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A Rose For Emily Research Paper

1665 Words7 Pages

BOUBAKER Amélie

Master 1 LLCC Spécialité Anglais

Society, Language and Culture – Literature and Culture of the South

““A Rose for Emily” ” – William Faulkner

Nowadays, “A Rose for Emily” is among the most famous of Faulkner’s work. With his depiction of the Southern Gothic luxuriant (Emily 's house is ancient but was one of the most refined of the village) setting, Faulkner 's tackles broader ideas such as the challenges of a changing world order, the slow disappearance of aristocracy, and the rigid social expectations women have to deal with. The reader is drawn into the macabre world of Miss Emily Grierson, her grotesque marriage which cost the death of another human being, and her extreme isolation from the townspeople. The reader …show more content…

As a living monument to the past, she represents the traditions that people wish to perpetuate. However, she is also an economic burden and ends up entirely cut off from the entire village, as well as her servant, fostering peculiar practices that the villagers cannot understand. Those “peculiarities” as the reader realizes later in the story, are similar to what slavery was: horrific, gloomy, and not understandable for most reasonable human beings. Emily embodies the shameful nostalgia of the Southern way of life: "“A Rose for Emily” shows us an American South trying desperately, with each generation, to find a way which honors the good of the past, while coming to terms with its evils. Emily 's macabre bridal room is an extreme attempt to prevent change, although doing so comes with the murder of the …show more content…

As the traditional idol she is, Emily is the subject of the intense gaze and judgment of the entire town and the narrator representing it. Instead of connecting with Emily, the townspeople create distorted interpretations of a woman they know little about. They attend her funeral more to satisfy their own curiosity about the town 's eccentric than to pay their respects. The women came “mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant – a combined gardener and cook – had seen in at least ten years.” (“A Rose for Emily”) This funeral moment at the beginning of the story sets up the divisions that exist between Emily and the town, but also foreshadows Emily 's isolation in life: the most isolated person at the funeral is

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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.

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