Faulkner's 'A Rose For Emily'

In the short story A Rose for Emily written by William Faulkner, readers are immersed in the narrative of a supposed town member who describes the impact that the recent death of an old woman has had upon their small community. In the narrative, readers are taken on a journey through the life of Miss Emily, an old, lonely woman who is seemingly frozen in her own timeframe. As the story unfolds, readers learn about the various tragedies Emily encountered in her lifetime such as the sudden death of her controlling father as well as her alienation from other family members that leaves her utterly alone following his death. Audiences also learn about events that happened throughout Emily’s life that both molded her as a person and aided in shaping her reputation around the town. From her controversial relationship with a construction worker named Homer Barron to her suspicious purchase of arsenic at the local drug store, there is no question that Emily lived under the constant scrutiny of her fellow townspeople. After reading the initial sentences, it can be concurred that this story doesn’t simply describe the life of an old, questionably insane woman, but also the story of the age-old battle between old and new. Through symbolism and an artful arrangement of the events described, Faulkner is able to meticulously weave a tale of the clash between newer and older generations’ views and standards.

“A Rose for Emily” reveals the influence that Southern Gothic had on his writing. The story’s setting is a perfect example. His particular story has a moody and forbidding atmosphere; a crumbling old mansion; and decay, putrefaction, and grotesquerie. Faulkner’s work uses the sensational elements to highlight an individual’s struggle against an oppressive society that is undergoing rapid change. Emily herself is stuck in the “Old south” while her town is changing. Another aspect of the Southern Gothic style is appropriation and transformation. Faulkner has appropriated the image of the damsel in distress and transformed it into Emily, a psychologically damaged spinster. Her mental instability and necrophilia have made her an emblematic Southern Gothic

“At last they could pity Emily” (453) or at least that is what the community thought they could do when Emily lost her father and became “humanized” (453). Emily is one of the most prominent people of her time and is even recognized through a story all written about her. This analytical essay of “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner without doubt, uses symbolism to portray change and decay throughout the story by using Emily’s home, Mr. Grierson, and herself.

In “A Rose for Emily”, Charles Faulkner used a series of flashbacks and foreshadowing to tell Miss Emily’s story. Miss Emily is an interesting character, to say the least. In such a short story of her life, as told from the prospective of a townsperson, who had been nearly eighty as Miss Emily had been, in order to tell the story from their own perspective. Faulkner set up the story in Mississippi, in a world he knew of in his own lifetime. Inspired by a southern outlook that had been touched by the Civil War memory, the touch of what we would now look at as racism, gives the southern aroma of the period. It sets up Miss Emily’s southern belle status and social standing she had been born into, loner or not.

William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is a story about an elderly woman, Emily Grierson who represents the old south. “A Rose for Emily” consists of five parts. The story begins with the death of Emily Grierson. Then, the narrator takes the readers into a flashback to the time Miss Emily Grierson is alive. The narrator explains Grierson as a representation of the old south. The narrator describes Miss Emily Grierson actions rather than explain her thoughts on why she choses not to accept the new way of life or the New South. “A Rose for Emily” ends with a twist which is why readers view the story as a southern gothic. By the end of the story, the townspeople discover that Miss Emily Grierson was psychotic. She kills her companion, maybe-lover, Homer Barron with arsenic poison. Emily Grierson could not accept the changes that came along with the new south which transforms her into psychologically damaged spinster. In a sense, Grierson symbolizes the old south to the townspeople; She’s unwilling to change her old ways of living and accept the new south. Faulkner’s story, “A Rose for Emily” protagonist, Emily Grierson and the town symbolizes the old south, which readers can imply by the poor conditions of Grierson’s house, the reconstruction of the town, and Grierson’s funeral.

Faulkner continues his southern gothic writing style when the story goes back to an earlier time in Miss Emily’s life. Faulkner

William Faulkner has done a wonderful work in his essay “A Rose for Emily.” Faulkner uses symbols, settings, character development, and other literary devices to express the life of Emily and the behavior of the people of Jefferson town towards her. By reading the essay, the audience cannot really figure out who the narrator is. It seems like the narrator can be the town’s collective voice. The fact that the narrator uses collective pronoun we supports the theory that the narrator is describing the life of “Miss Emily” on behalf of the townspeople. Faulkner has used the flashback device in his essay to make it more interesting. The story begins with the portrayal of Emily’s funeral and it moves to her past and at the end the readers realize that the funeral is a flashback as well. The story starts with the death of Miss Emily when he was seventy-four years old and it takes us back when she is a young and attractive girl.

Faulkner develops the character of Emily and events in her life not only to tell a shocking story but also to portray his view on the Antebellum South. Emily is a figure of the world that struggles with a change. Both Faulkner and Williams by creating those two female characters shared with readers and the audience their reflection on the after-Civil War South — the place where they were born and

Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor believes “the form of the story gives it meaning which any other form would change.” William Faulkner, the author of “A Rose for Emily” and a fellow Southern Gothic writer, must have known about O’Conner’s viewpoint as he prepared to write his five section short story. Faulkner wants his readers to understand the passage of time throughout the story and accept Emily Grierson, the story’s protagonist, as crazy or “perverse.”

“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner describes the peculiar life of Miss Emily, an unmarried and allegedly wealthy woman who is the talk of the town of Jefferson. Faulkner’s use of particular literary devices can be observed throughout the entire story. He carefully uses each literary device to develop the theme in a way that is not immediately obvious to the average reader. This exceptionally clever use of literary devices is what makes “A Rose for Emily” such a brilliant and famed story in the world of literature. Some of the most interesting literary devices that Faulkner weaves into “A Rose for Emily” are setting, symbolism, and imagery, which he uses to emphasize a theme based around the progression of time.

In “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner exploits symbols to represent the struggles of the people to accept change in society. In this short story, Miss Emily appears to abhor change within her life and appears to never be able to let go of the ways in which she grew up. She appears to be stuck in the timeframe of when the old South reined true, while everyone else is moving on to accept the change and welcome the new South of modernization. The people in the city gossip and pity Miss Emily her unwillingness to move on. Miss Emily’s character is developed from her not wanting to let go of the old South in which she had been around her entire life, and when her father dies, it appears that the old South dies with him, she cannot accept both

“A Rose for Emily”, written by William Faulkner, was published in April 30, 1930. Throughout this story I got the intention that this story was to show how hard people loved, and what some people would do to the ones they loved. This story showed multiple signs of the Southern Gothic literature period. This story was very grotesque in many ways, the main character, Emily Grierson, produced most of the grotesque scenes. Emily Grierson was a woman that held misfit characteristics, she also had a mindset of, if I can’t have something no one can. She also upheld many Southern Gothic features like: Violence and Imprisonment. I felt like this story made you come into tact with how people used to think and feel in the 1930s.

In Faulkner's story, an onlooker tells of the peculiar events that occurred during Miss Emily's life. The author never lets the reader understand Emily's side to the story. Instead, the reader is forced to guess why Emily is as strange as she is. In the story, Emily had harbored her father's dead body in her house for three days (par. 27). The reader is told of how the town looked upon what Emily had done, but the reader is never able to fully understand Emily's actions until the end of the story.

Faulkner uses Emily’s character to represent the Old South in health and death. Her stubborn attitude and her decorum both reflect the characteristics of the Old South. When the men go to her home and confront her about her unpaid taxes and she asks them to leave, she represents that women in the Old South were not argued with and not questioned as not to insult them. The way that the people of the town treat her reflects this even further. The people of the town treat Emily as a monument just as they had seen the Old South. “It was another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons.” They see her as something to observe and only interfere when she does something they do not like, such as dating a Northerner. Even in death The Old South follows her. “And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those August names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.”

William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily,” was written after the civil war and is often considered a piece of Southern Gothic literature (Davis). Southern Gothic is a subgenre of the gothic culture, which typically relies on the use of supernatural, unusual, and ironic events to drive the plot, all of which can be seen as a driving force throughout the story development of Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” (Davis). Through Faulkner’s ingenious short story, “A Rose for Emily,” he demonstrates the powerful yet internal conflict that comes with change, and the tension it creates between the realms of the past and the future. Upon further analysis, we come to see the story as a representation of the fallen south coupled with societal commentary and a depiction of the characters as spirits from the past stuck in a present time they struggle to come to peaceful terms with. We can see the powerful message Faulkner creates illustrated throughout his use of symbolism, his protagonist Emily, the community that surrounds her, and the incongruent timeline of events he depicts throughout the telling of his story.