The Role Of Desolation In Miss Emily

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.

And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths… and sleeping and waking up (207),” When Emily said goodbye to small things like clock tickings, sunflowers, and new-ironed dresses, those would be items one would consider trivial and unimportant. When she says goodbye to these trivial things, it truly made Emily realize how much she never appreciated it when she was alive. She went back to a day she thought was unimportant and it resulted in her realizing how important every simple little thing was. When Emily was alive, she was so caught up in herself and never appreciated her daily morning conversations with her mom.

In the 1930’s, as many of us may know, this was around the time of the Lost Generation and flappers who changed the country’s idea of acceptable morals. The south, being religious, it is common for many families to want their children to stay away from this form of corruption and stick to the idea of marrying and creating a family in God’s light. In most religious communities, then and now, it is almost taboo for a woman to be single or to be without children, through marriage of course, by the age of 30. This fear is what caused Emily to become assertive in her endeavors with both her father and Homer. You don 't hear of any other family members that had a strong influence in her life.

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.

“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

In his short story, “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner intends to convey a message to his audience about the unwillingness in human nature to accept change and more specifically the secretive tendencies of aristocrats in the South during the early 20th century. In order to do this, Faulkner sets up a story in which he isolates and old aristocratic woman, Miss Emily, from her fellow townspeople and proceeds to juxtapose her lifestyle with theirs. In doing this he demonstrates her stubborn refusal to change along with the town, but also Among several literary devices the author employs to achieve this contrast, Faulkner sets up his narrator as a seemingly reliable, impartial and knowledgeable member of the community in which Miss Emily lives by using a first person plural, partially omniscient point of view. The narrator is present for all of the scenes that take place in the story, but does not play any role in the events, and speaks for the town as a whole. Faulkner immediately sets up his narrator as a member of the community in the first line of the story, saying that when Miss Emily died “our whole town went to her funeral.”

Amy Bushong Composition II, 16577 Literary Devices 10-16-14 A Watch for Emily In William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, time is the relentless master to which society must bow down or be left in its wake, and those who cannot accept change will be left to descend into madness and murder. This is the case with Emily when she refuses to let go of a time long since passed, and resorts to unscrupulous methods in an attempt to preserve tradition.

Miss Emily comes from an old wealthy line of family in the deep south. Faulkner story is highly symbolic, enhancing miss Emily’s values and character. “Miss Emily is described as a fallen monument to the chivalric American South”(Allmon). Faulkner uses the setting of the story to show the emotional state of Emily. The female-male relationship between Emily and her father is strict, oppressive, and controlling; Their relationship has a major impact on Emily’s character Throughout the short story.

The narrator focuses a lot on Emily Grierson after her death. The narrator said multiple times they believed she wasn’t crazy. However, their actions proved to show the opposite. Emily’s father played a role in her isolation.

Knowing the historical period can help account for Miss Emily’s behavior.

AE 221.04 FINAL PAPER ARINÇ SAYIL 2015502231 Traces of Modernism in A Rose For Emily Through the lines of this work a short story “A Rose For Emily” by William Faulkner will be analyzed with a thematical approach in term of modernism. It is acknowledged by some authorities that modernist movement had taken place first in France. It ruled the world of literature roughly between 1884-1914. Basically modernism can be defined as philosophical movement which tries to innovate the ideas and rejects the traditional way of literature. It takes its origin from modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, and followed then by the horror of World War I. Modernism focuses on changing the old ones with the new ones by implementing

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

These changes on the street cause her house to look out of place, because her house is from the Old South while everything else is the New South. Her town was also getting sidewalks as a part of the industrialization, which led to her meeting Homer Barron. There social changes going on around this time. One change in the town was “when the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily rejected letting them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it” (455). She refused this change, because it was causing a change to her house, which

While Emily is alive the story tells the readers about how the world around Emily is changing and evolving but she refuses to keep up with the new ways. For example, in the story it talks about the town and receiving mail. The story says, “Emily refused to let them fasten metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox.” (#) The town can see what lengths Emily went through to remain isolated from the changing world. If Faulkner had put the story in Emily’s point of view it wouldn’t have the same

In a “Rose for Emily”, by William Faulkner, Emily is portrayed as traditional woman because of her ego. In the story, it is said that Emily was an exceptionally traditional person. From the earliest starting point of the story it said by the narrator “Miss Emily had been a tradition” (Faulkner 96), which demonstrates that she herself a customary individual. Moreover, Emily character of being traditional is the instructing of “china painting lessons eight or ten years earlier” (Faulkner 96). It had dependably been a puzzle that how Emily drove such a disconnected life because Emily did not escape her home since numerous years.