A Rose For Emily Research Paper

A Rose for Emily (Rose for short after) is a short story by the American author William Faulkner first published on April 30, 1930. Faulkner is considered a fine practitioner of the short-story form. His other short story collections are well recognized, such as These Thirteen (1931), Doctor Martino and Other Stories (1934), Go Down, Moses and Other Stories (1942), and Knight's Gambit (1949). The popularity of the story -Rose- is due in no small part to its gruesome ending.
Miss Emily Grierson was a strange and lonely aging spinster in the town of Jefferson. She lived in a dusty and shadowy house which was the only thing left by her father, who controlled and manipulated her and was once the center of her life. After his death, she met the Yankee road worker Homer Barron., and fell in love with him. When Homer threatens to leave her for another man, she is seen buying arsenic, which the townspeople believe she will use to commit suicide. After this, Homer Barron is not heard from again, and is assumed to have returned north. Though Emily does not commit suicide, she is heard from less and less, and rarely ever leaves her home until her death. Homer's corpse is discovered hidden in her upstairs room, which explains the horrid stench that emitted from Miss Emily's house 40 years ago.
The short story is unique in its writing critique—Southern Gothic genre. Gothic fiction is an important genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. As a genre, it is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto. The effect of Gothic fiction depends on a pleasing sort of