A Rose for Emily Critique - Essay Example

? of the of the A Rose for Emily William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is a story about a woman named Emily Grierson who lives in Jefferson town. The story runs on a strange plot and seems to run backward and forward within the frames of time. There are many important elements that make the story so bizarre yet so appealing for the readers. The most dominant of these elements are the theme, the use of symbolism and the use of narration in the story. The major theme of the story is the Emily’s inability to accept the change. The readers eventually see that this ultimately leads Emily to physical and emotional isolation form the world. Firstly we see Emily clinging to her father even after his death. She just could not digest the fact that her father had died and did not have any “trace of grief on her face” because according to her he was still alive. She lies about his death to the townsmen in order to avoid the burial and only when they threaten to “resort to the law and force” did she give in and allow for her father’s burial. The second example where she refuses to adhere to reality is when Homer Barron refuses to marry her. Even though she is cheated, she still loves him deeply and could not think of living without him. She poisons him with arsenic because she believes that by killing him she could claim him as her own. At the end of the story we see the dead remains of homer in a room which has been set up like a bridal suite and it is quite evident that she had been sleeping with the body ever since. She kills Barron to bind him physically her but during all the years she lives with a dead body because she could not escape from the past and the past memories with Homer still infected her mind. Emily still considers herself as a woman from a very influential family and refuses to accept that she has taxes to pay even when the authorities talks to him about it. She is so engrossed in her past that she even addresses the man as “Colonel Sarotis” who had died ten years before. Symbolism also plays an important part in the story. The most prominent of these symbols is the Emily’s house which frequently comes into context. Like Emily, her house is a representation of isolation, mental illness and death. It exposes its “stubborn and coquettish decay” to the townsmen. Emily’s house appears to be personified in the story and is mostly treated as an ‘extension’ of Emily herself. The house is a subject of fascination for the people who fantasize about the inside of the edifice just like they made their own interpretations and projections of the mysterious Emily. The people do get a chance to enter the forbidden territory and are able to confirm their wild imaginations when they encounter the truth of what had happened inside the house (Perry). Like her the house is also resistant to change. The whole streets had changed but the house was never really renovated and continued to be a symbol of the past: The seventeenth century. The other use of symbolism is in the grey strand of hair which is found beside the dead body of Homer Barron. The strand of hair is the symbol of the lost love of Emily. The hair remains even after both Emily and Homer had tied. It tells the world about the horrendous and repulsive act of sleeping with the dead. The strand of hair indicates that Emily lived in her own world without caring about the opinions of others. She had her own ethics and morals and for her murder was not something repulsive and ugly if it was a means of bringing her close to her love. The discovery of the strand of this hair is foreshadowed in the novel when it describes the transformation Emily undergoes, becoming “vigorous iron-gray”. The strand of hair is the only remaining memory of Emily’s love which had been left to decay just like her lover. The use of narration is also a major element in the story. Emily is living a disordered life which is clear from the unusual sequence of events written in the story. The story begins with Emily’s death and touches the same topic at the end. Faulkner has created a strange world in the “Rose for Emily” where the past and the present exist together. The start of the story depicts Emily’s funeral and those moves on to the near past. The whole story is actually a narration of a series of flashbacks. Emily’s funeral is again shown at the end which is also a flashback in the memory. The identity of the narrator remains elusive and it is difficult to make out who the narrator actually was. Soon after the funeral, he says “Already we knew that there was one room. . . .” and then soon after the burial he says “They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it.” There is a sudden change in the way narrator links himself with the other townsmen. The narrator distances himself away from the others because he does not include him in the act of breaking the sealed door. Until this point the narrator was referring to himself with ‘we’ (Perry). This is an important indication towards the narrator’s identity as the readers get to know that he feels sympathetic for Emily. In spite of the murders committed by Emily and the desperation which she shows in the form of necrophilia, the narrator stands out when the secret of Emily is about to be brought out of the box. “A Rose for Emily” is an amazingly written story that grasps the readers’ attention with its unique plot and bizarre sequence of events. The use of a narrator adds life to the story and the readers are actually able to see the world of Emily in their minds. With the strange turn of events in the novel and the eccentric and apparently psycho character of Emily, the readers get to know the extremity of the power of love. The different elements in the story make it an amazing and a mind-boggling experience for the readers. Works Cited Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily (Tale Blazers: American Literature). Perfection Learning, 2007. Print. Perry, Menakhem. "Literary Dynamics: How the Order of a Text Creates Its Meanings [With an Analysis of Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"]." Poetics Today (1979): 35-64. Print. Read More