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Flannery O Connor A Rose For Emily Analysis

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American author Flannery O’Connor stated in her essay that “[t]he form of a story gives it meaning which any other form would change.” Gothic writer William Faulkner wrote the story “A Rose for Emily” in five parts not in chronological order so that the reader is engaged throughout the entire story. By using this format, he is able to get across his intentions of Emily to the reader, that she is crazy; however, she is worthy of the town’s care and affection. In Part I, the story opens with Emily’s funeral and all of the town attending. Though, Emily’s death is not what the author wants the reader to focus on, instead, he attempts to get across the image of her house, an old house that “had once been white” and had no one other than a servant has entered the inside for around ten years. On line 18, the author states that Emily’s house is “an eyesore among eyesores.” Gothic literature focuses on the potential evil and uses settings of dark, eerie, and in this case, Emily’s “decay[ing]” house. Nonetheless, it is stated that even with an eyesore of a house, while Emily was alive, she was considered a “tradition, a duty, and a care.” This leads the reader to be curious and caring towards her just as the old generation was; however, when …show more content…

The reader becomes engaged throughout the entire story and understands his intentioned meaning of Miss Emily, that she is crazy, yet the town shows her care since they understand why she is the way she is. Within Part II Faulkner includes a crucial line stating, that her father drives all the men away and when Emily knows that she has nothing left, “she [will] have to cling to that which had robbed her.” This helps the reader to understand why Emily killed Homer, so that they could be together since she was robbed of love by her father. By having no love, Emily lost the hope of ever marrying and became a complete replica of her

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Emily’s Mental Deterioration After getting over the initial shock of finding out that the mysterious woman that everyone was talking about was going to sleep each night with a decaying body next to her, it makes sense for the reader to question her mental state. If the reader took a closer look at the town’s description of her, they will realize that as time went on, Emily’s will power began to deteriorate. When she was young, she was the topic of everybody’s conversation, however, she did not let that bother her and walked down the streets with her head held high. Emily took over the old house after her father’s death and kept a few servants around to keep the house tidy, nonetheless, the outside of the house was not kept in the best of conditions.

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Babe Ruth was a baseball player who played in the 1920’s. He played on the Boston Red Sox but mainly New York Yankees. Many people at this time watched him because sports were very popular. Babe ruth a.k.a The Great Bambino, was born on February 6, 1895 in Baltimore, Maryland.

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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.

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Not only that, as Homer becomes a popular figure in town and is seen taking Emily on buggy rides on Sunday afternoons, it scandalizes the town and increases the condescension and pity they have for Emily. They feel that she is forgetting her family pride and becoming involved with a man beneath her station. Even though Emily is from the high class family, it does not mean that she is living up to the pleasant lifestyle. As a matter of fact, she is actually living a gloomy and desolate life, which is essentially the opposite lifestyle expected for Emily's rank in society by the townspeople. Although Emily once represented a great southern tradition centering on the landed gentry with their vast holdings and considerable resources, Emily's legacy has devolved, making her more a duty and an obligation than a romanticized vestige of a dying order.

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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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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

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“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.

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“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.

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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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This further emphasizes how social dynamics are used throughout Gothic literature and how it affects the story by shaping the way the characters interact with one another and showing how Emily refuses to conform. Furthermore, it conveyors how leaders of the towns try to exert their power above the citizens. Southern gothic literature also contains a lot of suspense, shown through the story with the putrid smell exerted from Emily's House. The reader and community do not know the source of the smell throughout the story, which builds suspense and curiosity. The townspeople even go as far as to decipher the smell, shown through the actions of “four men cross[ing]

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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

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Frank Guercio Mrs. Wagner English 102 19 September 2014 A Rose for Emily William Faulkner once wrote the short story A Rose For Emily, even in its time it was considered to be rather spooky considering the ending; however, since then there have been a great number of theories based around Faulkner’s story and I find Nicole Smith’s to be one of the few that stood out from the rest. Her article begins with a short summary of William Faulkner’s life, from his birth in the South in 1897 to his Nobel Prize in 1949. As his history draws to a close Nicole begins to shed light on the story itself and how his past is a heavy influence in his writing.

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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”

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If there was a missing person now, the people in the town would have been more suspicious and notified the police. The authorities would have questioned Miss Emily about Homer’s disappearance and searched her house since that is where he was last seen. In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”, it is important to have knowledge of the background history. In order to understand whats happening in the story and why Miss Emily acts the way she does someone must understand why she thinks she is above everyone in the first place.

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Sherlock Holmes, a classic character who although many know the name of, only those who have read through the number of novels surrounding Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson’s adventures, truly know the man behind the name. Sherlock is mysterious and unpredictable character, and it is no surprise that Arthur Conan Doyle decided to focus on Sherlock Holmes’ character in particular in many parts of his novels. Doyle based his famous Sherlock Holmes of many individuals; Edgar Allen Poe, founder of the detective genre, was the foundation of Sherlock’s fascinating mannerisms, Dr. Joseph Bell a well known professor of Doyle, was the inspiration and reference for Holmes’s admiration for observation and deduction. Like many well known scientist, and scholars,

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