In the short story “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner we see how he foreshadows that Emily is the murderer of Homer. Within the introduction we are told that William Faulkner was a Southern writer who loved to write comedy and tragedy. I would definitely consider “A Rose for Emily” one of his best tragedy that he has written as it contains suspense and foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is defined as a literary device in which a writer gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story.
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
It is clear that in her era, Miss Emily was seen as traditional American Southern women, who lived to become an inferior women to man but was later a burden to her society. She was a lady who was secluded from society, lived a psychopathic life, which at the end, and was no secret for the town’s people. While Miss Emily was alive, she lived in a secluded home of a single father, thus leading her to be dependent upon him. She did not have much of a socially engaged life, for her father drove men away. When he finally died, Miss Emily told the townspeople that he was not dead, and finally, on the third day, let the town’s people buried him (William Faulkner 1105).
In “The Ghostly Voice of Gossip in Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily”” author Thomas Klein argues that William Faulkner’s use of an unconventional narrator enhances the story’s complicated timeline and uses examples throughout the text to propose a model as to who the narrator really is. Doing so, Klein focuses in on the reasoning to Faulkner’s claim of “A Rose For Emily” was written as a ghost story. Klein focuses on how the narrator does not claim what gender he or she is. He states that the narrator keeps the main tone of the entire text as either “we” or “our”, never identifying who they are. He expresses that the narrator never declares from what generation he
In Williams Faulkner 's ‘A Rose for Emily’, a local narrator provides a very personally nuanced and chronologically disjoined narrative. Through this lens Faulkner uses the imagery and symbols of the Grierson home, Emily as a monument, Homer’s body, in “A Rose for Emily” to convey the theme of change vs. decay, especially as it relates to the American South and its traditions. Although he describes particular individuals within Jefferson (Miss Emily, the older men and ladies, the town leaders), he seems to be using them as symbols for the larger issues that the South was facing at the turn of the twentieth century. This paper discusses how Faulkner uses imagery and metaphor to highlight on the necessity of adaptation in changing times. This
“A Rose for Emily” is a dark, suspenseful Gothic tale in which a young girl is put on a pedestal by a town who sees her as haughty and scornful. Miss Emily Grierson’s father controls her and her love life, pushing away all people until he dies and Emily is left alone. As her life goes on the townspeople watch her and judge Emily, almost turning her life into a spectacle to be talked about. At her death, a gruesome sight is unfolded when her lover of over forty years ago is found decomposed in her upstairs room. William Faulkner effectively builds epic suspense in “A Rose for Emily” by the unchronological order of the story, the treatment of Emily’s father towards her, and her family’s history of mental illness.
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.
Emily kept her house the same way it had always been and was letting it decay while she stayed in it. She refused to clean or change the house at all to preserve it in the Old South. She did not want to accept the death of other people. When Emily’s father died, she refused the town from taking his body and burying it. She wanted to keep her father’s body with her and the town was “about to use law and force, but she broke down, and they buried her father quickly” (453).
In Love and In Death William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily”, centers around a reclusive woman named Emily Grierson who is the protagonist of this story. Emily lives in Jefferson, Mississippi with her strict and over protective father who turns away any male suitor who shows any interest in her as he believes them to be unfit for his daughter. Emily and her father are regarded as upper-class southerners who live in a very nice home. The townspeople see Emily as a mysterious individual, often pitting her.
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.
As in most of his works one of the overbearing ideals of A Rose For Emily is a sense of class and of elegance that was as evident as the sky in the South. The main character of the story, Miss Emily Grierson, is William’s way of exemplifying this bygone way of life in a more modern era; and both Nicole and I agree that this is the main plot in the story. Throughout A Rose For Emily the idea of monuments and age are extremely prevalent as both Miss Emily and her homestead are commonly referred to as, “relic.”
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
Knowing the historical period can help account for Miss Emily’s behavior.
Emily is judged for loving a man who is less fortunate than her . In the following line the townspeople’s reactions to their relationship is obvious, “’Poor Emily’, the whispering began. ‘Do you suppose it’s really so?’ they said to one another” (102). The townspeople did not to much care for the relationship between the two because of the barriers set up by social class saying poor date the poor and rich date the rich.
In the William Faulkner novel" A Rose for Emily," we can see evidence of Southern Gothic. Southern Gothic shows the tale of a crumbling landscape, racial tension, and southern traditions. Emily Grierson is the daughter of the late Mr. Grierson. We can see that in the story Emily's father is very controlling of everything that she did. We can make the analysis that since that he is so controlling of her, that he is the only man she really knew.
