“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner Essay

The tone in â€Å"A Rose for Emily† by William Faulkner expresses a sense of curiosity and fear. The curiosity of the woman’s life and the fear of the unknown is also established with the author’s diction. The two tones even roll over to the point of view of the story (or point of views for this particular story). â€Å"A Rose for Emily† is based solely on the curiosity and fear that lingers in the community in which Old Miss Emily lives. The tone and attitude of Faulkner’s short piece illustrates the desire to know but the fear of what could be found. The citizens of Jefferson want to know the happenings of the reclusive MissEmily Grierson simply because she does not roam and gossip as they do since the absence of her husband. Although they have the need to pry into her private life, they are scared to face her directly simply because few people have even tried. The theme of curiosity is cognizant with these actions and the tone with which they are portrayed. The theme is also carried throughout the story with the diction that William Faulkner chooses to use. He carefully crafts his work to present a want to expose the hidden life of the old woman. He gives her an awful appearance, a rude personality, and an unreasonable dissent to loneliness. His diction also proves the prying habits of others. Observers of Miss Emily always assume about her condition of life. The observers themselves represent the story in which the way it was depicted. Curiosity and also a little bit of innocence is used very significantly with the point of view of a citizen that characterize the point of view of the entire community of Jefferson. â€Å"A Rose for Emily† is told by one person, but the ‘we’ used throughout the plot signifies the communal viewpoint that is shared. The eyes through which the story emerges is nothing more than the perspective of a spectator retelling the stories passed down about Miss Emily. The design of the story is based solely on the wonders of people and their curiosity of others. â€Å"A Rose for Emily† by William Faulkner Essay â€Å"A Rose for Emily† is a tragic story about a woman named Emily Grierson who, for all her life has been controlled by her father. Once her father dies, Emily does not know, nor understand how to live her own life. At first she denies that her father dies; then after three days, with much pressuring from the locals and the doctors, she admits her father’s death and lets the townspeople bury him. Much of the town is wondering what to expect to happen to Emily. Emily becomes a recluse and sends her manservant, Tobe, who has served the family for generations, out to the market to do the shopping for her. One day, she met a Yankee day laborer named Homer Barron. Homer and Emily began seeing each other and eventually seemed to get serious about their relationship. Emily began to fall in love with Homer, but Homer did not have the same feelings for her. One day, Homer disappeared and was never seen nor heard from again. Many years passed and Emily died. Her cousins were curious and went to her home to see where she had lived her life. Upon their arrival, they find a corpse lying on a bed in a mysterious locked room upstairs. On the bed, next to the corpse there was a â€Å"long strand of iron-gray hair† (36). In â€Å"A Rose for Emily,† William Faulkner tells a story about a young woman who is overly-influenced and controlled by her father. Her father has made all the decisions for her and he chose whom she could and could not be courted by. After her father died, it took Emily three days to finally allow the townspeople to give her father a proper burial, because of her denial that her father had indeed, died. Emily had relied so heavily on her father for all of her life; she did not know what to do, or how to live. After her father’s death, Emily stays in her house where she felt safe, and does not go out into the outside world, regardless of what had happened and changed. As everything changed in the outside world, Emily still lived with the past. For example, when the new city authorities approach Miss. Emily about her taxes, she explains â€Å"See Col. Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson† (31) – even though Col. Sartoris had been dead for ten years. Emily Grierson is described by Faulkner as a short, fat, and mysterious woman who does not accept change. A good example of Emily Grierson refusing any sort of change is when the town wanted to attach numbers on her house and a mailbox for mail service; Emily Grierson refused to conform to the new ideals. When  Emily met a man named Homer Barron, the townspeople are surprised to see this; â€Å"Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer† (33). Miss Emily represents someone who lives in the South and could not accept the real thing that the North takes over the South after the Civil War. â€Å"When the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their things, spinning with slow motes in the single sun ray†(30) is an example of old things. Emily’s house with all the old things represents the Old south, which has to face a new moder n generation. The idea behind this story is about Emily’s inability to conform to the present and leave the past. Emily had been dominated by her father her whole life, because of this, when her father finally passed away, Emily cannot face the truth about her father’s death, or her loneliness. When Emily meets Homer Barron, she felt that she once again had balance and security in her life. She feared that Homer may also leave her one-day and she would be alone again. This is the reason that Emily poisons Homer Barron. It is not until the death of Emily Grierson that we find the truth about the death of Homer Barron and how deep Emily Grierson’s insecurity truly is. â€Å"A Rose for Emily† is a tragic story that tells the tale of a lonely and isolated woman. The tone, extremely morbid and dark, was set at the beginning. He began the story by telling us the ending. We already know that Emily Grierson has died. He then begins to draw a dynamic picture of how Emily had lived; â€Å"†¦only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores† (29). The tone that Faulkner starts off with the description of Emily Grierson’s residence is a very dramatic and powerful use of description. An outsider looking in to Emily Grierson’s livelihood narrates â€Å"A Rose for Emily† in the third person. This is a very effective way for Faulkner to write this story. By doing this, we are not led into the thoughts of Emily, but more importantly, we know how Emily Grierson is thought of by the locals. Faulkner utilized many symbols in this short story. He used the fact that Emily is stuck in the past, the time when her father was still alive, and the new alderman and townsfolk. These are symbols of the battle that Emily is experiencing between the old south  (past) and the new south (present). At the end of the story, it is shown what William Faulkner meant by a rose, in his title â€Å"A Rose for Emily†. The â€Å"rose† is all of her dust-covered treasures, especially those of her wedding that she wanted; â€Å"†¦this room decked and furnished as for a bridal:upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man’s toilet things backed with the tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured†(36). William Faulkner depicts a very morbid and darktheme. The theme itself fits entirely onto his character, Emily Grierson. I believe Faulkner did a very good job in not only writing this story with a strong theme, but he did it in such a way, in every aspect one could see the theme throughout his short story. I think the vivid drawings of how Emily once lived and who she became is extremely important in â€Å"A Rose for Emily†. Works Cited Kennedy, X.J and Dana Giolia. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2005. A Rose For Emily by William Faulkner Essay There are popular sayings that goes â€Å"love moves in mysterious ways† and â€Å"love makes people crazy. † The amalgam of those sayings would somehow serve as a rough description of William Faulkner’s story â€Å"A Rose for Emily. † Since its publication, the story still captures the imagination of many present-day readers—although, in a disturbing way. The title is deceptively, and ingeniously for that matter, designed to make the story seem as a love story. It is important to note that a rose is a generally accepted symbolism for love. However, the story begins with the death of the protagonist. Actually, there are many points in the story that would lead the readers to the conclusion that Faulkner’s story is far from a love story. This reading will be standing beside the argument that â€Å"A Rose for Emily† is a love story that presents to the readers love in an unfamiliar form. Faulkner exquisitely described how Emily is madly in love with Homer. She even dreams of being married to him someday. Faulkner’s details resemble a layout of a typical love story. However, all of those beautiful renditions of Emily’s love are just diversions to the author’s twists. When Emily mentioned that she wants to be married to Homer, he replied that â€Å"he was not a marrying man† (366). The reader could almost picture Emily as a rose whose petals are torn by the sharp gust of wind of Homer’s subtle rejection. This particular event of her life had significantly contributed to her impending insanity. And because Emily loves Homer so much, Emily had devised a plan to keep him beside her. She had poisoned Homer, paralyzing him for a moment, and then for eternity. She then set Homer’s lifeless body in her bed, then slept with him—in every context of the word slept. Emily’s version of love could be described as unconventional. The story begins describing how the townspeople of Jefferson (Faulkner’s fictional city) treated her â€Å"†¦a sort of fallen monument† (Faulkner 5). Even though the townspeople treat Emily in a revered manner, it would be arguable that they have love for her. In the first part, Emily is already dead and her pitiful yet gruesome background would be unfolded as the plot progresses. A safer claim to make about the townspeople treatment to Emily is that they pity her at the same time disgusted by her life, or more particularly, her love life. The shocking ending, considered a classic, reveals to the readers that Emily had murdered the one she truly loves, Homer Barron. It is just understandable that the townspeople of Jefferson and the readers (of the real world) would raise the question: could this be considered love? If we would set aside the conventional notions of love (like couples promising to each other eternity, sincerely caring for one another, a mutual understanding, etc. ), Emily’s version of love would certainly be dismissed. However, we could still interpret Emily’s actions as out of love, but to put it more succinctly, it should be categorized as unrequited love. It should not be disputed anymore that anyone is capable love, even those with hints of insanity. Moreover, it is a general notion that a person who loves someone needs some kind of returned love. And if love is unrequited, the most likely effect on the unrequited lover would be a seemingly incurable misery. Emily’s murder of Homer is oftentimes interpreted as an act of desperation. On the other hand, it could also regarded as an reaction to the subliminal messages of her love and passion for Homer. As we know of love, through literature and real life, it could paint in our minds illusions of being easily loved back. Emily may have been genuinely convinced that she would someday marry Homer and that they would spend eternity in each other’s arms. The living Homer had rejected her proposal, she may have immediately though that the dead Homer may compromise. Moreover, she had set the dead body in a bed, a symbolism for marriage. In addition, it is implied that she had slept with the dead body of Homer. It is important to consider that the context of the story is a time period where the people are mostly conservatives, especially the aristocrats like Emily’s family. It could be interpreted that she did not slept with the body out of mere lust, it could be something close to being love itself. Emily’s life could be considered lacking love. The title, â€Å"A Rose for Emily†, suggests that she desperately needs to be loved. She loved her aristocratic lifestyle and her father who provides it for her. But when her father had passed away, she may have felt that all she loved had gone to grave with her father, â€Å"†¦being left alone and a pauper, she had become humanized† (366). Considering her mental state, she had found love in Homer, he does not want to be with her, it is just understandable that she would do anything to be with the one she loves. After all, the topic at hand is love, a term and a concept with no satisfying definition. Even science admits that love is more than just chemical reactions. If we would delve further in this attempt to understand love, we might just end up mad like Emily. Works Cited Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. An Introduction to Literature. Ed. Joseph Terry. New York: Longman, 2001 â€Å"A Rose for Emily† by William Faulkner Essay â€Å"A Rose for Emily† is a short story by American author William Faulkner. It tells about an old woman named Emily Grierson lives in the town of Jefferson. The tale sets in the early nineteen hundreds, it opens with the town finding out about Emily’s death. Through the whole story, people learn of the life and times of Emily, her relationship with the town, her father and her lover. People find out the truth that Emily was hiding at the end of the story. There are many different symbolisms in the story Among all of the symbolisms , the monument, the frame, the grey hair, the house and a rose are the most important and thoughtful ones throughout the entire story. The monument appears in the beginning of the story as the first symbolism. â€Å"When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument†(A Rose For Emily). Faulkner calls Emily a â€Å"fallen monument†, it also could understand as an â€Å"idol in a niche†. It shows that how the town views her and to connect her to the idea of the old, genteel Southern ways. The modern townspeople don’t know what to do with her, and she is so closed off to them, but they respect her enough to just leave her alone. Like Faulkner states, she was like a statue — only representing a real, living person and â€Å"thus she passed from generation to generation — dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.† In her old age she is seen as a monument to the past that is never seen outside of her house. All of the respect that her father had earned died with the old men and women of the town. Frames also seem to be symbolic in â€Å"A Rose for Emily.† One of the examples is the scene where the narrator is describing Miss Emily’s father as standing in the foreground and framed by the doorway as he held would be suitors at bay. Meanwhile Miss Emily is framed in the background. Emily’s father. Mr. Grierson is a controlling, looming presence even in death, and the community clearly sees his lasting influence over Emily. Also he references framing with reference to her crayon picture of her father in the gold frame. The whole story is framed in the idea of traditions dying out as time passes. monument† who left a part of her behind in the grey hair. The single grey hair on the pillow is another symbolism. The old hair on the pillow signifies that Emily is a history in the town now, lying with corpses as all that she has had to be proud of is also dead. Her desperate attempt to maintain a hold upon the past has failed and she is a â€Å"fallen angel’. The house that Emily lives in is a symbolism that shows the decay as Emily begin getting older and older. The house at one time was one of the most beautiful homes in the whole town of Jefferson. In Emily’s youth the house was always well kept. As Emily aged so did the house she lived in. The street she lives in from the symbolic of high class became the worst for the entire town. With faded paint and an unkempt yard it even began to smell at one point. The men of the old Jefferson would never tell a lady that her house smelled so they cured the smell themselves. It would seem that the house and Emily where connected in a way. Both of them had grown old and lost their brightness. The house was also looked at in the same way as Emily. Emily lost her mind and her looks. The house lost the beauty it once held due to old age. They where looked at as a monument to the past. The most important symbolism among the all in â€Å"A Rose for Emily† is in the title itself. The rose is most often thought of as a symbol for love in the case Homer is the â€Å"rose† or love for Emily. Her father thought there was no man was good enough for her or for the Grierson family. Therefore she was never able to experience passion or the rose of love until she met Homer. The rose for Emily is hope, and passion. However, there is another meaning of rose to consider. However, the rose in the title of the story could therefore stand for Emily’s secret; that is Homer her â€Å"rose† whom she cherished, loved and kept to herself even after his body was corrupted by the decay of time. While Faulkner had many symbolisms in â€Å"A Rose For Emily†, the symbolisms of the monument, the frame, the grey hair, the house and a rose are the most important and worthful ones throughout the entire story. Author William Faulkner truly wrote a wonderful story about an old women who loses her mind. â€Å"A Rose For Emily† uses different symbolisms to show the way in which people all grow old and decay, it tells a story of fallen angel Emily’s life. â€Å"A Rose for Emily† by William Faulkner Essay Love, obsession and Gossip In â€Å"A Rose for Emily,† William Faulkner uses the point of view of the townspeople to show their personal opinions and judgment’s of Miss Emily. He writes a story about a woman who is traumatized by the way her father has raised her and the effects of his strict and overprotective mentality. Because of her father’s death she finds it difficult to let go and live a normal life that involves social interaction. To make matters worse than her anti-social attitude, Emily is stereotyped and judged by those in her community. In light of her upbringing and the judgments of the townspeople, Emily becomes attached to anyone who shows her attention. In turn, she is very protective and insecure of herself in her ability to keep those who she cares about in her life. Emily’s father was a wealthy man who would stop at nothing to make his daughter happy, or so he thought. He was said to be so wealthy that he â€Å"had loaned money to the town† (432). He was very strict with Miss Emily in that he would not let any males come to visit or even come near her. Faulkner illustrates this characteristic in writing, â€Å"None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such† (434). The relationships and love that Emily desired were brutally taken away from her because of her father’s struggle to maintain the family status. The author illustrates this by explaining her situation, â€Å"†¦ even with insanity in the family she wouldn’t have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized† (434). Regardless if Emily wanted to date or not, her father would not let ny of her relationships flourish. Because of her father’s attitude, Emily grew to be very sheltered, and it was no surprise to the town that she was single at the age of thirty. Her father was selfish, and his selfishness abolished all hopes of happiness for her. She felt stuck in her father’s world with no way out. Not only did she feel alone, but she was also under extreme pressure to live up to her father’s name and maintain the families status in their town. Emily’s need to have someone in her life becomes so great that it leads her to stray from her father’s expectations. This is evident when Miss Emily begins to show interest in Homer Barron, a â€Å"Yankee† construction foreman. Emily’s actions raise a dispute of feelings among the townspeople, â€Å"†¦because the ladies all said, ‘Of course a Grierson would not think  seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer.’ But there were still others, old people, who said that even grief could not cause a real lady to forget noblesse oblige-without calling it noblesse oblige† (435). The difference in opinions of the townspeople suggests the generation gap and values of the different generations. The new and old generationsâ€℠¢ values conflict because they each believe in different ideas. The older townspeople want Emily to behave appropriately and live up to her family’s name. They are also more willing to help Emily in her endeavours because they think of her as proper and noble. The older generation of townspeople felt that her family was â€Å"a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor-†¦-remitted her taxes† (432). The older generation performed favors for Emily because of her family’s status and heritage. They wanted Miss Emily to fail because it would satisfy their hidden jealousies. The new generation on the other hand, is not as compassionate toward her because they are only familiar with her, not her past relatives, who were well respected and admired. The new generation was not favorable to her past situation. â€Å"When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction† (432). The arrangement of Emily’s remitted taxes was not accepted by the new generation of town officials. Faulkner illustrates the difference in values near the beginning of the story to introduce the reader to Emily’s situation. Throughout the story, evidence proves that Emily’s every move is scrutinized by her community. For example, when the story opens, everyone in the town is at her funeral. Faulkner writes, â€Å"Our whole town went to the funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man servant-a combined gardener and cook-had seen in at least ten years†( 431). The people of the town go to Miss Emily’s funeral, not out of respect, but out of hypocrisy and curiosity. The community views her as a â€Å"fallen monument.† The men in the town attend the funeral to respect her family’s name and her father’s suc cess while the women went solely to judge her home. In other words, she was once looked upon highly, but through the years she became a recluse and detached herself from society. Emily’s reasons for secluding herself from society go back to when her father was alive and he was her world. After her  father’s death, she has a hard time dealing with the fact that he has passed on because now she is alone. Her father kept her from finding anyone worth marrying, so now she will have to live by herself. The reader can reason Emily’s importance of her father from Faulkner’s writing, â€Å"On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss Emily’s father† (432). The reader can assume that the portrait was drawn by her and she is trying to hold onto the only person left in her life. The loss of her father leads Emily to pursue a relationship with the northerner, Homer Barron. Emily becomes attached to him because she is lonely and feels rejected by the town. The traditions , customs, and prejudices of the South doom their â€Å"so-called† affair to end. Emily and him would take drives and attend church together, but according to Faulkner’s story Emily discovers that he is not attracted to women. She is already in an unstable state of mind and this information pushes her to the extreme. Emily’s relationship with Barron becomes an obsession rather than a love or compassion. Her obsession forces her to take things to the next level. Emily buys items which point towards marriage and the town begins to talk, as usual. According to Faulkner, Emily purchases â€Å"a man’s toilet set in silver, with the letters H.B. On each piece† and â€Å"a complete outfit of men’s clothing, including a nightshirt† (436). Emily’s beliefs that she was going to have this man forever cause her to buy these things. In Emily’s eyes, whether he wanted to be with her or not, she was determined to have him for her own. The reader does not discover that she has secretly poisoned Homer Barron with arsenic until the end of the story. Out of curiosity the townspeople search her home, but not until after her burial. Their findings satisfies their desire to know the real truth about her. Faulkner writes, â€Å"The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him† (438). This statement proves that Emily kills Homer out of desperation because she new that by killing him he would never leave her like her father did, because this sleep would, â€Å"outlast love†. Miss Emily’s father had sheltered her so much that she could not possibly see herself alone again. All of Miss Emily’s actions throughout her life, prove that she did not kill Homer out of love, but out of desperation and loneliness. She became her father’s child and sheltered Homer like her father had once sheltered her.  Homer was Emily’s â€Å"rose† and she was not going to let it die.