Aubrey Binder's “Uncovering the Past: The Role of Dust Imagery in a 'Rose For Emily'” explains that the motifs of dust and decay are very important and prominent in Faulkner's story. Binders arguments for the motifs are strong, especially for the motif of dust. However, her article provides very little literary evidence for the motif of decay. While I agree with Binder’s motif of dust, I don’t agree with her arguments for the motif of decay, and I believe that the motif of pity would better fit the text. Binder’s motif of dust is heavily supported in the text, she believes that the dust covering the objects and people in Emily’s home represents the obscuring of past events. She makes it very apparent that the dust does not change or erode the past, it simply hides it. The dust provides ambiguity, which helps to keep the townspeople clueless about what's really going on inside Emily’s home. To support this statement, Binder points out that Homer Barron's body was covered in an, “even coating of the patient and biding dust.” This quote exemplifies how the dust really conceals parts of Emily’s life from the townspeople. When the townspeople found Homer’s body, …show more content…
Binder states that, “The reader finds descriptions of decay in the slow degrading of the town, Emily’s inherited home, and even in the ageing Emily herself.” After she describes how decay could be a motif, she then goes on to explain the motif of dust, but then never revisits decay. The rest of Binder’s review is about how dust affected “A Rose for Emily.” Binder makes the very common literary mistake of not providing enough evidence from the text. Binder jumps to the conclusion that because Miss Emily and her house seem to be decaying it means that it's a major motif for this story. When really, the decay is more of a descriptor about the setting and Miss Emily herself rather than a
1. Faulkner used foreshadowing technique in “A Rose for Emily” to supply the story with aided air of mystery. Some examples of foreshadowing are using mysterious built in but readers can see what happens in the story: Emily is a stamp of the old South, but no longer has leverage; Emily’s father sheltered her from a normal life, nobody was ever good enough for Emily; Foreshadowing in the story has been able to use the past so as to create the present showing the effect of what has happened in the
In “A Rose for Emily,” the author, Faulkner, describes the life of a women after the death of her family and the abandonment of her friends. The story is about a female named Emily whose father dies of natural causes, and she is left with little money except for her house and an African American manservant. The manservant is a very loyal person who stays by Emily’s side till her own death. This story is depicted from the neighbor’s point about the lady Emily. It recounts her life as she lived it from an external perspective.
This was hinting someone was gonna die. what could she have possibly used that for. She is asked to say why she bought it but emily doesn’t say, she pays it and leaves. Emily has a hard time admitting and letting go of things, such as her father’s death, she cant imagine that being real, and buying rat poisoning and not saying what she will be using it for, or hiding Homer’s body in a room no one can go in to. There are many clues that Faulkner used to show foreshadowing throughout the story.
As he walks in, Josephine screams and falls down dead; the happiness that she had felt was too much for her weak heart. Likewise, “A Rose for Emily,” written by William Faulkner, opens on a woman, Emily Grierson, except this time the woman is already dead. The story is told from the perspective of the townspeople, a collective “we.” They recount when she was exempted from her taxes, and then when she refused to pay them after the death of the person who remitted her. Then, the townspeople go back further to a time when Emily’s house had a stench so foul, a judge was consulted about what to do; it was decided that a few townspeople would stealthily sprinkle lime about her property in order to not confront her and seem discourteous.
Significantly, in Part 4, Faulkner uses Homer Barron 's corpse rotting in a room filled with "invisible dry dust" as a symbol; Emily thought of Homer like a rose, one she expected to endure long after being picked, even after his body was corrupted by the decay of time. Hence, ‘A Rose for Emily’. Notably, Faulkner uses profound imagery to summon a decrepit atmosphere, as the theme is reiterated: accept it or not, change and decay are inevitable. This change Emily always refuses, as we have seen through her father’s death, in leaving the home untouched, and certainly through her murder of Homer to allow their relationship to continue. In this case, Emily attempts to freeze time
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,
She is represented as one of the deceased in the story since she rarely stepped foot outside since the burial of her father. However, after an attempt to start a relationship with Homer Barron, this causes yet another death in this story, apart from the death of Emily in the ending. Unfortunately, Emily 's mortal structure is defined in the matter of death, symbolizing the decline of the south. Another symbolic factor can be pulled directly from the title.
Short stories are unique in a way to allow a reader to explore the setting of an event. Short stories are more than unraveling the motif but is an exquisite task to further comprehend figurative imagery. With this said, William Faulkner performs such a task to present several motifs that emphasize the story of “A Rose for Emily”. Throughout the story, various flashbacks represent different periods of time that comprise a change in the main character’s life and mental state. In this essay, an analysis of the main character, Emily, will be perceived by her strange behavior.
-“So the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily 's lawn and slunk about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base of the brickwork,” (Faulkner II). -“When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad,” (Faulkner II). -“The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid,” (Faulkner
The previous lavishness of the “big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies…set on what had once been [the] most select street” (437) indicates that Emily came from a well-off family that was probably highly respected. The whiteness of the house can be taken to symbolize the innocence of her youth, and that as she got older her macabre habits manifested themselves and polluted that innocence, leaving the house dingy and tainted. The condition of the house when Emily dies is that of a worn down vestige to the past, “an eyesore among eyesores” (437), representing how the towns people saw her. She was a curiosity, a clandestine entity that could only be unraveled after her death when there was no one left to safe guard the dark secrets of her house. The house stands as a monument to a lost time and a testament to tradition that has no place in the modern era, much like Emily
When her father died we can see that she is controlling of him and would not release the body for burial. After she loses her father, it is as if she loses her sense of reality. It is as if maybe the old white house is beginning to represent the attitude and ways of Emily. The house is old, dark, and very dusty just as the townspeople think Emily is. Homer Barron is a construction worker from New York.
William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” critiques the American South Describing Emily’s vibrant life full of hope and buoyancy, later shrouded into the profound mystery, Faulkner emphasizes her denial to accept the concept of death. William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” takes place in the South during the transitional time period from the racial discrimination to the core political change of racial equality. Starting from the description of her death, “A Rose for Emily” tells the story about the lady who is the last in her generation (Emily Grierson). Being strong, proud and a traditional lady of southern aristocracy, Emily turns into an evil, unpredictable and mysterious old lady after the death of her father. Even though “A Rose for Emily”
One literary element of the text that Faulkner uses is setting. The story begins at the funeral of the protagonist Emily Grierson, an old woman who is seventy-four. “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral; the men through a sort of respectful affection of a fallen monument…” (Faulkner 228). From this, we immediately know Emily Grierson is dead and can conclude that she is an important person in this story.
Similarly, the protagonist in “A Rose for Emily” is Emily Grierson. The house that she lives in drives her mind to inhabit it in dusty and dark. Miss Emily is a mysterious character. The impression that Miss Emily gives us about her is that she is a “necrophiliac”. Necrophilia means a sexual attraction to dead bodies.
Faulkner begins the short story by describing Emily’s home. “ It was a big squarish house that had once been white…”(Faulkner 146). The house itself represents the old South. It is aged and outdated, and instead of it being rebuilt and improved upon like the rest of the South, it has remained unchanged for many years. As the narrator goes on to explain Emily’s life, it is obvious that her bloodline is very respected.