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The Rose For Emily Comparison

Decent Essays

The GreenLeaf, by Flannery O’Connor, and The Rose for Emily, written by William Faulkner, are different in many ways but also similar. The books both have similar literary devices being used, the era the books were staged in, and how the authors portrayed southern ideals .
Flannery used smiles, such as when O’Connor wrote, “..hand would dangle from her wrist like the head of a broken lily.”, where she compared the hand of Mrs.May and a broken lily’s head. O’Connor also shown symbolism by the bull stabbing Mrs.GreenLeaf in the heart with it's horn, while earlier in the story she stated “ Oh Jesus, stab me in the heart!”, this shows Jesus stabbing her as she said in her demand and symbolizes the crucifixion of Jesus. In the beginning of the story, O’Connor displays symbolism by comparing the bull to Christ. So once again Flannery O’Connor is bringing religion into play. O'Connor is well known for utilizing being raised Catholic in the South in her books. Miss O’Connor puts a piece of herself in all her short stories. Mrs. May shares this ‘Christian” aspect that Flannery establishes in all her stories. She conveys this by always stating how she is a lady of God, even though the statements that she makes do not manifest that. Mrs.May claims this on multiple occasions as if she is trying to convince herself how christianly she is. The Rose for Emily also contains multiple literary devices; such as, symbolism, the aged house Emily lives in shows her isolation, she does not leave that much, because she is hiding a terrible secret in the upstairs room. Emily only wanted a home, she could call her own and grow old with someone she loved in, which she thought was Home Barron but tragically he died and stored his body in the upstairs room, this is the reason why her house was smelling so horrible. The townspeople had to sprinkle lime on her lawn to terminate the smell. The reader is to think that she killed him because she loved him and wanted the control that she never had, because her father abused her and he was all she had before he died, so she wanted to always have Barron.
Both short stories were set to segregation times.Because slavery has ended, both O.T. and E.T. and Miss Emily have an African American

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