ipl-logo

A Rose For Emily Character Analysis

1246 Words5 Pages

Emily Grierson is from the story "A Rose for Emily"and is the main character. In a story, you usually have a protagonist which is the hero or main character of the story and also an antagonist which is pretty much the bad guy. Well in "A Rose for Emily," she is both protagonist and antagonist. Emily is qualified to be the antagonist because she murdered Homer Barron. Murder is quite a big deal and would definitely go under as being the bad guy. She also feels superior to everyone so she sticks her nose up to everything and treats others below her because of her family’s former position in the town. But on the other hand, she is the protagonist because one, the town is part of the reason of her killing Homer and always pitying her and saying that she would live alone forever and two, because her dad had raised her that way. Her dad had kept her sheltered way too long and when any guy would try to get with her, he would turn them down because they were not "worthy enough." She is also the major character in the story and there would be no one else to be the protagonist. At the beginning …show more content…

At the end of the story, we find out that Emily murdered Homer Barron and dressed him up and laid down with him whenever she wanted to. If someone took this story at face value, they would call her a sociopath because murder is outrageous. However, when taking a closer look at Emily’s background, the reader can see that the circumstances in her life lead her to such rash decisions. She believed she was doing the right thing by killing Homer, but she went about the situation the wrong way. She just didn 't want to lose another, probably last, loved one in her life. This emotion had come from her love towards Homer but he had turned her down and broke her heart. The town feels bad for her before they found out about the death and kept pitying her for her loneliness she lived in. With that, she also got irritated because they didn 't know the full story. They just judged from

Show More
Related

  • A Rose For Emily Character Analysis Essay

    926 Words  | 4 Pages

    Just as they were about to resort to law and force she breaks down and buried her father quickly.” (Faulkner 453) Miss Emily tries to keep her father’s body so she isn’t left lonely. She tries to keep him until the townspeople basically force her to bury him. The second reason Miss Emily may be crazy and mentally ill is because she kills Homer Baron.

    Read More

  • Literary Devices In A Rose For Emily And The Story Of An Hour

    942 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the short stories “A Rose for Emily” and “The Story of an Hour,” the authors use literary devices to create vibrant female characters. These literary devices include diction, imagery, language, and sentence structure. “The Story of an Hour,” written by Kate Chopin, opens with a woman, Louise Mallard, who has a heart disease, and her friends must gently break the news to her that her husband has passed away in a railroad accident. She mourns briefly, but then realizes that she can now live for herself, instead of just as someone’s wife. Shockingly, she walks downstairs after fleeing from her friends’ horrible news, and her husband walks in the door.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Ambiguity In A Rose For Emily

    546 Words  | 3 Pages

    Paloma Cerda Mrs. Koehler ENGL-1301-566 September 20, 2017 In A Rose for Emily written by William Faulkner, the story of Miss Emily is told through a very loose format. Through this narration, there is a long and drawn out suspense built up through little hints left by the reader without fully giving away the dark truth behind Emily and her house. Until the end of the story, the narrators ambiguity cleverly points the reader towards the climax of the story where Emily is discovered to be Homer Barron’s killer. This ambiguous element is important to the quality of this short story as it drives it forward and keeps the reader interested.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast A Rose For Emily And A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    1094 Words  | 5 Pages

    Not only that, as Homer becomes a popular figure in town and is seen taking Emily on buggy rides on Sunday afternoons, it scandalizes the town and increases the condescension and pity they have for Emily. They feel that she is forgetting her family pride and becoming involved with a man beneath her station. Even though Emily is from the high class family, it does not mean that she is living up to the pleasant lifestyle. As a matter of fact, she is actually living a gloomy and desolate life, which is essentially the opposite lifestyle expected for Emily's rank in society by the townspeople. Although Emily once represented a great southern tradition centering on the landed gentry with their vast holdings and considerable resources, Emily's legacy has devolved, making her more a duty and an obligation than a romanticized vestige of a dying order.

    Read More

  • Suspense In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

    806 Words  | 4 Pages

    “We remembered all the young men her father had driven away” (453). Miss Emily’s father drove away young men interested in her, not allowing her to have a love life and therefore a life outside of him. This controlling treatment of Miss Emily by Mr. Grierson coincides with Emily’s fight to control her love life with Homer. “Because 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” (454). If it weren’t for the fact that Miss Emily murdered Homer, he would have left her, therefore she used the murder as a way to keep him close to

    Read More

  • The Role Of Conformity In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

    716 Words  | 3 Pages

    This pushed poor Emily over the edge of insanity and led her to commit the heinous act of murder. In the back of her mind, she probably had only one thought if she couldn't have him, then no one else ever

    Read More

  • A Rose For Emily Epiphany Analysis

    278 Words  | 2 Pages

    An epiphany is a moment of insight or sudden realization of something. In the story, "A rose for Emily" by William Faulkner I experienced what I would consider an epiphany at the end of the story when the narrator says, " Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head" and then a few lines later, " we saw a strand of iron gray hair" (316). Throughout the story the narrator used small symbols such as the condition of the house saying, " it was a big squarish frame house that had once been white" and went on to speak of how elaborate and gorgeous it was and got to the point of its current condition as being " left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps – an eyesore among

    Read More

  • Homer's Crime In A Rose For Emily

    161 Words  | 1 Pages

    After reading A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, many people initially wonder why Miss Emily would murder Homer Barron. When reviewing the events of the story, it becomes apparent that she displayed symptoms, manifestations of her mental state in her behavior, of being socially inept and thus capable of this heinous crime. These symptoms are unsurprising, as her father represses her, withholding her from the public. Emily accordingly displays symptoms of this repression by evading authorities and the townspeople. Faulkner is trying to get the reader to go back and review this problem-the cause of Homer’s murder- by identifying the signs that this crime occurred and Emily’s symptoms of mental instability.

    Read More

  • A Rose For Emily Isolation Analysis

    1189 Words  | 5 Pages

    In William Faulkner’s short story, A Rose for Emily, Emily Grierson, a prominent member of her small town, dies alone in her home. Upon her death, curious townsfolk entered her home trying to learn her secrets. It was thought she was crazy. Emily Grierson was not crazy; she was isolated by her father, which led to her odd social tendencies and unique interactions with others. A Rose for Emily is a short story based in a small town.

    Read More

  • Essay Comparing The Yellow Wallpaper And A Rose For Emily

    624 Words  | 3 Pages

    She lived in an isolated world after her father’s death. Finally, she meets Homer; Homer was a man who knew what he wanted in life, and Miss Emily was not part of it. This drove Miss Emily to do the unthinkable, and she bought rat poison and killed Homer. Years passed, and no one knew that Miss Emily killed Homer and had him lying in the upstairs bed dead. It was intel her death that the towns people realized that miss Emily had become mentally ill with the death of her father and

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast A Rose For Emily And The Tell Tale Heart

    862 Words  | 4 Pages

    She is mentally disturbed, and driven to her act by insanity. Miss Emily kills her victim, Barron, to keep him around because she truly loves him and she does not want to let go. Both protagonists have a distorted perception of

    Read More

  • Examples Of Suspense In A Rose For Emily

    710 Words  | 3 Pages

    “A Rose for Emily” is a unique short story that keeps the reader guessing even though its first sentence already reveals the majority of the content. William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is the epitome of a work that follows an unconventional plot structure and a non-linear timeline, but this method of organization is intentional, as it creates suspense throughout the story. William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” follows an unusual plot structure, which creates an eccentric application of suspense to a short story. Throughout the story, there are no clear indications of standard plot structure in each section, such as intro, climax, and denouement. Instead, there are sections, which are not in chronological order, that describe a particular conflict or event, which in turn creates suspense, as each conflict builds upon each other to make the reader question the overall context and organization of the story.

    Read More

  • Miss Emily And Joy/Hulga Character Analysis

    206 Words  | 1 Pages

    Leroy Moffit, Miss Emily, and Joy/Hulga, three totally different characters from three totally different back grounds. These particular characters are worthy candidates to be thoroughly analyzed by their actions and given characteristics. All three characters will be analyzed in order to create a precise Psychological profile. Leroy Moffit, an ex-truck driver that is now acquiring a temporary disability from a tractor-trailer jack-knife in Missouri. Frightened from this incident, he now will not ever get back behind the wheel of his old rig.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Narrator In A Rose For Emily

    1141 Words  | 5 Pages

    A literary analysis on who is the narrator: The Narrator in A Rose for Emily is First Person Plural There is a mystery that seems to be unsolved throughout the years. Many important and influential literature critics have tried to discover who is the narrator in A Rose for Emily. After an extensive period of research, the mystery of who the narrator is has been solved. There are different points of view and information collected by the main narrator.

    Read More

  • Character Analysis Of Emily Grierson

    793 Words  | 4 Pages

    Kierrah Edwards ENGL 201 9/20/15 Character Analysis: Emily Grierson The short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner depicts how seclusion can certainly impact one’s life. Throughout the story, Emily gives off this “insane” impression. However, after fully reading the story, the reader can fully understand why Emily was the way she was. Emily Grierson was a very dependent person.

    Read More

More about A Rose For Emily Character Analysis

Open Document