The Control of Revelation - A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner - Essay Example

The Control of Revelation: “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner1 There is the world of the everyday, with gossip and interaction on the street. And then there is a world behind the closed door, and if that door is closed for over forty years the distinctions between these two realities can become excessively distinct. In the momentous short story “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner uses a number of tools such as story structure, narration and character to reveal a full and provocative story in a limited amount of space. Structure Arranged in a series of five sections identified by Roman numeral, “A Rose for Emily” does not follow a standard chronological arrangement. This seemingly shuffled format helps to build a sense of revelation, and paints a portrait of a woman from the outside in. The two paragraphs relate the news of her death and reveal that she had the last grand house on a formerly grand street, establishing her status quickly. The remainder deals with the remittance of her taxes in 1894. When the next generation of town leaders attempted to rescind this, she allowed them inside her musty home to insist yet again that she had no taxes in the county and to promptly show them out. Next is an episode from thirty years earlier, concerning a noxious smell emerging from her house shortly after her boyfriend left town. Three neighbors complained, but the impropriety of telling Emily that she stuck was impossible to over come. So, instead of investigating its causes, four men snuck onto her property after midnight and sprinkled lime in the basement and the outbuildings. It is then revealed that when he father died, Emily repeatedly refused to acknowledge her father had died two years before the smell incident and it took three days for her to finally release the body for burial. Section III involves the first details of her boyfriend, Homer Barron. Because of the impropriety of a woman of her station driving around n a car with a blue collar worker from the North, the women in town gossiped madly. Around this time Emily went to the druggist and was allowed to purchase arsenic only because of the former status of her family. As the next section reveals, she did this while her cousins from Alabama, called to town by her neighbors, were in town. Emily bought men’s clothing and a man’s toilet set. As soon as the cousins left, Homer returned and was last seen entering Emily’s house, and so began her almost self-imposed exile. With the exception of a brief stint of teaching porcelain painting to children, she did not leave the house and no one but her servant came in. Finally, in the last section, the truth that has been falling into place so skillfully comes together. After the disappearance of the servant and her funeral, a door upstairs is forced. On the bed was Homer’s decomposed corpse, and a grey hair on the other pillow made it clear Emily had lain beside him. Although this story structure was unique when it was originally published in 1930, it is extraordinarily effective manner in handling the narrative and brings the reader further and further into the plot before the ultimate revelation. Narration This story is told from the outside, by an unnamed narrator who identifies himself with the town rather than Emily. Obviously from a younger generation, for him ‘”Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town” (Section I). Although he was not involved in the txt or smell incidents, he did join the chorus of wondering what she would do with the arsenic and was part of the “we” that forced the door in the final episode. For him, and seemingly for the rest of the town, Emily was the product of another time, a faded Southern aristocrat to be pitied. Trapped in her house, she was more something than someone. “Thus she passed from generation to generation--dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse” (Section IV). This vantage point for narration makes it painfully clear how alone and isolated this former grand dame is. Unable to even drive in a car with a man without earning comments that he is below her, the perception of her social status and the expectation of her pride and haughtiness assist in cutting her out of society, as she is a person trapped in another time’s expectations. Character Although Emily and the narrator are the two distinct characters that emerge from the narrative, Faulkner subtly describes the behavior and tendencies of others involved in the tale. These specifications help make Emily’ horrific conduct a bit more comprehensible. For instance, that she was single at 30 when her father died is not solely her doing. The town did not mark her crazy when she tried to keep her father’s body because they felt she had been pushed. ‘We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will’ (Section II). Through such comments, a portrait of a domineering father who had “thwarted her woman's life” (Section IV) comes into view. As for Homer, her eventually murdered boyfriend—his feelings towards her were never more than platonic. This is because Homer was gay. “Homer himself had remarked--he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks' Club--that he was not a marrying man” (Section IV). Although the town believed she might persuade him, that he was practically “out” in the rather socially repressive South at the turn of the last century makes that unlikely. However, Homer was affable and pleasant to be around. Although he was an outsider, “Pretty soon he knew everybody in town. Whenever you heard a lot of laughing anywhere about the square, Homer Barron would be in the center of the group” (Section III). That she was seen in his car and in his company makes it clear she had feelings for him, unreturned feelings that might have led to his end and the treatment of his body. Conclusion Through structure, narration and characters, William Faulkner successfully overcomes the reader’s natural repulsion to the eventual outcome of this tale. This Southern Gothic tale deals with an immense amount of icons and taboos, such as the rotting old mansion, the fading aristocracy, an unknown murder, the keeping of a corpse for forty years and the very real hint of necrophilia. His utilization of the skills at his disposal made this intriguing composition powerful, one that is still admired and studied today. Read More