A Rose for Emily

Theme

This paper tells gives a brief summary of the story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner. It gives a sketch of the character of the Emily, a courageous woman, represented as a “Southern Belle” in the story. She faces all types of adversaries from the people, but she never lets herself let down and stands against the ill-standard norms of the society.

Personal Experience

Emily is a wilted “Southern Belle” whose life has faded beyond recognition as a rose fades without nutrients. She has fallen into disrepair just as her house has become a decaying shack. A woman who longed for a complete life filled with love and adventure, ended in a tragic death. Miss Emily slipped into a fog of depression and isolation when she realized her life would not continue with Homer as she had thought. Simply put, Miss Emily lost her sanity.

The title of the story makes it clear that the narrator's story as a last homage to Emily understands as a kind of rose, which he puts her on the coffin. He is by no means an admirer of Emily, a split has special relationship with her. At first, he describes the ornate, old wooden house Grierson, which are a last monument of the past glory of the southern states. So Faulkner characterizes the same house resident Emily: She is a fellow, a remnant of the old upper class, for their stubbornness, the narrator, however, has sometimes sympathy. It is a relic of the middle of the industrialized modernity with their cars and cotton factories. She is a victim of her strict father who makes her the old maid.

Plot

Miss Emily met Homer Baron, a foreman with a construction company, when her hometown was first getting paved streets. Her father had already died but, not before driving away her eligible suitors. As rumors circulate about her possible marriage to a Yankee, Homer leaves town abruptly. During his absence, Miss Emily buys rat poison. When Homer returns, the townspeople see him enter Miss Emily's house but not leave. Only when she dies do the townspeople discover his corpse on a bed in her house and, next to it, a strand of Miss Emily's hair.

This Gothic plot makes serious points about woman's place in society. Moreover, the narrator does not have direct access to Emily's private life, he seems to be dependent on the few public appearances, and gossip. Often you do not know whether he has observed the narrative itself, or whether he recounted the talk of the people. In this respect, the anonymous narrator moves into the vicinity of an authorial, but not all-knowing position. If the chatter is in the Old City is a major source for the story, then the time jumps are evident. Because people get old "time with their mathematical progress through each other," as the narrator once remarked, as he describes the guests at the funeral of Emily's father.

Miss Emily's story is certainly bizarre, suspenseful, and mysterious enough to engage ...