In the short story, A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner is dark, yet emotional. While reading this story, I couldn’t stay focus for long and I had to read over the passage more than twice. The first paragraph tells us how everyone went to Emily’s funeral, but later on, throughout the passage, it explains about how everyone would be excited to get rid of her. Emily’s impression on everyone was that she was “crazy” like her other relatives, but in the end, we learned that she just wanted love. A Rose for Emily had plenty of main ideas throughout the passage, but it was one important theme that I learned from the story. The theme I learned from the story is the past can hurt your present. Faulkner mentions that Emily didn’t leave out the …show more content…
“Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town….” This quote from the story explains that Emily’s family tradition and family’s name held a name nd important position in that town. She was well known throughout the town and that’s why that quote was mentioned in the story when Faulkner was talking about her funeral. “Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less.” This quote is said in the story after it mentions that her father passed away. The people in the town was happy that her father passed for they wanted her to know what it was like being alone. It seemed as if everyone in that town had a strong hate for the Grierson’s. They wanted them to decease and wanted it to end at Miss Emily. The way Faulkner used the characters in the story to explain and describe Emily was ingenious of him. The title of the story is a symbol to the whole story. “A Rose for Emily,” is indicating that there was a rose for Emily at her funeral. He also used how she acts as a way of saying she was mentally ill. Even though he gave her the characteristics of being ill, no one believed that she
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.
Telling the story in an irregular order, Faulkner develops a sense of suspense by adding details to the mysterious Miss Emily. “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care: a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town” (451). The reader learns that Miss Emily had been seen as an eccentric woman that the people of the town had to take care of and overlook, ultimately overlooking her as a suspect in Homer Barron’s disappearance. Miss Emily often disappears into her house for months and years at a time,
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.”
-“And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery. . .” (Faulkner I). -“Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care,” (Faulkner I). -“. . .dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity,” (Faulkner I).
Furthermore, the short story is written in a first person point of view by the community of Jefferson, which develops the irony that leaves not only Jefferson, but the reader in ‘awe.’ The community of Jefferson is left with a plethora of questions of Miss Emily’s mysterious lifestyle. Correspondingly, the community of Jefferson becomes very obsessed with Miss Emily. “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 the inside of her house…” (Faulkner)
Miss Emily comes from an old wealthy line of family in the deep south. Faulkner story is highly symbolic, enhancing miss Emily’s values and character. “Miss Emily is described as a fallen monument to the chivalric American South”(Allmon). Faulkner uses the setting of the story to show the emotional state of Emily. The female-male relationship between Emily and her father is strict, oppressive, and controlling; Their relationship has a major impact on Emily’s character Throughout the short story.
She was alone, she was humiliated by the town, she had to hide away because she was not able to cope. In Tim O’Brien’s article he states, “After her death, Emily is reunited with the other members of her southern class …”, which means, in death, with the people she loved she will no longer be alone” (O’Brien
He also shows the relationship between Emily and her dead father and how Emily cannot let go of people that show a love interest in her or the people who look after her in that she must be attached to them even after death. Faulkner depicts an Emily that was once young and vibrant, who maintained the Grierson home and kept it in a pristine condition. Faulkner relays to readers that because Emily was unable to control her own destiny and was powerless under her father’s hand, she became a recluse and ultimately went into a downward spiral. After sensing and believing that her first real love will leave her, Emily purchases arsenic and it is believed that she will kill herself because there is no point in living if no one will love her
As the story goes on, Faulkner describes Emily’s death: “When Miss Emily Grierson died the whole town went to her funeral: the men out of respectful affection for a fallen monument and the women mostly out of curiosity” (Faulkner). Faulkner emphasizes that while men are caring and respectful women act only based on curiosity. Indeed, the role of women in the southern society is less significant than the role of
Throughout the story, the main character, Miss Emily Grierson, shows signs of what appears to be some form of mental illness. Although Faulkner never states that Miss Emily has anything wrong with her mental health, he does provide enough evidence to support that she is not psychologically stable. In “A Rose for Emily,” Faulkner portrays the main character as a mysterious icon of the small town of Jefferson, Mississippi. As the story states, Emily’s father is an admirable figure in the city of Jefferson. After his passing, the townspeople show the same respect for Emily, as well.
I love William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily.” It contains literary devices that Faulkner uses to make the short story perfect. The three literary devices that Faulkner uses are symbolism, setting and point of view. These three literary devices are what makes it an enjoyable story to read.
“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.
To compare, Faulkner shares a slice of evidence as to why Emily has an uncontrollable obsession for the dead, “After her father 's death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all.” (Faulkner) Given these points, her father becomes arrogant and isolates her from society, or anyone who is willing to take Miss Emily from him. When her father, the only man in the world who has loved her,
I. To begin with, we will analyze section one and learn some background information. In the A Rose for Emily, the narrator is recalling Emily’s funeral by saying “…when Miss Emily Grierson died our whole town went to the funeral…” (Mays 629). The narrator talks about Emily’s house before when she was alive.
In the title it states "A Rose for Emily" though a rose is never mentioned in the story. The rose is thought to be a symbol of Homer Barron or love. Since she never had any romantic connections due to her father, Barron may have been represented by the rose. A rose is often seen as balance, loss and protection and that is what Barron stood for to Emily a promise for love and a future. Therefore, when saying "A Rose for Emily" it is promising her a chance or promise for a new beginning.