A Rose for Emily, William Faulkner - Essay Example

?Outline Introduction: Introduces William Faulkner and his work, A Rose for Emily, and provides the thesis ment. Body Passage Area of Focus I: First, the paper discusses the factors through which the author immortalizes the character, Emily. Body Passage-2: Area of focus II: Secondly, the paper deals with the details of why people remember the character of Emily. Body Passage-3: Area of focus III: Thirdly, the paper dwells on the presentation of Emily as the representative of the Old South. Conclusion: The conclusion restates the thesis as to why Emily is remembered and how she represents the Old South, and sums up the essay by delineating the main points. Memorializing Emily in “A Rose for Emily” William Faulkner (1897-1962), is a well known American writer, whose writings mostly evolve around life in the South. His story, “A Rose for Emily” is the tale of an old woman, and it reflects a community’s account of the life of one of its oldest citizens, Emily, whose death represents the decay of Jefferson town in which she has lived. The story, like most of the author’s other works, is noted for its complicated plot and elements of horror. It is the delicate portrayal of a person, denied of love, isolated by the family and society. This story employs the literary devices of mystery throughout to keep the audience hooked to the narration. The way in which the servant behaves and the instance of Miss Emily buying “arsenic from the druggist” are examples of clever deployment of mystery (Patrick 7). The story’s most unique and striking aspect is the murder of her lover by Emily Grierson but its impact comes to a full circle with the revelation that she keeps his body because she yearns so deeply for his companionship. Through this work Faulkner memorializes Emily, a character that reflects several traits of the Old South, as seen through the townsfolk’s perspective. The story begins with Emily’s death and a description of the house, the insides of which the townsfolk seldom see. The author then gives out the information about the character in bits and pieces, in a jumbled chronological order, immortalizing Emily and her eccentricities. This technique works very well in hiding the vital clues and thus eliminates the chances of compromising the story’s twist in the end. The narrative style helps the audience to understand the faults in Emily’s character. The settings of the house, described in the beginning, indirectly refer to the protagonist’s state of existence, as can be evidenced from descriptions like a “fallen monument” which connotes to the present state of Miss Emily (Faulkner 1). Similarly, the present state of the house, described so clearly as “stubborn and coquettish decay” and “eyesore among eyesores” hint both at Emily’s deranged mind as well as the rotten truths that lay buried within her home. (Faulkner 1). The images of the rose colored curtains and the shade lights are the description of a feminine dwelling space and the author illustrates how she remains trapped in a haunted house, without receiving love either from her father or from her lover. The diligent way in which the author portrays her tragedy renders her as a memorable character in the readers’ mind, and thus Faulkner effectively memorializes Emily. The events from Emily Grierson’s childhood, when she lives with her father, also helps in memorializing the character. The author’s style of writing emphasizes such traits that will make the readers remember Emily. The choice of words he uses in the story focuses immediately on the unity of the community knowing about the secrets of Emily since she is dead, and this makes the reader curious to know more about the character. As the readers go on with the story, they find many instances that immortalize Emily in their minds. The gothic horror presented in the story is also one of the aspects that capture the readers’ attention. The decaying mansion that no outsider has entered before Emily’s death and the Negro servant also leave everlasting impressions on the audience. Emily lives in isolation in the small town. This isolation was not the result of townspeople’s observation of Emily in the community, but the result of the pity they show towards her. Emily herself was also responsible for her own isolation from the community. She was brought up in a noble family and she thought herself superior to others in the community and hence did not mingle with others since her childhood. She demanded her recognition as the “last Grierson” (Faulkner 5). Emily never tried to be one in the community, she had never been accepted and she never wanted to be accepted by the community. She actually withdrew into her own strange and abnormal world. The narrator says that she never talked to anyone in the town not even to her own self. Thus she was left to dwell in her own world, where no one inferior to her was allowed to enter. She showed an unpredictable and eccentric behavior towards the townspeople. The people never understood Emily, or rather Emily never gave a chance for the townspeople to do so. Towards the end of the story, the townspeople are easily left with wonder of how Emily had spent all these years living and sleeping with the dead body of her lover, Homer Barron. Even though the townspeople did not understand her much, they “did not say she was crazy” (Faulkner 4).The community saw her as a hereditary commitment that had to maintain some of the traditions set by the generations before her. Her father had transmitted these traditional values to her and he expected Emily to follow it. According to the people of the town, her father “thwarted her woman’s life so many times” (Faulkner 7). Emily and her father himself could be considered responsible for her solitude and tragedy. She remains as a permanent memory in the readers’ mind because of the tragedy in her life. She never receives the true love she craves for and this deficiency creates an empty space in her soul that results in the tragic events illustrated through the story. “Emily is worth remembering because of the shocking conclusion of the story. It is because of her parental oppression and the indications of insanity which led to the murderous action towards the end of her life. The people of the town shows her a respect that was similar to their “affection for a fallen monument” (Page 1) Thus, Faulkner, by creating genuine situations that form the perverseness of his protagonist’s psychological framework, effectively creates a character whom his audience will never forget. Emily always dreams that she is in bed with a man who is her lover and wakes in the morning to discover a corpse instead. Here the author is presenting the interplay between the “memory, imagination and reality” (Page 15). Faulkner hides the reality of the aspects of murder and keeping of the corpse by his protagonist, to reveal in the end the sordid facts which gives the story a strong impact. However, the audience can only sympathize with Emily as the author has described her as a “bewildered individual” (David page 1-3), and quite poetically illustrated her pains and sufferings. Faulkner also makes it clear that her yearning for companionship, love and care made her do such acts. The readers will always remember her through the realization that she is a human being desperately in need of love. The character of Emily can be interpreted as a reflection of the Old South because she demonstrates several traits of that region and symbolizes “the religion of the Southernness that survived military defeat and material destruction” (John para.4). This is because the children came to learn about the china paintings to Emily as they too attend the classes in church and she looked like a girl who “resembled to those angels in colored church windows” (Page 4). In the town of Jefferson, Griersons has been the only family, which expresses the past. The people of the Old South are known to stick to their old values, morals and beliefs. Miss Emily Grierson is the perfect example of this because she too is not ready to change, and she remains lonely throughout the story. Emily remains obstinate even after the death of her father, who had controlled her and prevented her from adopting new values. The townsfolk consider her as a “tradition, a duty and a care” (Page 1). The author portrays a Negro who works at the Grierson house. He is the only sign of life in that place and he can be considered as the true symbol of the Old South. “A Rose for Emily is highly symbolic. Miss Emily is described as a fallen monument to the chivalric American South” (Charmaine Allmon para 11). While the new generations are more concerned with money and fashion Emily Grierson, confined to her home, remains stubborn, sticking to her values and, therefore, it can be concluded that she represents the Old South. Similarly, Emily lives in a desolate state, rejected by her own family and the townsfolk. Within the strict frame imposed on her by her father, she fails to realize the passage of time and she is not able to change according to changing times. Thus, she becomes a monument of the past. In order to adjust with time and with the conditions imposed on her, she kills her lover. This tragedy of the character may be considered as the reason which makes her worth remembering. The character is noted for her isolation and related events. She becomes eccentric and does not know what she is doing. Even if the author presents the character as the reminiscent of the past she is noted for the mystery that surrounds her. Her personal traits give the story a gothic aura, which is one of the qualities of Southern Literature. The author, through the portrayal of the dark images, immortalizes Emily and etches her memory in the readers’ minds. Works Cited “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner. Flightline. 1930. Web.14 July 2011. < http://flightline.highline.edu/tkim/Files/Lit100_SS2.pdf> Charmaine Allmon, Mosby. A Rose for Emily. Literary Reference Center. Web.14 July 2011. David, Madden. A Rose for Emily. Literary Reference Center. 2004. Web.14 July 2011. David, Madden. A Rose for Emily. Literary Reference Center. 2004. Web.14 July 2011. Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily”. Flightline. 1930 Web.15 July 2011. Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. Publicroad. Web.14 July 2011. John, Tucker. Faulkner's Search for a South. (Book). Modern Language Quarterly. http://web.ebscohost.com/lrc/detail?sid=cfed2435-024a-46c0-91ca-e0dd033f1574%40sessionmgr11&vid=10&hid=15&bdata=JnNpdGU9bHJjLWxpdmU%3d#db=lfh&AN=103331MSS20899240001244 Marius, Richard & Anderson, Nancy Grisham. Reading Faulkner: Introduction to the First Thirteen Novels. University of Tennessee Press. 2006. USA. Web.14 July 2011. Madden, David. A Rose for Emily . EBSCO . 1930. Web.14 July 2011. Patrick, Adcock. William Faulkner. EBSCO. 2011. Web.14 July 2011. Annotated Bibliography 1. ‘A Rose for Emily’ Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition by Madden, David, gives us a detailed analysis of the story and the themes of ‘A Rose for Emily’ by William Faulkner. It helps us to analyze how Emily could be considered as a reflection of the Old South and their religion. “Miss Emily is then symbolic of the religion of Southernness that survived military defeat and material destruction.” David, Madden. A Rose for Emily. Literary Reference Center. Web.14 July 2011. 2. William Faulkner Critical Survey of Mystery & Detective Fiction, Revised Edition by Adcock, Patrick helps us to identify the story of Emily as a mystery or detective story. The book gives the reader an idea of the works written by Faulkner. “Miss Emily buys arsenic from the druggist” (David para 2). David, Madden. A Rose for Emily. Literary Reference Center. Web.14 July 2011. 3. A Rose for Emily Masterplots, Fourth Edition by Mosby, Charmaine Allmon. This book is an analysis of Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily as a social structure of the early twentieth century American South. “A Rose for Emily is highly symbolic. Miss Emily is described as a fallen monument to the chivalric American South” (David para 11). David, Madden. A Rose for Emily. Literary Reference Center. Web.14 July 2011. 4. Theory of Short Fiction by Charles E. May gives us the details of the theory in writing a short fiction. It helps us to identify the basic difference between a short story and a novel. The writer quotes Austin McGiffert Wright’s opinion that the short stories of the twenties are the more fully developed moral problem of the people which have no solution and the interest centers on the question of sympathy for “the bewildered individual” (David page 1-3). David, Madden. A Rose for Emily. Literary Reference Center. Web.14 July 2011. 5. Reading Faulkner: Introductions to the First Thirteen Novels by Richard Marius and Nancy Grisham Anderson gives us a series of lectures for the understanding of the works of Faulkner. The writer explicit the themes that often occur in the works of Faulkner. “Faulkner’s work is filled with the difficulties of reconciliation memory, imagination, and reality” (Marius & Anderson 15). Marius, Richard & Anderson, Nancy Grisham. Reading Faulkner: Introduction to the First Thirteen Novels. University of Tennessee Press. USA. Web.14 July 2011. http://books.google.com/books?id=TsonnuyjRh8C&pg=RA1-PA18&dq=5.%09Reading+Faulkner:+Introductions+to+the+First+Thirteen+Novels&hl=en&ei=bbweTqClE43PrQeoqvmrAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=5.%09Reading%20Faulkner%3A%20Introductions%20to%20the%20First%20Thirteen%20Novels&f=false Notes “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner. Flightline. 1930. Web.14 July 2011. Here the author is presenting the interplay between the “memory, imagination and reality” (Page15). The way in which the servant conducts himself and the instance of Miss Emily buying “arsenic from the druggist” are examples of deft deployment of mystery (Patrick 7). about the china paintings to Emily as they to attend the classes in church and she looked like a girl who “resembled to those angels in colored church windows” (Page 4). “Faulkner’s work is filled with the difficulties of reconciliation memory, imagination, and reality” (Marius & Anderson 15). The people of the town shows her a respect that was similar to their “affection for a fallen monument” (Page 1) “stubborn and coquettish decay” and “eyesore among eyesores” hint both at Emily’s deranged mind as well as the rotten truths that lay buried within her abode. (Faulkner 1). Townsfolk consider her as a “tradition, a duty and a care” (Page 1). A “fallen monument” connotes to the present state of Miss Emily (Faulkner 1). Similarly, the present state of the house, described so eloquently as “stubborn and coquettish decay” and “eyesore among eyesores” hint both at Emily’s deranged mind as well as the rotten truths that lay buried within her abode. (Faulkner 1). Read More