A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner - Essay Example

Section/# Although at face value, William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” can be seen as a fantastically written short story that deals with topics as broad as Southern gentrification, old age, love, senility, social acceptance, and the means by which acceptance of certain things is a function of society. However, the story itself is about a great deal more than immediately meets the eye. As has been identified within the prompt to this brief response, issues relating to the way that the human heart lies in conflict with itself is ultimately the primal theme that is itself exhibited within the story (Melczarek 240).

This can be seen in a number of ways; namely the way that although the horror of death and the prospect of putrefaction within a house would normally be impetus enough for an individual to seek to bury a dead relative, the desire to continue to derive an amount of gain or financial benefit was what ultimately drove the spinster to retain the body of her late husband within the bed in which he died (Yin 430). Although such a specific type of duality is not readily represented within each and every individual, the fact of the matter is that varying levels of conflict lie at the heart of each and every decision that humanity makes on a daily basis (Du 19).

Most of the times, this level of conflict is miniscule and does not take on such a deeply disturbing set of decisions as Faulkner illustrated I his short story; however, the fact remains that the conflict within each and every member of humanity is ultimately what underlies the many decisions that are subsequently made. Works Cited Du, Fang. "Who Makes A Devil Out Of A Fair Lady? --An Analysis Of The Social Causes Of Emilys Tragedy In A Rose For Emily." Canadian Social Science 3.4 (2007): 18-24.

Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.Melczarek, Nick. "Narrative Motivation In Faulkners A ROSE FOR EMILY." Explicator 67.4 (2009): 237-243. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.YIN, Zhu-hui, and Hai-jing WANG. "Rhetorical Comparisoin Between The Novel And Drama Script Of A Rose For Emily." US-China Foreign Language 9.7 (2011): 426-434. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.