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Historical Context In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

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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. The Civil War took place in 1861-1865. Since Emily was raised in the South, her family had the same values and morals of the confederate side. Emily’s family was very wealthy and owned a beautiful home. Unfortunately, after the South lost the Civil War they …show more content…

In that time period nothing was said about it. In today’s society she would be considered insane or mental and would be taken away and put into a facility for mental people. She also kills Homer Baron, who is her “husband” supposedly. Everyone in town is suspicious, but no one really thinks anything of it because she goes out and buys a toilet set and men’s suit for Homer. They just believe they are now married. No one ever sees Homer come back out of the house and everyone starts to notice an awful smell coming from inside. Since it was in a generation when the law wasn’t so strict no one really looked into the situation. When Emily died people finally were let into her house for the funeral. They found Homer lying in the bed decayed. Everyone then realizes that was the awful smell coming from house. 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. Knowing the historical period can help account for Miss Emily’s behavior.

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But we don’t know why Emily was the way she was or why she did what she did. Emily is like any woman or girl who feel insecure or not sure how she feels and is just confused on how to handle things going on in her life. Emily didn’t live the life like any other woman in her town. Being in the situation she was in was, what choices would you make? There are some things we can’t explain like why Emily kill Homer Barron and why she kept her father's corpse before letting anyone know that he was dead.

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She lived in an isolated world after her father’s death. Finally, she meets Homer; Homer was a man who knew what he wanted in life, and Miss Emily was not part of it. This drove Miss Emily to do the unthinkable, and she bought rat poison and killed Homer. Years passed, and no one knew that Miss Emily killed Homer and had him lying in the upstairs bed dead. It was intel her death that the towns people realized that miss Emily had become mentally ill with the death of her father and

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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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Because her family was prominent in the town of Jefferson, Emily Grierson was watched her entire life and wondered about by everyone. The townspeople had a lot to do with Emily’s changing mental condition because they constantly gossiped about everything that happened in her life. It generally

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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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The narrator speaks on how when Emily was alive, she “…had been a tradition, a duty, and an obligation upon the town…” (Mays 629). The reason why she was seen as a monument was because Emily’s father had been a very honorable man in town and she was the last descendant of the Griersons aristocracy. Colonel Startoris, a city

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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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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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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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Faulkner says, Emily buys Arsenic from the druggist and the next day Homer is seen entering her home and that was the last time anyone ever saw him or Emily for some time. No one but the negro servant left the house. (Faulkner 455) Emily kills Homer because she doesn’t want him to leave her. If he’s dead, he can’t run

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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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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.

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William Faulkner is a complex writer who knows how to set a great pace in his stories. He is also a very flexible writer which allows the openness of many topics to write on because of his unconventional style. In his short story, "A Rose for Emily", you can interpret how times are so different from today. Although it was not during slavery times, things were not much more advance than that. The dominance of gender or social roles shown on women, particularly Miss Emily, may be seen as harsh or unfair.

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The titled short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner is set in the post-civil war era in a southern town named Jefferson. The story discusses the themes of race and social class through the characters, Tobe and Miss Emily. Miss Emily Grierson is a distinguished woman in southern society while Tobe is her black manservant. Tobe stays with Miss Emily until her death and suddenly disappears afterwards because their relationship is a remnant of the race relationship in the antebellum South: master and slave. He no longer has any obligations to stay in Jefferson because his duty to Miss Emily is no longer needed since she died.

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The story is set right after the civil war. Emily and her father are high class people who owned slaves to do all the things around the house. Because of her social status everyone in the town would never think of Emily as someone who would sleep with a dead body. When everyone found out about Emily’s secret it was a shock to everyone. Necrophilia is not something someone who was first class would do.

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