Example Of Literary Analysis Of “A Rose For Emily” By William Faulkner Research Paper

The short story “A rose for Emily” lends itself to different themes and interpretations: Miss Emily's tragic life, love and marriage, southern identity, north and south, old generation and new generation, father-daughter relationship, past and present, discrimination, slavery and the issue of social norms for American society – it all influences the main character.
Firstly, Faulkner’s narrator in “A Rose for Emily” makes this story very mysterious and unbiased, telling the story with no side to stand on. When he/she talks about Emily and the town’s people whom lived there, he tells the ideas and gossip of the town’s people without claiming it as his own thoughts. This makes the reader less likely to gather that information as truth. In the opening paragraph of “A Rose for Emily” we find a prime example of the narrator criticizing the public’s scrutiny and distasteful brown nosing towards Emily’s death and personal belongings. “The men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house,” (Faulkner) here the text describes the women townspeople as viscous and prying.
Thus, the narrator makes the reader assume that Miss Emily is driven by her insanity of her father’s dominance to the point she became a criminal. In looking at how the narrator connects the point of view the story is told to the conflict and central idea of the text, the narrator tries to provide the back story of why criminals became about in the first place. Thus, the narrator tries to prove one central idea: criminals become evil because they are conditioned to be evil and not because they are evil. Looking at the story of Miss Emily, one of the major arguments is caused by: “The pattern of this social myth by twice keeping at home the bodies of dead loved ones while refusing to acknowledge their deaths — death being the primary consequence of the Fall, which abolished paradise.” (Faulkner William)
Secondly, without our point of view and narration being from Miss Emily, most would think that it’s hard to empathize with her. But, the way in which Faulkner writes his story creates moments like the quote above to place the reader in Emily’s shoes and to see her thoughts without knowing them face front. Omniscience narration is when the narrator knows all, and this allows readers to go into the thoughts of characters, and in most cases leads to a stronger relationship between reader and characters. Faulkner does this without using omniscience’, but by using flashbacks and clues into the life of Miss Emily; and the expressions of the townspeople. “She carried her head high enough - even when we believed that she was fallen. It was as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson” It tells us that Emily is hurting and feeling low and lonely in her life, but at the same time she’s trying very hard to hide it. Of course the narrator doesn’t blatantly say this, like an omniscience narration would, but gives imagery to portray Emily’s feelings (Dilworth Thomas, 2015)
We reckon that the theme of isolation is the most vivid to the reader with a lot of metaphoric proofs throughout the story. Firstly, the narrator’s style makes Emily abandoned from the reader. For example, this occurs when the narrator mentions Emily being an object observed by the other inhabitants of the town of Jefferson. It is stated in the short story: “And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron. And of Miss Emily for some time. The Negro man went in and out with the market basket, but the front door remained closed. ‘Now and then we would see her at a window for a moment, as the men did that night they sprinkled the lime, but for almost six months she did not appear on streets’ (Faulkner William p.238). As a result, Emily’s character is changing as she finds it difficult to deal with the changes in her new environment. We can also assume that Emily has developed from a respected member of her community to an extraordinary character and to an odd stranger in society, what resulted in her tragedy. The topic of the story is described by the way the story develops how Emily tries to adapt to the environment that leads to the tragic ending. . Emily’s house is also symbolic in revealing the topic where it reveals Emily’s destructive personality destructive. Despite all Emily’s eccentricities, together with her mental illness, the presentation of the character reveals how irony is implied in the short story.
The isolation theme is developed through the objectivity of Emily. She tries to defense her privacy by creating a microcosm, completely her own. In her own world there are neither laws nor time, and even death does is not meaningful. The protagonist together with neighbors does not comprehend the time as mathematical progression. He tries to differentiate past from future as if this terms are not inherent, as if physical appearance of death can substitute the person’s soul, as if the neurotic universe is buried and being alive not really matters. The author implies irony through the mysterious Miss Grierson who tries to make revenge on all the men in her life who have ruined her privacy and her life. Miss Emily has learnt the lesson of being brutal what her environment has taught her to be, and she has overcome the terror of those who insist on denying of her true will to live her own life. So, the fact that she killed her father and husband can be understood as a type of revolution against the patriarchal system (KennedyX J, and Dana Gioia, 2015).
Moreover, the isolation of Emily is converging through her social status. The protagonist describes her from different objective perspectives, like she stands out of the Jefferson’s society. The short story explains the aristocratic origin of Miss Emily and of her family. It is widely obvious, that government would not trouble noble people from upper class with the questions connected to money or taxes as your family has gained respect nobody could ruined for generations.
The middle and working class’s attitude towards Emily is fighting; sometimes they respect the social rank where stay the family of Emily and sympathize with her situation, sometimes they are jealous so more than happy to see her in pain. However, all the feelings towards Emily comes as a result of classism, out of the belief that Emily is in some way superior to them as she is from the upper class. Moreover, we can conclude that “A Rose for Emily” illustrates the damaging effects of classism, for it seems that we can reasonably argue the fact that classist ideology harms all the stories main characters. Classism isolates both Mr. Grierson and Emily from the rest of the social group and classism deprives Emily the chance to develop the interpersonal skills she needs to make a life for herself after her father’s death. In fact we can say due to her extreme isolation, classism helps drive her mad. Classism definitely plays a role in Homer Barron’s death because, it is probably his classist attitude towards social rank that inspires him to court her and because Emily’s classist pride is probably a factor in her decision to kill him rather than let him humiliate her by deserting her. Another reason is maybe she decided to kill him because she couldn’t marry beneath her, yet if she doesn’t marry Homer he will leave her in isolation with no one to love. That’s why her classist ideologies probably drove her to insanity (Claridge Henry, 1999).
The isolation topic is developed through the gothic atmosphere and the notion of secret that is being created behind the events. There are a lot of secrets hidden by Miss Emily in her house no one knows about except her manservant - the way when he buys for her rat poison, for example. It provokes within us the readers the feeling of suspicion. To some sense it is understandable, everyone has got some days where one does not feel like explaining oneself or talking to people, but in Miss Emily cases we feel we know tragic events must have happened.
Apart from that, the mystery reveals the nature that separates Emily from other characters and from a normal way of life. This alienation within in ‘‘A Rose for Emily’’ only becomes painfully apparent to the reader when the last act of murder has been revealed. All previous events and descriptions passed the way of the dark story by introducing a general concept of mysteries, foreboding, and decays. Therefore we may say that the chain of events that have gone before are shown in a way in which the last spark of violence does not come out of nowhere. It almost comes expected at the end. Foreshadowing is mostly delivered in literature through the atmosphere, and in this case the ambiance prepares us for Emily's unnatural acts near the end of all events (Charters Ann, 1997). Such preparation already starts in the beginning: “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant—a combined gardener and cook—had seen in at least ten years” (Faulkner William)
The topic of this story is also conveyed through the narrator’s along with Emily Grierson’s tragic restrictions caused by her traditional southern US - culture. Such denunciation of her values is illustrated and re - enforced by the structure of the story. Moreover, the protagonist is in an agonizing conflict with herself, and with the shadows of her past turning the command of events out of her reach. In order to solve her inner fights, she relies on her memory, rejecting any changes that the writer has connected to the south. In conclusion, the author William Faulkner, drives deeply into the explanation of the psychological issues of the feeling being odd outsider, being out of community. Besides not respecting the laws of her society in the community of Jefferson the protagonist is also the murder of Mr. Grierson by poisoning Homer, her husband, who is for Emily like a father.
We should also discuss how the meaning of a rose appears as a symbolism without being even mentioned in the short story “A rose for Emily” by William Faulkner. Being used in the title of the short story, the rose is not mentioned in the further lines, but we may interpret its meanings variously. Moreover, it reveals the light on Emily’s character. Nevertheless, the flower of rose have had gained several symbolic meanings throughout world’s history. One of those meanings is concerning the purity, particularly for white roses. It is imaginable to understand that the symbolism of the rose used in the title refers to Emily’s state of virginity. It is however not accurate to state that the character that has lived all her life alone without any men in her life except for father was a virgin. What is more the narrator does not know that piece of information for sure, but we can suggest this as being true - due to the fact that Emily was the single woman all her life. We can also assume, a woman with her traditional values within the 19th century would not engage in sexual intercourse without being married.
Apart from that, a rose in the title grammatically is used in singular what may be a symbol of Emily’s isolation. The protagonist was like a rose, forever alone, the symbol of isolated from the community flower of a rose. In this sense, Emily’s rose can be seen as the inability to adapt to the new environment. As if she did not want to change habits or things from the past.
Considering the last popular interpretation, according to which the rose flower represents the concept of love, Emily, throughout her life failed to know or feel love, not even to mention understanding it. Emily does not know love. As indicated earlier within our essay, Emily presumably does not see a discontinuation between her life and death. Emily has imagined that as long as the physical body is present at the house, she is not alone at home (Charters Ann). Consequently we can conclude that she is not able to differ the alive person with the soul from the dead body that represents the living being. Emily does not comprehend that after physical death, there is something constant laying within, the concept of a soul.
Emily’s death takes with her to the grave all the things she ever wanted. She had Homer Barron’s body by her side; however, she still did not own Homer Barron, the living man – his soul – with her. According to this fact, we may ask: was it successful for Emily to fulfill all her desires? The reader probably believes that she does not succeed. We are told that she did this with her father, and apparently she did the same with her lover. Such behavior suggests in her a terrible loneliness and desperation for companionship. She idolized and idealized her father and Homer Barron. Her need for love was never understood, not only because of her mental illness, but also because nobody could ever perceive the true meaning of love. Perhaps to love the body is not enough, and for Emily the notion of love was far from the ideal one described in books.
This story calls for a little pre-mediatory empathy before the discovery of Homer’s death.The key to this story is that, by the reveling of Homer’s unexpected death we find ourselves commiserating Emily’s bazar behavior for the past many years, this is what Faulkner wants us to feel. It is clear that Faulkner wishes us to see Emily’s pain and sorrow in the story and in many ways the denotation of his writing tells us just that, but by telling us in third person by this mysterious narrator he has built a whole other connection between Emily and the reader. In a way, Emily is even more mysterious than the narrator, through out the whole story both the reader and the narrator are digging for clues into Emily’s life.The narrator notes the town’s pity for Emily throughout the short story discussing the past of the main character. (American fiction and the metaphors, 2015).
However, in looking at a different perspective on why Miss Emily continuously commit crime, one can find the same pattern of thinking from the townspeople when they think it is okay to support her action as a way to protect of their Southern values. Throughout “A Rose for Emily”, one can find how most of the townspeople are apathetic to her death and to the death of her loved ones. The reason is because “The narrator and his society idealize southern womanhood as part of a general idealization of the antebellum South.” (Dilworth, 2014). Looking at Dilworth's argument, it is only true to the extent that the story is about the idealization of the townspeople of womenhood because of the reality that the setting of the story takes place in the deep South. However, in looking further at how his argument fits into the overall argument about the human condition, one can find that such attitudes the townspeople have in viewing Miss Emily's actions very prevalent. When Faulkner answers one of the interviewer's questions about his motivation in writing “A Rose for Emily” he answered “I am going to write a piece in which I will use a symbolism for the North and another symbol for the South, that he was simply writing about people, a story which he though was tragic and true, It was a conflict not between the North and the South so much as between, well you might say, God and Satan.” In looking at what Faulkner means by this, one finds that the conflict is not just between Miss Emily’s struggle to find true love, but it is also the conflict between the townspeople’s struggle to define their morality within their Southern values when the townspeople can only pity for Miss Emily’s death and some of her decisions in killing Homer Barron and her horrible childhood. Thus, it supports the central idea that criminals are made and not born and the cause of the criminal’s action is caused by both environmental factors and personal motivation.
In looking at the arguments from Dilworth and Faulkner’s motive in writing “A Rose for Emily”, one can find how Faulkner is trying to criticize how distorted the society view human nature and that he is showing one reality about human nature: humans are driven by needs to love, belong, and survive and will do anything to satisfy that desire by all means.

Works Cited

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Dilworth, Thomas. "A Romance to Kill For: Homicidal Complicity in Faulkner‟s „A Rose for Emily‟."Studies in Short Fiction 36.3 (1999): 251-262. Rpt. In Short Story Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 200. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2014. Literature Resource Center. Web. 09 March. 2015.
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