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What Is The Change In A Rose For Emily Grierson's Life

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As time moves forward, we can do nothing but change with time. How can one possibly dwell in the past and live in the present? In the short story, “A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner, the author describes Emily Grierson as someone who is reluctant to face reality. She lives a depressing and solitary life after her well-known and honorable father deceased. Although her father’s death had changed her life, Emily is unable to let go of the past and is unwilling to accept any form of change. When her father passed away, Emily was in the state of denial. She didn’t believe her father was dead. The day after his death, the townspeople gathered at her house to show sympathy and “Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face.” She showed no signs of sorrow and “she …show more content…

The house, which once used to be very elegant, was decorated in the style of the seventies and now became an unpleasant sight to the neighborhood. Her house was the only house left on the block “lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps.” The house symbolizes Emily’s disinclination to modernize. Another instance when Emily showed resistance to change is when the town developed free postal delivery. Emily “refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it.” The town was advancing with new ideas and as the next generation took charge, they required everyone to pay taxes, even Emily. Still rooted in the past, Emily tells them to go see Colonel Sartoris who relieved her from paying taxes. It is stated that Colonel Sartoris died ten years ago but Emily didn’t accept that. She insisted that they go talk to the Colonel. These were new changes in society that Emily was not accustomed to. She was still trying to hold on to her traditions and old habits even though society viewed them as unpopular and

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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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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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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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The play Our Town is about the people of a small town of Grover's Corners in New Hampshire. This play focuses mainly on two families, the Gibbs and the Webbs. The play portrays teenage years, love and marriage, and death throughout the three acts. Throughout the play, Emily Webb, Mrs. Gibbs, and Joe Crowell suddenly die suddenly when they had their whole lives ahead of them. Wilder conveys that death happens at any time so one should live every day like it will be their last.

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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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Even though the town tried to feel bad for Miss Emily, the town still loves to gossip, so they still like to talk about her “being left alone, and a pauper”

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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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An epiphany is a moment of insight or sudden realization of something. In the story, "A rose for Emily" by William Faulkner I experienced what I would consider an epiphany at the end of the story when the narrator says, " Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head" and then a few lines later, " we saw a strand of iron gray hair" (316). Throughout the story the narrator used small symbols such as the condition of the house saying, " it was a big squarish frame house that had once been white" and went on to speak of how elaborate and gorgeous it was and got to the point of its current condition as being " left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps – an eyesore among

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In many situations, the people within the town notice Miss Emily’s odd behavior, but they choose to maintain peace with her instead of helping her when she clearly needs it the most. However, this need to preserve the respectful image of Miss Emily ultimately leads to her emotional breakdown of isolation and

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“She looked back at him, erect, her face like a strained flag.” “She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue.” “Tradition Verses Change” is the theme of the story. As Emily got older things around her change. The older towns people wouldn’t collect taxes from her but the new towns people wants the taxes.

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Eventually, Miss Emily’s house started to give off a horrible scent that her neighbors could smell. The perspective of the deputation that went to her house shows how she could have viewed Emily as grimey. When a deputation went to her house and an old man admitted to them, the narrator says, “It smelled of dust and disuse — a close, bitter smell. The Negro led them into the parlor. It was furnished with heavy, leather-covered furniture.

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The decaying house also symbolizes Emily's deteriorating mental state. As the years went by, and the times kept changing, Miss Emily and her home remained the same– broken down and rotted. Another example of Faulkner’s symbolism is through the structure of the story itself. He crafts each section out of order to emphasize the unpredictability of Miss Emily’s mental turmoil. He begins and ends the story with her death, while the middle sections adopt a complicated chronology of her life, revealing instances of her mysterious and closed-off manner.

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She could not escape the pain and mourning which came with the death of her father, thus providing the residents a platform of satisfaction over Emily's grief. This is the first form of direct resentment that the people expressed towards her and they believed that since she had finally experienced hard times they could “pity Miss. Emily” (pg. 1105) because she appeared to be equal to the common man. To the residents she finally appeared “humanized” (pg. 1105) instead of some "untouchable," public figure. The people could view her as a normal person now because she finally faced the hardships that they experienced every day.

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Just as they were about to resort to law and force she breaks down and buried her father quickly.” (Faulkner 453) Miss Emily tries to keep her father’s body so she isn’t left lonely. She tries to keep him until the townspeople basically force her to bury him. The second reason Miss Emily may be crazy and mentally ill is because she kills Homer Baron.

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