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Figurative Imagery In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

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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. Consequently, Faulkner utilizes the central trait of her mental condition to emphasize the lack of adjustment. To begin, Faulkner began with an atmosphere of uneasiness as to what the main character was feeling. The author presents a consistent shift throughout the reading between past and present. With this said, Faulkner demonstrates this shift as he says, “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town.” (Faulkner 124). As Faulkner states “Alive, Miss Emily”, not only does the author represent Emily as an active human being, but when she was happy and the town had seen her out of her home. This suggests that Emily struggles to realize her father’s death …show more content…

She behaves abnormal and does not give an opportunity for the alderman and mayors to provide evidence of the tax she must pay. Instead, she dismisses them as the author proclaims, “"I have no taxes in Jefferson. Tobe!" The Negro appeared. "Show these gentlemen out.” So she vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell.” (Faulkner 125). Here, Emily behaves abnormally to acknowledge her responsibilities as a citizen, thus suffers a mental condition. As of a result, society fears of Emily as perceives her an irresponsible

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-“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

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1217 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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624 Words | 3 Pages

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).

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822 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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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.

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714 Words | 3 Pages

In addition, Emily also undergoes alienation by limiting her communication and living separately in the detached house “which no one save an old man-servant – a combined gardener and cook – had seen in at least ten years” (Faulkner 95). To conclude, a short story by William Faulkner presents a variety of tropes to the reader including surrealistic atmosphere of casual reality and necrophilian love with a dead corpse and ironic attitude of people towards the personality of Emily and her relationships with Homer

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1252 Words | 6 Pages

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

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710 Words | 3 Pages

By using unconventional plot structure, Faulkner has created a complex method of storytelling to explore the moral shortcomings of Southern values and ethics during the American Civil War through the means of Emily, a character who is socially and mentally trapped in the old

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806 Words | 4 Pages

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,

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960 Words | 4 Pages

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

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1055 Words | 5 Pages

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

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978 Words | 4 Pages

The value of romance and mortality resembles the theme of obsession, and is shown throughout the plots, and the characters in, “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “The Birth Mark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Firstly, Faulkner illustrates obsession of romance through mortality. In addition, Emily’s obsessive illness of love over death it often seen throughout the plot. Lastly, Hawthorne demonstrates the obsession of mortality thorough romance, through the main protagonist, Aylmer in “The Birth Mark.” To compare, Emily and Aylmer believe their obsessive consequences was from the heart, despite their obsessive disorders.

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543 Words | 3 Pages

In William Faulkner’s, “A Rose for Emily,” the historical context is important to understand. In order to fully comprehend the short story there must be some sort of understanding about the time period in which the story took place. This short story took place in the 18th/19th century during and after the Civil War in the South. In “A Rose for Emily” the historical context shows the social, economic, and the cultural environment of the background. Miss Emily was born during the Civil War.

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910 Words | 4 Pages

While Emily is alive the story tells the readers about how the world around Emily is changing and evolving but she refuses to keep up with the new ways. For example, in the story it talks about the town and receiving mail. The story says, “Emily refused to let them fasten metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox.” (#) The town can see what lengths Emily went through to remain isolated from the changing world. If Faulkner had put the story in Emily’s point of view it wouldn’t have the same

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1717 Words | 7 Pages

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