“A Rose for Emily” was written in 1929. He has written “The Sound of the Fury”, As I Lay Dying, and “Absalom, Absalom!” and many more. The most common theme in all his works is death overcoming people's lives. Where the characters live is a symbol of what kinds of people they are. William Faulkner likes to write about things that happened in history with a modern twist. Emily Grierson is very secluded and to herself ever since her dad passed away. Emily’s dad has ruined all her future relationships. William Faulkner portrays all his characters as lonely or demanding. Faulkner uses symbolism to describe what each character was going through emotionally. Faulkner uses a southern gothic style in majority of his pieces. William Faulkner in “A …show more content…
Faulkner describes the character talking “The druggist tells her that the law requires her to tell him how she plans to use the poison, but she simply stares at him until he backs away and wraps up the arsenic. He writes “For Rats” on the box (Akers). The author seems to be suggesting that Emily has a certain ignorance to her and that she always seems to get her way. Faulkner said “So the next day we all said, “She will kill herself”; and we said it would be the best thing” (Faulkner). Since Emily was not happy that Homer said, “He was not a marrying man" (Faulkner) she decided to get the arsenic and poison him because she did not want change. She wants Homer to be with her forever and so he was. Once she had poisoned him she kept him locked away in one of the rooms in her house. She has him laid out on a bed in a room in her attic. There is also evidence that she lays with him because one of her hairs was found on the pillow next to him. Throughout all of these events Faulkner seems to be suggesting that Miss Grierson might have a mental illness that causes her to over react and not very willing to accept
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.
This paper intends to show that William Faulkner in "A Rose for Emily" freely incorporates elements of dark romanticism, naturalism, and realism into his “own air of reality,” that effectively piques the interest and curiosity of the reader throughout the story. By maximizing this privilege of execution, it manages to meet the standards of Henry James in “The Art of Fiction,” in return of being able to reveal the most deep-seated temperaments of man in the broadest sense of reality. “A Rose for Emily” highly exhibits elements of dark romanticism, with its use of repetitive images and symbols throughout (e.g. the expression of decay and disuse to parallel the setting with the psyche of Emily). Along with it, Emily Grierson also evidently spends her life in detachment from others, thus, she is often misinterpreted by the townspeople, who only regarded her as the woman who lead such tragic and pitiful life, whereas she is actually quite drawn to death in her own conscious will, given that she had associated on how death itself could capture the essence of her departed father. Afraid to lose the subject of her dependency again, Emily slowly alters herself in the form of death – mainly signified by living in decay and disuse, in hopes that, like as death could consume one’s spirit in the end, she will also be able to preserve the essence of someone that is dear to her.
“A Rose for Emily” is a dark, suspenseful Gothic tale in which a young girl is put on a pedestal by a town who sees her as haughty and scornful. Miss Emily Grierson’s father controls her and her love life, pushing away all people until he dies and Emily is left alone. As her life goes on the townspeople watch her and judge Emily, almost turning her life into a spectacle to be talked about. At her death, a gruesome sight is unfolded when her lover of over forty years ago is found decomposed in her upstairs room. William Faulkner effectively builds epic suspense in “A Rose for Emily” by the unchronological order of the story, the treatment of Emily’s father towards her, and her family’s history of mental illness.
The character in William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily'' Emily Grierson is a character who changes quite a bit from the beginning to the end. Emily is a mysterious figure who changes from a vibrant and hopeful young girl to a cloistered and secretive old woman. She seems devastated and alone after her father's death, and she turns out to be an object of pity for the townspeople. Emily is a prime example of people changing in order to adapt to the changes of reality.
Emily is an elderly woman who was monumentalized by her town due to her fathers past achievements. Faulkner Stated “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town.” Although the town did not love Emily, they all understood her seniority because of her father’s prominent position in the society. The community gave Emily special treatment and she was still unable to develop endearment for the people that looked after her. Instead Emily felt entitled and she refused to socialize with people
Another death would be of her lover Homer who she poisoned. Emily bought arsenic while her cousins are visiting her from the druggist. The druggist questioned Emily but being so convincing all Emily had to do was give the druggist a look to get what she wanted. The arsenic was labeled “for rats” on the box. Arsenic is a poisonous chemical that could have very different outcomes and symptoms.
In the William Faulkner novel" A Rose for Emily," we can see evidence of Southern Gothic. Southern Gothic shows the tale of a crumbling landscape, racial tension, and southern traditions. Emily Grierson is the daughter of the late Mr. Grierson. We can see that in the story Emily's father is very controlling of everything that she did. We can make the analysis that since that he is so controlling of her, that he is the only man she really knew.
In William Faulkner’s short story, A Rose for Emily, Emily Grierson, a prominent member of her small town, dies alone in her home. Upon her death, curious townsfolk entered her home trying to learn her secrets. It was thought she was crazy. Emily Grierson was not crazy; she was isolated by her father, which led to her odd social tendencies and unique interactions with others. A Rose for Emily is a short story based in a small town.
William Faulkner, the author of the story “A Rose for Emily,” describes Emily as a very mysterious and murderous character. Towards the end of the story, the author makes it clear that Emily is mentally insane. She murdered the man she loved and locked herself away from society for many years. After her death, her neighbors found Homer’s dead body in her house. The narrator explains, “The man himself lay in bed.
William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” critiques the American South Describing Emily’s vibrant life full of hope and buoyancy, later shrouded into the profound mystery, Faulkner emphasizes her denial to accept the concept of death. William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” takes place in the South during the transitional time period from the racial discrimination to the core political change of racial equality. Starting from the description of her death, “A Rose for Emily” tells the story about the lady who is the last in her generation (Emily Grierson). Being strong, proud and a traditional lady of southern aristocracy, Emily turns into an evil, unpredictable and mysterious old lady after the death of her father. Even though “A Rose for Emily”
Throughout the story, the main character, Miss Emily Grierson, shows signs of what appears to be some form of mental illness. Although Faulkner never states that Miss Emily has anything wrong with her mental health, he does provide enough evidence to support that she is not psychologically stable. In “A Rose for Emily,” Faulkner portrays the main character as a mysterious icon of the small town of Jefferson, Mississippi. As the story states, Emily’s father is an admirable figure in the city of Jefferson. After his passing, the townspeople show the same respect for Emily, as well.
“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner is written about the change from Old South to New South and Emily refuses to accept the changes by living in her own version of reality. An analysis of William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” will explain how Faulkner portrays the change in the social structure of the American South in the early twentieth century as a change from Old South to New South by showing the Griersons no longer hold power, the changes in the town, and Emily’s denial to change. In the New South the Griersons no longer hold power. Emily believes that her family still holds the power that they had in the Old South, so she never payed her taxes.
“A Rose for Emily” is a unique short story that keeps the reader guessing even though its first sentence already reveals the majority of the content. William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is the epitome of a work that follows an unconventional plot structure and a non-linear timeline, but this method of organization is intentional, as it creates suspense throughout the story. William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” follows an unusual plot structure, which creates an eccentric application of suspense to a short story. Throughout the story, there are no clear indications of standard plot structure in each section, such as intro, climax, and denouement. Instead, there are sections, which are not in chronological order, that describe a particular conflict or event, which in turn creates suspense, as each conflict builds upon each other to make the reader question the overall context and organization of the story.
At first, Emily is seen as a caring woman by the town people, but as soon as her personality shifts it causes concern within the town. Faulkner focuses the story on Emily’s mental collapse and the popularity conversion among the town habitats to isolation. Faulkner does not rely on a conventional linear approach to present his characters’ live. Alternatively he presents, a fractured and manipulated time structure that describes Emily’s life through a sequence of flashbacks. Faulkner displays two visions of time along the story, one is based on the objectivity of reality, in which time moves forward continuously.
Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers in American literature usually and southern literature specifically. His first published Story “A rose for Emily”, is one of the most famous that an American has written. Faulkner captured Southern Gothic in this short story by giving the story a moody and forbidding atmosphere. “A Rose for Emily” depicts southern gothic literature through the characters, the setting, and the mysteries and secrets.