approaching the age of an old maid, Miss Emily is shown to be suffocating by the shadow of her father, unable to even feel a whisper of love. Young men, intimidated by the “spraddled silhouette” (Faulkner, 84) of a horsewhip toting father, turned away time after time, “none of the young men were quite good enough”,...
Words: 1651 - Pages: 7
