A Rose for Emily by Faulkner and Where Are You Going by Oates - Essay Example

Comparison/Contrast with research elements by reading "A Rose for Emily" by Faulkner and "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Oates Written by William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily” is a short story which takes place in the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha. The author uses the voices of various townspeople to narrate her story in five sections. Each of these five sections takes place at different periods in Emily’s life and use her funeral described in the first section as a backdrop for the tale (Faulkner). The other short story discussed in this paper is “Where are you going, where have you been?” written by Joyce Carol Oates is a tale of a violent sexual awakening which occurs in the protagonist Connie. In the tale Connie who wants to be an adult and exerts her sexuality does not understand the price she must truly pay until she meets a man by the name of Arnold Friend. Arnold Friend due to hi sexually charged nature at first entices and then threatens Connie to go with him. What happens to her is left up to the reader’s imagination (Oates). This paper will provide a comparison and contrast of the elements in both short stories with the aid of journal articles. Though both of these stories offer widely varied themes and motifs which struggle to show any similarity to each other in terms of character or setting. The one theme which seems to be similar in both is the one of celebrities and the associated expectations of people. Both stories portray the idea of the power of celebrity having a powerful and destructive effect on the public consciousness. They both show how the characters initially protected by parental influences soon fell prey to the consequences of their lifestyle. Consequences they weren’t prepared for. In a Rose for Emily, the character who shares the name in the title has a social status in the town which she tries to uphold. It is due to this status that she is in the public eye and brings prejudice towards he from the townspeople. Where she was once revered and loved, now she has devolved into a spinster. While her father was alive he shielded Emily from the prying eyes of the public and protected her from such viewpoints when he was alive. Upon his death Emily is exposed to the judgmental viewpoints of the county she lives in and the reader clearly sees how such viewpoints adversely affect her life. The public finds judgment with everything she does upon her father’s death and eventually turn her from a human being to an object of malice. Eventually, she starts retreating into her home and stops having contact with the general public altogether and becomes a recluse. The end of the story shows her trying to hold on to the last vestiges of humanity by killing her lover Homer and keeping him upstairs in her home, as evidenced by the gray lock of hair besides his corpse (Faulkner). While in Where are you going, where have you been? Connie falls victim to the taste of the celebrity life. Connie of course well aware of her beauty and looks asserts her sexuality to attract boys without truly knowing the meaning behind what she is doing. It is only when she meets the demonic entity in the story by the name of Arnold Friend that she truly understands the price of what she sought. The sexual nature of an adult she portrays attracts the undue attention of Arnold and his friend and ends with her being trapped. Though her mother clearly warns Connie in the beginning regarding her obsession with her beauty, Connie does not fully understand how the attention she attracts can be harmful to her until the end. Even at the end she tries to desperately hold on to her last moments of innocence by calling out to her mother (Oates). Unlike Oates story, Faulkner writes a Rose for Emily in non-chronological order and from the viewpoint of several different people in comparison to Oates narration of the tale. There are also allusions in the tale to the title in both short stories. The word Rose in the title of A Rose for Emily offers great significance in the tale since there is no true mention of a rose in the story. Rather the author symbolizes various aspects of the story not only in the form of the events which occur with Emily but also in regards to the link shared between the author and the reader. In the story itself the rose may represented by a character by the name of Homer. Typically roses can be given upon the death of a person, therefore it can be construed that upon the death of her father Emily received a rose in the form of Homer. Though if this rose was given to Emily by the author or that the character himself is considered a rose by Emily is a point of contention though the way Homer’s body was preserved is very much like how a rose may be preserved within the pages of a book (Getty). “Homer’s body could be like a rose pressed between the pages of a book, kept “tucked away in a seldom used, rose colored room which at times can be opened” (Kurtz 40). In another sense, it might be the narrator offering a rose to Emily.” (Getty) While the title of the story of Where are you going, where have you been? provides great significance in regards to the sexual nature of the book and the mysterious allure of the character known as Arnold. Arnold in this story is a character which is based upon Elvis Presley. Given that Elvis is considered to be the primary archetype for male sexuality in the 60s and even after his death in the 70s. Several of Arnold’s mannerisms can clearly show him mimicking Elvis from the height of his career. From his method of attire, to his intentionally flamboyant mode of transport, to his wearing sunglasses it seems that the author wrote Arnold as the perfect personification of Elvis’s sexual side. In many ways the title reflects the mysterious allure of this character which also shows the initial attraction Connie feels to him and the offer of adulthood that he represents (Petry). “-so much land that Connie had never seen before and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it.” (Oates) It must be said however that while A Rose for Emily is mostly concerned with the concept of time and change even in the realm of storytelling and narrative. Oates tale is far more concerned with blending fantasy with reality. Emily’s story follows the county as it goes through a crossroads and evolves as a community while respecting their traditions. Emily represents the sole focus in the town which appears to be unchanging, unmoving and unfazed by these radical variations and tends to live in a relative time period (Faulkner). While in Oates story there is a constant struggle between fantasy and reality, light and dark. Though there is also such a struggle in A Rose for Emily in the form of the perceptions of various townspeople, it is far more pronounced in Oates’s tale. In her writings she speaks of how Connie lives in a fantasy world of her making where she is free from her restrictions and can indulge in the fairytale adulthood she has imagined for herself. It is only when Arnold appears that we can truly see the mixture of fantasy and reality that draws Connie in and traps her. Everything from the man’s appearance to the way he presents himself borders on the supernatural and leaves the reader feeling he is some form of demon (Petry). Works Cited Faulkner, William. Collected stories of William Faulkner. New York: Vintage International, 1995. Getty, Laura. "Faulkners A Rose for Emily." Explicator Vol. 63, No. 4 (2005): 230-234. Oates, Joyce Carol. Where are you going, where have you been?: Stories of young America. California: Fawcett Publications, 1974. Petry, Alice Hall. "Who is Ellie? Oates "Where are you going, Where have you been?"." Studies in Short Fiction Vol. 25, No. 2 (1988): 155-158. Read More