Preview

A Rose for Emily: Story of Different Symbols by Faulkner

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
554 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Rose for Emily: Story of Different Symbols by Faulkner
A Rose for Emily

Faulkner used many different symbols in this story to explain how much time had passed, or when the last time something was seen or used. Such as the Aldermen came to visit Miss Emily “When the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sunray.” (second paragraph, William Faulkner, 1930) This symbol shows us that Miss Emily doesn’t get many visitors. It seems nobody comes into this room not for some time. It tells me that Miss Emily is the type of woman who keeps to herself since the Mayor she once knew said, “no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron.”(First paragragh, William Faulkner, 1930) He spoke of Miss Emily’s father as if he was better then everyone and so was his daughter. That there was no man suitable for his daughter. So it seems she believed the same thing and that’s why she wouldn’t let then bury her father right away when he died. It was the only person she had left and was afraid of being alone, for she didn’t know any better. But yet the people didn’t pronounce her crazy then. “The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom. Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly. We did not say she was crazy then.”(Paragraph 6, William Faulkner, 1930) Another symbol the author used was when Miss Emily passed away finally gave the people of the town a chance to go inside her house and look around. For when she was alive she spent many years in there without any visitors or

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    “A Rose for Emily” is a mysterious and unusual short story. William Faulkner creates a character, Miss Emily Grierson, who is so significant to the town that she is referred to as a “fallen monument” after her death. Miss Emily is an eccentric character, and although she physically changes, her character nor her personality do. Miss Emily is a static character, with internal conflicts, and has odd relationships with her boyfriend and husband. For instance, Miss Emily kept her late father's body and refused to give him up, showing an inability to let go. She keeps his body because she also does not want to be isolated, even though she avoids interaction by staying in her home. Miss Emily's isolation is external with society and also resonates…

    • 190 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    'A Rose for Emily': Q&A

    • 361 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Faulkner describes Emily as a lone woman with no life. The words he uses paint an image that she’s just a creepy lady who lets no one in her house .that the end of the story the town people final get to go into Emily’s house after she died. To their surprise they discover a homers old dead body in the top…

    • 361 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the story “A Rose for Emily" Faulkner uses unconventional symbols. Symbols give readers a greater understanding of the setting and help define Miss Emily's…

    • 811 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the story, Faulkner cleverly exposes the problems in the South after the Civil War through the story of the life of Emily Grierson. Faulkner deliberately reverses the order of timeline so that readers easily leave out details of the story; however, this “complicatedly disjunctive time scheme” makes the story more interesting by making the readers string all incidents in the story which seem almost unrelated to each other to find out the content of the story (Dilworth 252). Revolving around the life of Emily, Faulkner’s story reveals the isolation of Emily, her desire to be happy, and the decline of the South. Living in the period of switching from the old to the new, Emily has become a typical victim of that society. Through the tragedy of Emily’s life, Faulkner also highlights the importance of the interaction between the old and the new so that one does not completely brush off the values of the past nor is lost in the new, modern…

    • 1072 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Emily’s father had instilled the southern heritage into emily. Faulkner says, “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition”. Emily isn’t willing to change.…

    • 400 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In A Rose for Emily, William Faulkner writes a pathetic woman, Miss Emily, to show the true lives of the rich and his frustration with society. Faulkner’s goal of Miss Emily’s alienation shows wealthy people’s lives aren’t perfect and how grief can impact people. To show this goal, the author uses the theme of truth vs. reality. For example, “Being left alone and a pauper, she had become humanized”(2), shows that the town people initially thinking that she is better than everyone else; however after she loses her dad, she becomes more ordinary. Even though the town people think of Emily as an eccentric and haughty Southern belle, they envy her; she’s wealthy and the town people are not. However, since Emily isolates herself from her peers, the town people never see her.…

    • 505 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “A Rose for Emily”, by William Faulkner, the protagonist was a woman known as Miss Emily who was practically mute yet mysterious. She started as a woman for which men wanted to be suitors and ended as an obese woman with a skeleton structure. What is learned of her is through the eyes of the townsfolk and possibly her butler.…

    • 318 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In each section of “A Rose for Emily”, the narrator goes back and forth in time telling stories of Miss Emily’s life. Emily’s father was a controlling man who ran off all prospect men of Emily’s (Faulkner 77). This caused Emily to be an unhappy, middle-aged, single woman who was the talk of the town. Miss Emily isolated herself from all people, except having a male Negro housekeeper who ran all her errands and took care of her house. According to Floyd C. Watkins’ “The Structure of ‘A Rose For Emily’ in Modern Language Notes, “The inviolability of Miss Emily’s isolation is maintained in the central division, part three, which no outsider enters her home” (509). In “The Yellow Wallpaper” it is revealed at the beginning of the story that the unnamed female narrator is “sick” or…

    • 1216 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The family consists of black servant, Emily and her father, whom the author suggests live in the past. Her father doesn’t’ allow her to get married because “None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such”(3), and one can infer that even though the family is poor they still think highly of their name. Emily turns thirty and she is still not married, though she is extremely attached to her father. The day that he dies Emily acts as if nothing has happened, telling the townspeople “that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to dispose of the body” (3).…

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The tone in "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner expresses a sense of curiosity and fear. The curiosity of the woman's life and the fear of the unknown is also established with the author's diction. The two tones even roll over to the point of view of the story (or point of views for this particular story). "A Rose for Emily" is based solely on the curiosity and fear that lingers in the community in which Old Miss Emily lives.…

    • 352 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the short story "A Rose for Emily" written by William Faulkner conveys the main Idea of decline and decay through the setting of the story, a small town, Jefferson, and the people that live there including Emily Grierson.…

    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Sometime the things people own or they have when someone passes away goes away with the person that passes away.“ Up to the day of her death at 74 it was still that vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man”( Faulkner4). This is symbolic because at that age she still as that kinda of hair, and connect with the house because the house is the same house but just older. They are both the same thing and they are alike and the house went down with Emily. The life of Emily was symbolic with the house because the way she lived was a way that her house lived. With everything that happens in Emily’s life impacts the house in a scerent way.This is symbolic because Emily’s life and the challenges she faces is a way that the house is impacted. “Fell in the House filled with dust and shadows, wth only doddering Negro man to wait on here”( Faulkner 5). This is symbolic because the writer is trying to emphasize that Emily has a house full of shadows and dust and this is how Emily’s heart is and this was the way she learned to live. Emily and the house are the oldest things in the town. They are things that stands out to the towns people and everyone asks question relating to Emily and her…

    • 1041 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In conclusion of William Faulkner's short story "A Rose For Emily," he explains emily as an archaic woman because she does not understand why the new generation begins to take over. William Faulkner also describes Emily as a women of pride given to her by her late father. Lastly Emily portrays bizarre because she killed her husband and kept him all to…

    • 63 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The narrator must have been someone that at one time or another lived in that same…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    At the end, William Faulkner's usage and his choice of symbols in the story make it a rich and a fine piece of literature. Faulkner puts the power of symbolism in his short story and it becomes an attractive story for the readers. He uses symbolic words to test the minds, attracts the attention of the readers and let them not to feel bored and keep the readers thinking and guessing what will happen at the end.…

    • 220 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays