Preview

A Rose For Emily Literary Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
466 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Rose For Emily Literary Analysis
The tales of such innocence, a sweet young girl turns into a desperate, love-seeking woman. This occurs in the story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner. The story starts off with funeral of Miss Emily then goes back in time and reflects on the past and recounts certain events that occurred during Miss Emily’s life. I find this story very depressing because Miss Emily never had a real chance at youth and being able to enjoy being a child and teenager. This is shown when her father cut off all communication with other family member due to a misunderstanding which occurred after old lady Wyatt’s death. She also never had hope at love because her father would always run away the boys that would try to date her. So, she remained single as she …show more content…
Most of the people in the town begged Miss Emily to break it off, and Homer also stated that “…he liked men” and “…he was not a marrying man.” However, Miss Emily wasn’t hearing any of the accounts that were irrelevant. So, she orders silver, monogramed with “HB” and Homer goes into Miss Emily’s house to never be seen again. It is shown earlier in the story that she gets arsenic from a druggist, but never states what she would do with it. “A Rose for Emily” becomes hard to read as they refer to African Americans in the story as “Negros” and “Niggers”, which is the most hated slander upon the African American community. But being put back in to a position of realism, it only delineates the hardships African Americans went through and how they were referred to during that time period. My overall reaction from the story was expected satisfaction for Miss Emily to finally have a man over that stayed and have a set up as if they were married. All of this was more so her father’s fault for cutting her off with all interaction in society. Making an intellectual leap, I believe Homer Barron didn’t want her and she used something to draw him in and once she sees him trying to escape she poisons him in order to make him

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the short story, “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner establishes depth in characters and scenes by using long, descriptive lists. Faulkner also uses point of view to express his feelings of sympathy for Miss Emily. Faulkner juxtaposes past events with present ones, jumping from one time period to another, to tie the scenes together.…

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “A rose for Emily” is a short story about the last member of her family, and her very old father. The story was published in 1930, by a very well respected author, William Faulkner. When Emily’s father dies, she is completely heartbroken and denies that he is really dead.…

    • 62 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Francis Russell once said “fiction evocative of a sublime and picturesque landscape… depict(ing) a world in ruins.” Gothic fiction can be characterized by the elements of fear, horror or the supernatural. Other elements that characterize this type of fiction might include darkness mystery, or romance, lust and even dread. William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” uses a gothic setting to describe Miss Emily’s home. The upstairs and the outside of the house shows the darkness romance and lust of the setting in which she lived.…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    was not interest on her the way she thought, so that was when she became obsessed and did not wanted to lose him.…

    • 486 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner is about the life of a once vibrant and happy young girl who grows into a very troubled old woman. When interviewed and asked “the meaning of the title, A Rose for Emily. Faulkner expressed: “Oh, it’s simply the poor woman had had no life at all.” (1445). Main character Emily Grierson was born into a family that was very well kept and members of the upper class. Everyone in the some what small community kept close eyes on the Grierson family. It wasn’t as if the townspeople didn’t like the Grierson’s, it’s just that the family was the object of perfection, so every move was closely watched. Emily’s father to me was a character who was considered very noble in the lime light, but in secret he held his daughter back from becoming a proper adult, he wanted her to not date and to stay around to play “house keeper” one could call it. Upon her fathers death Emily went through many changes. She became very secluded and she aged quickly. She had all the feelings of being alone, not married, un-successful. This is not something that the townspeople expected and they showed her a substantial amount of pity. Things began to change when Emily fell in love with a man named Homer Barron. It seemed her luck had changed…

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The narrator provides that Miss Emily is crazy in an obscure way. First the smell in which we can see in page 284, "will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?" Second, when she wanted arsenic in page 286, "I want arsenic." Thirdly, how she never leaves her house in page 288. Lastly, she is crazy because when the townspeople went inside Miss Emily's house they found Homer lying in a bed decaying and found out that Miss Emily was sleeping next it in page 289, "Then we noticed that in the second pillow… leaning forward, that faint… long strand of iron-gray hair." We can infer that the narrators are just telling the story out of their observation from a first person plural point of view. The narrator is however very…

    • 470 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “A Rose for Emily” is a Southern Gothic story since the themes of murder and death are present. Throughout the story, the Faulkner describes Emily as lonely. “She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough.”(Faulkner). When Emily goes into the store and buys poison this leads the readers to believe that something bad is going to happen. The ending of the story also makes it Gothic. Emily secret is revealed that she has had a dead corpse in her house for several years. Emily also slept with the corpse a long grey hair was found next to Homers decaying body. The Gothic elements help give this story a gloomy and creepy tone.…

    • 811 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In most traditional works of literature, the existence of narration is both a crucial and mandatory element in order to fulfill the writer's purpose. Such works of literature include short stories and novels. The importance of the narrator goes beyond the act of simply telling a story that happens in a specific place at one particular point in time. Through the course of the years, famous writers have used the narrator as a tool to create suspense and force the audience to read the story from a specific point of view. Within this group of writers, William Faulkner and Charlotte Perkins Gilman have used the narrator to allow the reader to interpret the story from a desired point of view. Faulkner achieves this by using first person narrator…

    • 913 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    a rose for emily

    • 806 Words
    • 4 Pages

    When her father passed away, it was a devastating loss for Miss Emily. The lines from the story 'She told them her father was not dead. She did that for three days,' (Charter 171) conveys the message that she tried to hold on to him, even after his death. Even though, this was a sad moment for Emily, but she was liberated from the control of her father. Instead of going on with her life, her life halted after death of her father. Miss Emily found love in a guy named Homer Barron, who came as a contractor for paving the sidewalks in town. Miss Emily was seen in buggy on Sunday afternoons with Homer Barron. The whole town thought they would get married. One could know this by the sentences in the story ?She will marry him,? ?She will persuade him yet,? Miss Emily Grierson is nobody's best friend. Neither is she the enemy of any man…

    • 806 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay: a Rose for Emily

    • 517 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the short story “A Rose for Emily”, the reader can conclude that Emily appears to have had schizophrenia by way she interacts in the town. Emily’s mental problems start to come to light to the reader when she begins having hallucinations. The reader gains further background and further sees mental instability in Emily right after her father dies. The town people also begin to see that there are mental issues with Emily, yet do not want to make it known to keep the integrity of the town. Emily’s inability to form age appropriate coping skills furthers the point of schizophrenia.…

    • 517 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In his many works of fiction, William Faulkner explores the lives of characters who live in the closed society of the American South, a society rooted in traditional values. In the short stories "Barn Burning" and "A Rose for Emily," Faulkner explores what happens when individuals lose their connection to this society and its values. Both Abner Snopes, a rebellious sharecropper, and Emily Grierson, an unmarried woman from a prominent family, are isolated from their respective communities, and both find themselves in a kind of societal limbo. Once in that limbo, they no longer feel the need to adhere to the values of their society and, as a result,are free to violate both traditional and moral rules.…

    • 1061 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Rose for Emily

    • 595 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Later, Miss Emily begins courting a laborer by the name of Homer Barron who was from the north. Homer Barron becomes a rose to Emily although it was well known in the small town of Jefferson, where Miss Emily resided, that Homer was homosexual and openly discussed his affinity for young men. Just as Miss Emily’s father tried to keep her all to himself, so did Miss Emily towards Homer Barron when she poisoned…

    • 595 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Rose For Emily Grierson

    • 641 Words
    • 3 Pages

    William Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily” creates the vivid and fascinating character of Miss Emily Grierson, a seventy four years old spinster. Over the course of the story, the reader learns about Miss Emily’s eccentric behavior. Her behavior culminates with her murder of Homer Barron, keeping him in her house and sleeping with him. Miss Emily is impacted psychologically in several ways such as the expectations society placed on her, her family history, and her own personality. Miss Emily was weighed down throughout the story by the expectations society places on her.…

    • 641 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    William Faulkner starts the short story off with saying the character Emily, from “A Rose for Emily”, is dead. Faulkner divides the short story into five parts, and those five parts talk about Emily’s life which is spoken from the town’s perspective. Emily is described as a burden, whose “old fashioned” and is basically a mean old lady. The first part starts off with Emily not wanting to pay her taxes and the mayor sets up a meeting of the Board of Aldermen to her home. Not only was she showing no manners, she kept saying she had no taxes to pay and tells her servant, “the Negro” to show the gentlemen out. The short story continues on with mentioning Emily’s father’s death. The town’s people felt sorry for Emily, not only on the fact that he passed away but the fact that her father was a controlling man. Controlling meaning her father didn’t want her to seek men. Emily was in denial for her father’s death, “She told them her father was not dead. She did that for three days” (151). She couldn’t let her father go because her father was her life and that was the only life she had. The other parts talk about Emily’s sweetheart named Homer Baron. Everyone in town are happy about her having a sweetheart, but it goes downhill once they find out Homer Baron liked young men. Emily ends up buying poison and it wasn’t easy buying since the druggist was curious as to…

    • 1172 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Rose For Emily Analysis

    • 896 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Refusal to change is the underlying theme of A Rose for Emily, a short story written by William Faulkner. This paper serves as an in-depth examination of how the main character, Emily Grierson, correlates with society. This tale is also about a woman who had been set aside for a remarkably long time, with the domineering nature of her father causing her to believe herself as unwanted and estranged from society. William Faulkner utilizes setting, character development, and other stylistic devices to express the mystery of Emily and the dark curiosity the people have about her.…

    • 896 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays