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'Symbolism In A Rose For Emily'

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How does William Faulkner make use of symbolism in “A Rose for Emily?” William Faulkner; born in 1897, was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner wrote short stories, novels, a play, poetry, essays, and screenplays. William Faulkner is very creative when it comes to using symbolism. This style of writing is used to represent mythical ideas and emotions to make the reader think deeper. One of his most well-known short stories called “A Rose for Emily” has tons of examples of symbolism throughout the storyline. How exactly does William Faulkner make use of symbolism in “A Rose for Emily?” There are multiple examples of symbolism in this story; however, this essay is only going to cover three of them. William …show more content…

The house also shows the townspeople’s aristocratic past in Jefferson, which shows how their levels of social class are developing. While the house shows southern pride, it also shows southern culture too. The house tends to be irrelevant from the modern world. The house symbolizes what life is like before the war. Slavery serves as a huge symbolic meaning with the house. The house is also a reminder of the days of slavery in Jefferson. The house is a proud face to the public. The people have a certain respect for the house that others will not. It conceals some secrets that they have as well as some desires. The second thing the house symbolizes is change and decay. The house was very grand and beautiful before the passing of Miss Emily. It glorifies the past in Jefferson more than any other house does. Originally, Miss Emily’s father hands down the house to her after his death. It is a great embodiment of southern pride. Towards the end of the story and after the death of Miss Emily, the house symbolizes many different things than it does in the beginning of the story. The house become a fallen monument after the death of Emily. There is nobody in line to take up on …show more content…

The first thing the gray strand of hair symbolizes is Emily’s impervious behavior. Miss Emily is determined to hold onto Homer Baron for as long as she can. She kills him and keeps his corpse inside of the house. The reader soon finds out that Emily is sleeping with Homer’s corpse, because the townspeople find a gray strand of hair on the pillow next to the body. Miss Emily also shows similar behavior when her father passes away as well. She denies to the townspeople that her father is dead. She doesn’t want to accept the death of the things she loves. Miss Emily will do anything to hold onto her love ones. The death of Homer Baron serves as a perfect example of that statement. The second thing the gray strand of hair represents is wisdom and respect. The people of Jefferson see Miss Emily as being a wise and old woman. The townspeople have a lot of sympathy for Miss Emily after the death of her father. When her house starts to smell fowl, they try to tame the stench without her knowing because they do not want to confront her about it. Also, the townspeople never come into her house nor force her to pay her taxes. These are all ways in which they are showing Miss Emily respect. After Miss Emily dies, the people gift her a rose as a gratitude of respect towards her life. This is also when they come across the gray strand of hair which lay on the pillow next to the corpse of Homer

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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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Symbolism in this story is the house which represents society.

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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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Emily knows how the people in the town stare and talk about her dating Homer and she does not care. Emily likes to hold on to the past and considering how she was brought up she cannot let Homer go when he states that their relationship is coming to an end. She decides she will hold on to him anyway she can. She inds up killing Homer and keeps him in the house with her. People complain of the smell but the townspeople will not confront her.

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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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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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“We remembered all the young men her father had driven away” (453). Miss Emily’s father drove away young men interested in her, not allowing her to have a love life and therefore a life outside of him. This controlling treatment of Miss Emily by Mr. Grierson coincides with Emily’s fight to control her love life with Homer. “Because Homer himself had remarked - he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks’ Club - that he was not a marrying man” (454). If it weren’t for the fact that Miss Emily murdered Homer, he would have left her, therefore she used the murder as a way to keep him close to

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Throughout the reading of "A Rose for Emily "there is many expressions of symbolism. Understanding and able to point out the objects or people and the meaning behind them is very important. Knowing the explanation of each expression will help you understand the author and his or her message towards the audience. In the selection, "A Rose for Emily" some examples of symbolism is a character name Homer Barron, the house, and the rose that is stated in the title. These all have significant meanings behind them that are important to fully understand why Emily acted, felt and explain the reasoning behind each of her actions.

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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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When Emily’s father dies and shortly after Homer’s disappearance follows, we see a depressed and a lonely Emily who never leaves the

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Also, Faulkner uses the house to represent Emily metaphorically as decomposing and change-resistant. Faulkner also uses a rose to symbolize irony. Whereas roses represent love, Miss Emily never actually comprehend the actual meaning of love. Furthermore, he uses the strand of hair to symbolize the sometimes-perverse acts that individuals undertake in their quest for contentment. The discovery of the strand of hair is also predicted when the narrator explains the bodily decline of Miss Emily.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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