Themes In A Rose For Emily

The usual focus when reading a story is usually on the main character. However, what kinds of elements make up the story to develop the main character? One element that is usually overlooked is the power of setting. Setting can turn a good story into a great one. Setting often provides more then just a mere backdrop for the action in the story. Setting can make or break a story. And this is evidently seen in A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner.

Symbolism in literature is using an object to portray a different, deeper meaning in a story. Symbols represent ideas or qualities that the author has maneuvered into his or her story that has meaning. There can be multiple symbols in a story or just one. It is up to the reader to interpret the meaning of the symbols and their significance to the story. While reading a story, symbols may not become clear until the very end, once the climax is over, and the falling action is covered. In William Faulkner’s, “A Rose for Emily,” there are multiple examples of symbolism that occur throughout the story.

Tradition controls the actions of both the town and Emily herself.  “A Rose for Emily” captures the importance tradition holds for her Southern community.  The Civil War was an issue of lifestyle.  Southerners hung to the lifestyle they had, with the slaves. Tradition was the reason Emily didn’t pay her taxes. Her father was aristocracy and paid no taxes , therefore , Emily refused. When the slavery era passed, the South fell, the lifestyle was torn apart and the economy changed.  Old-time families, like Emilie’s, lost their position with their

Culture is also important to the setting in the story being told. Miss Emily was a Grierson. The high and might Grierson’s as they were known in Jefferson. Faulkner talks about how “Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of the august names where they lay in a cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of the union and confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.” By describing this culture setting Faulkner is setting the tone for what kind of character Emily is, and what kind of family she had. The Grierson’s were a powerful family in Jefferson, royalty if you will, and Emily was the last of this great family.

William Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi. He was the oldest of four Brothers since a very young age William developed a love for literature.He was awarded multiple awards including Nobel prices and Pulitzer awards. William Faulkner is known for his stories about the decadence of the south and the tones his stories have. In this story, we see how Emily is a symbol for the town of the old South and how everyone need to adapt to the new changes in the town. William tone influences every part of his stories.“A Rose for Emily” is about Emily Grierson a girl in a post-civil war Mississippi and how she isolated from everyone during tough situations. In “A Rose for Emily” William Faulkner use of imagery and symbolism help us develop the theme of the story.

Love can make people do crazy things, especially if it is not returned. In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” he introduces a character named Emily Grierson. Emily was a big component to the city which made the townspeople treat her like a celebrity.She was known to be a “monument” (part I: paragraph I) to the town because her father was a well-respected man. Her father was noted to control her life making it where she could not be with anyone. After his death, she had to become acclimated with the change in her life which actually never happened. Emily falls in love with a man, only for his love to not be returned which caused her to do something unbearable.Emily’s restriction from a loving relationship from a male, other than her

Humanity has a funny way of contradicting itself. We often want to believe that we live

William Faulkner is a well-known author, whose writing belongs in the Realism era in the American Literary Canon. His writing was influence by his Southern upbringing, often setting his stories in the fictional Southern town, Yoknapatawpha County. “A Rose for Emily” was one of Faulkner’s first published pieces and displays many of the now signature characteristics of Faulkner’s writing. The short story provides commentary through the use of many symbols. In William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily”, the author uses the townspeople as a representation of societal expectations and judgments, Emily and her house as symbols for the past, and Homer’s corpse as a physical representation of the fear of loneliness.

Faulkner’s use of southern gothic writing style helps the reader build a mental depiction of Miss Emily. When the town sent their ambassadors to discuss the taxes that were owed, Faulkner described Miss Emily as “bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water” (2182). This description gives the reader the sense that the character is not well. Faulkner’s description that Miss Emily looked bloated achieves the desired effect on the reader to show how hideous she appears. This graphic description, combined with the author’s depressing description of the parlor (2182), makes the reader think of death. The reader gets the sense of being in a funeral parlor which helps to strengthen Faulkner’s narrative.

In 1930 William Faulkner published his very first story, “A Rose for Emily.” The story emerges with the funeral of Emily Grierson and discloses the story out of sequence; Faulkner brings into play an anonymous first-person narrator thought to be the representation of Grierson’s municipality. Miss Emily Grierson’s life was read to be controlled by her father and all his restrictions. Grierson was raised through her life with the thought that no man was adequate for her. Stuck in her old ways, Grierson continued with the Old South’s traditions once her father had passed. Awhile following her father’s death, Emily aims to put the longing for love to a stop and allows Homer Barron to enter her life. Faulkner portrays the literary movement of Modernism utilizing allegory through the post-bellum South after the American Civil War. In the short story “A Rose Emily,” William Faulkner uses a series of symbols to illustrate the prominent theme of the resistance of the refinement of life around Miss Emily.

Matthew Marler  Ms. Faulk   English 102  3 November 2016  Symbolism as a Rose  William Faulkner's, "A Rose for Emily,"  is narrated by an anonymous character who tells the story of the town in a sequence of events. The story is based on what is going on in Miss Emily Grierson's life and how she deceives everyone in the town. There are many parts in the story that show symbolism in varieties of ways. Some of these symbols include Emily's house, her hair, her clothing, and even the "rose" that is brought in the story. Symbolism is shown throughout many different ways through all forms of literature.

Faulkner starts off the story with Miss Emily's funeral, where the men see her as a "fallen monument"(1) and the women are curious about the inside of her house. He draws a picture of a woman who is fragile because she has "fallen," but still symbolic and important like a "monument." The particulars of Miss Emily's house are very similar to her and symbolize what she stands for. It is set on "what had once been the most select street."(1) The narrator, which is the

In William Faulkner's short story "A Rose for Emily," Miss Emily Grierson is a lonely old woman, living a life negated of all love and affection; Emily lives with an aggressively protective father who turns away all the suitors that come seeking for her love, thinking that none of them are good enough for her. After her father dies, Emily finds a suitor of her own, though their story does not have a happy ending. The events of the story are hidden in mysterious ways, and symbolism is used to enhance the plot and create meaning. The story never reveals an actual rose for Emily.

“We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it (William Faulkner)”. However society always tries to limit our freedom because of our gender. In Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”, the plot takes place in 1894 where women were considered to be beneath men due to stratification of society. The story takes place in an era when women did not have the right to vote, were expected to take care of husband/children, and had their civil liberties. The main character of Miss Emily is portrayed as co-dependent and mawkish, which was a social accepted attitude. Faulkner’s short story, illustrates social definitions of the female sex and the mentality of society through the actions and comments of the people of Jefferson, listening to man rather than a woman, and finally dealing with the difficulties of people saying she cannot live without a man. “People to often forget that it is your own choice how you want to spend the rest of your life(Rachel Wolchin).” Within a small town word gets around fast. Comments and remarks can be heard by anyone and will result in getting around the whole town within hours. In the short story “A Rose for Emily”, Faulkner shows how the woman and men were talking about Miss Emily whenever they saw her and Homer talking in the street. As they stand in the street they start to say “Poor Emily”, talking as if she is making the worst decision of her life. They were sure that she wouldn’t waste her time with a Northerner like Homer Barron,

The short story, A Rose for Emily focuses on the life of a mysterious woman, Emily Grierson. Living alone in an old square-frame house at one corner of the town, it's impossible for the townspeople to know the mysterious activities that happed behind the great walls of the ancient house Emily resides in. Her detachment from the society around her sends Miss Grierson into a lonely and depressing path. Throughout the story, conflicts ensue between Miss Grierson and the authorities as well as the townspeople due to her eccentric way of life. Through the character of Miss Emily Grierson, the story explores several themes that contribute significantly to the quality of the short story.