a rose for emily critical analysis essay

A Summary and Analysis of William Faulkner’s ‘A Rose for Emily’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘A Rose for Emily’ is a short story by William Faulkner, originally published in Forum in 1930 before being collected in Faulkner’s collection, These Thirteen , the following year. The story concerns an unmarried woman living in the American South who attracts the concern and suspicion of the townspeople after her father dies and she becomes romantically involved with a Yankee man from the North.

‘A Rose for Emily’ is a story that invites a number of different critical interpretations and has attracted a great deal of commentary and analysis. Before we analyse the meaning of Faulkner’s classic story, it might be worth recapping the plot.

‘A Rose for Emily’: plot summary

The story begins with the news that Miss Emily Grierson, a recluse living alone with a black servant in a large house in town, has died. The narrator, a kind of collective voice of the townspeople, tells us that everyone in the town attended the funeral, with many of the women being curious to see inside the woman’s house that nobody had been allowed inside for years.

We are told that ten years earlier, the aldermen of the town had gained access to her house in order to question her about failure to pay her taxes. She simply tells them that she does not owe any taxes to the town, and calls for her servant to show the men out. Thirty years before that, another group of men from the town had visited Emily Grierson’s home to sprinkle lime in the cellar and the outbuildings, in order to get rid of the smell coming from the house.

That was two years after the death of her father, a crayon portrait of whom stands on an easel in front of the fireplace. After her father’s death, Emily’s sweetheart had deserted her and Emily left the house only on very rare occasions. When the house had begun to smell a short while after, neighbours had complained to the mayor, but the mayor had been reluctant to confront Emily about such a delicate matter, hence the party of men sprinkling lime under and around the house.

The narrator tells us that the townspeople had always thought the Griersons held themselves in high regard, as if none of the men would be good enough for Emily. When her father died, the women turned up at her house to pay their condolences, but she denied that he had died. The doctors had to persuade Emily to bury the body.

Despite this odd behaviour, the townspeople didn’t consider Emily to be mad. They attributed her actions to her father’s controlling presence, and the way he had sent away all her potential suitors, forcing her to rely on him, even after his death.

After her father’s death, Emily was sick for a long while, and when she was seen again, she had cut her hair short to make her look like a girl. The following summer, a construction company arrived to pave the paths of the town, and the foreman, a Yankee from New York named Homer Barron, is seen out riding on Sundays with Emily. The townsfolk start to say, ‘Poor Emily’, believing that she cannot be seriously interested in a Northerner like Barron.

Emily purchases some arsenic from the local druggist, who assumes she will use it to kill rats. However, the rumour in the town is that Emily is planning to take her own life. People start to grow suspicious of the length of Emily’s courtship with Barron, with the minister intervening and the minister’s wife writing a concerned letter to Emily’s relatives in Alabama, and her cousins come to stay with her. Soon after this, the townsfolk became certain that Emily and Barron had married.

But then Homer Barron vanished, and nobody saw him again. Emily is barely seen either, and when she does reappear from the house, her hair has turned grey and she has put on weight. For a short while, Emily would give lessons in china-painting from her doorstep, but even this she eventually gave up. The townspeople grow up and move on and she becomes even more of a recluse. Her African-American servant loyally remains in her service, but nobody else goes into the house.

When Emily dies and her body is buried, the townsfolk finally venture into the upstairs bedroom in the house, where they discover the dead body of a man lying on the bed, surrounded by dust – presumably, the man is Homer Barron (though this is not stated). Next to the dead body is the indentation of a head and a long strand of Emily’s hair, suggesting that she was in the habit of lying next to the man’s body in the bed.

‘A Rose for Emily’: analysis

‘A Rose for Emily’ is a subtle story which blends first- and third-person narration, Gothic literature and realism, past memories and present events, to unsettle us as readers. The whole town appears to be the story’s narrator, a kind of collective ‘we’ which speaks together about – and against – Emily’s strange behaviour until we reach the chilling finale and Homer Barron’s body is discovered.

This means that Emily remains distant from us as readers, and we never learn about her inner life: we only ever see her from the outside, through the eyes of the townspeople. This is obviously fitting because Emily is an outsider in the town, but it also lends an air of mystery to the events recounted, because so little is understood of Emily’s motivations and emotions.

Because of this unnerving denouement, ‘A Rose for Emily’ is often regarded as an example of Southern Gothic : a literary mode, practised by writers of the American South (like Faulkner) whose stories and novels are characterised by macabre, horrific, or grotesque elements. Such fiction often also contains an accumulation of realist detail, and Faulkner allows the mood of uncanniness which pervades Emily’s house and her life to emerge gradually.

Her reluctance to give up her father’s body for burial, for example, foreshadows her (presumed) murder of her lover and concealment of his body in the upper bedroom, whom she killed when she realised that was the only way of holding onto him and ensuring he remained hers for good. The crumbling Gothic castle has become a house in the Southern United States, in which everything is ‘tarnished’ (note how often that word recurs), spoiled, fading (like Emily’s iron-grey hair), and falling to ruin.

This offers a new, more domestic take on a traditional trope in Gothic fiction: the dark secret threatening to destroy a ‘house’ or family (see Poe’s ‘ The Fall of the House of Usher ’ for one notable example from the nineteenth century), and (in many Gothic stories) the dead body that is only discovered at the end of the narrative.

But at least Poe’s protagonists managed to bury their bodies (although sometimes, as in the story just mentioned, before they were actually dead), or concealed them beneath the floorboards . Faulkner’s story instead hints at an altogether more morbid and unwholesome notion: that Emily has continued to ‘sleep’ with Homer even after he was dead (indeed, perhaps that was the only way she could sleep with him at all).

Another reason that the Southern Gothic tag is important for ‘A Rose for Emily’ is that Emily, a Southern lady, falls for a ‘Yankee’: a man from the North of the United States. Although the American Civil War ended in 1865, decades before Faulkner was writing, the sense of North-South divide, in terms of culture, class, and identity, proved long-lasting (and arguably persists to this day).

The townsfolk are appalled by the idea that Miss Emily, an aristocratic Southern lady, might seriously be considering marriage to a Northerner, whom they consider to be beneath her on the social scale (hence the reference to noblesse oblige : Emily should entertain Homer and be courteous to him, but the idea that she could marry such a man horrifies the Southern townspeople’s sensibilities).

Faulkner leaves many specific details of Emily’s relationship with Homer as mere hints and speculations, in keeping with the narrative mode of the story: the townspeople, shut out from her house and, in many ways, from her life, can only conjecture as to what happened. We are in a similar position, though it seems sensible enough to surmise that Emily fell in love with Homer – who, it is strongly suggested, had no intention of settling down with her.

Like Emily, he is a perpetual singleton, but whereas Emily is single because of the controlling influence of her father (an influence which persists, in its psychological hold on her, even after her father’s death), Homer is single by choice: a stark reminder of the gender differences between men and women in Southern society at this time.

Women like Emily attract concern and rumour if they remain unmarried, while the bachelor Homer Barron – whose name summons Greek heroism and nobility, while also hinting at the ‘barren’ nature of Emily’s would-be relationship with him – charms the townsfolk and becomes popular, despite being, like Emily, an outsider set apart from them.

Why does Faulkner title his story ‘A Rose for Emily’? In an interview he gave at the University of Virginia, he suggested that Emily deserved to be given a rose because of all of the torment she had endured: at the hands of her father, perhaps at the hands of Homer as well, and as a result of the townsfolk treating her like an outsider.

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Home › Literature › Analysis of William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily

Analysis of William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on June 12, 2021

Initially published in Forum on April 30, 1930, and collected in These Thirteen in 1931, “A Rose for Emily” remains one of William Faulkner’s most read, most anthologized, and most significant stories. From every imaginable perspective, critics have scrutinized the components of Faulkner’s literary technique: The story has been viewed as an allegory of southern history, a metaphorical depiction of NorthSouth relationships, feminist nightmare or feminist victory, a gothic horror story, a sociological portrayal of individualism squelched or individualism triumphant, a bleak fictional tale of determinism. Faulkner’s uses of structure, tone, point of view, and imagery play key roles in his depiction of Miss Emily Grierson. The fact that readers and critics still engage in interpretive debates over its meaning merely ensures that it will continue to be read.

Told from the perspective of Jefferson, in Yoknapatawpha County, in a narrative voice that consistently relates the details that “we”—the smug and gossipy townspeople of Jefferson—have observed, the story is intriguing on the level of plot and character alone: Miss Emily has just died, and we learn that she lived alone after her father died and Homer Baron, her Yankee lover, apparently abandoned her. Suspense continues to build when we learn that a mysterious odor emanated from her house at the time that Homer disappeared. Faulkner employs a number of clues to foreshadow both denouement and motivation, including the “tableau” of the imperious father with a horsewhip overshadowing his white-clad young daughter Emily; the portrait of her father that Emily displays at his death, despite his thwarting of her natural youthful desires; her defiant public appearances with the unsuitable Homer Baron; her sense of entitlement; and the arsenic she buys to rid her house of “rats.” Despite these and other devices, however, new generations of readers still react in horror when Emily’s secret is revealed: She not only murdered her lover but slept with his corpse in the attic bridal chamber she carefully prepared.

If Miss Emily is crazy (and most critics agree that she is), Faulkner implies that she has been made so by the constrictions of a father who refused to let her marry and by the conventions of a society that eagerly filled the void at his death. Numerous critics have suggested that behind the gothic horror of necrophilia and insanity in this classic story, Miss Emily Grierson is the oddly modern hero. Indeed, one critic asserts that we cannot understand any of Faulkner’s heroes if we do not understand Miss Emily, for she is the “prototype” of them all (Strindberg 877). As with other troubled Faulknerian protagonists, death literally frees Miss Emily—from patriarchy, from society’s conventions, from sexual repression, from the class structure she was taught to revere, from the useless existence of privileged women of her era, even from the burdens of southern history and slavery: With her death, her black servant, mysteriously complicit in his relation to Miss Emily, walks out of her house at the end of the story. In an interview at the University of Virginia, Faulkner suggested that Miss Emily deserved a rose for all the torment she had endured, and, whatever else they feel, most readers appear to agree with this sentiment.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Blotner, Joseph. Faulkner: A Biography. 2 Vols. New York: Random House, 1974. Rev. ed., New York: Random House, 1984. Carothers, James. Faulkner’s Short Stories. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1985. Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” In Collected Short Stories. New York: Random House, 1940. Ferguson, James. Faulkner’s Short Fiction. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991. Strindberg, Victor. “A Rose for Emily.” In Reader’s Guide to Short Fiction, edited by Noelle Watson, 577. Detroit: St. James Press, 1993.

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“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner: Analysis

“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, published in 1930, quickly captivated readers for its setting, characters and thematic strands.

Introduction: “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

Table of Contents

“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, published in 1930, quickly captivated readers for its setting, characters and thematic strands. Set in the fictional Mississippi town of Jefferson, the story centers on Emily Grierson, a mysterious Southern belle whose life and death become an obsession for the townspeople. Faulkner’s masterful use of non-linear storytelling explores themes of tradition, societal change, and the decay of the Old South, solidifying “A Rose for Emily” as a lasting contribution to American literature.

Main Events in “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

• Emily faces her father’s death; her actions shock the community. Emily’s denial of her father’s passing leads her to keep his body within her home for three days, and upon finally releasing the body for burial, she descends into a life of isolation.
• Years later, Emily challenges the established order. When town officials attempt to collect taxes, Emily not only refuses but insists the town remains indebted to her. Her defiance is mirrored in her seclusion; she rarely ventures from her home, a notable exception being her unsettling purchase of arsenic.
• A new generation questions Emily’s past as a mysterious romance unfolds. Intrigued by her enigmatic history, the town’s youth fixate on her relationship with Homer Barron, a Northern laborer. Their frequent sightings together incite whispers of an engagement.
• Emily’s arsenic purchase fuels the townspeople’s fears. Her acquisition of the poison strengthens their belief that she intends suicide, yet no tragedy occurs, and her withdrawn existence continues.
• Homer’s disappearance ignites speculation, while a disturbing odor emerges. When Homer vanishes, the townspeople’s suspicions swirl. Emily remains unmoved by his absence, but a foul smell from her property raises further alarm.
• Emily’s death unveils a horrifying truth. Upon her passing, the townspeople infiltrate her home and stumble upon a gruesome secret: Emily had preserved Homer’s corpse and slept beside it for years.
• A flashback illuminates Emily’s isolation. The narrative returns to the night of her father’s death, exposing his relentless interference in her romantic life, ultimately leading to her desolate existence.
• The townspeople’s actions offer a twisted form of closure. Their decision to bury Homer within Emily’s home implies a warped sense of fulfillment for her, as if she’d finally obtained the companionship she desperately craved.
• A haunting image lingers. The story concludes with the chilling visual of a single gray hair on the pillow beside Homer’s remains, suggesting Emily’s disturbing intimacy persisted even beyond his death.
• The haunting finale prompts contemplation. The story’s final line – “Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair” – forces the reader to grapple with the complexities of Emily’s character and the story’s central themes.

Characterization in “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

Major characters.

Minor Characters

Major Themes in “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

• The Destructive Nature of Isolation:

·  Emily’s Self-Imposed Seclusion: After her father’s death, Emily becomes a recluse, cutting herself off from the outside world.

• The Consequences of Isolation: Emily’s isolation leads to a warped perception of reality, contributing to her psychological decline and a horrifying secret.

·  The Clash of Tradition vs. Change

• Emily as a Symbol of the Old South: Emily clings fiercely to the traditions and values of the past, represented by her decaying mansion and her resistance to change.
• Homer Barron as a Symbol of Progress: Homer, a Northern laborer, represents modernity and change that threaten Emily’s traditional world.
• The Town’s Ambivalence: The townspeople are caught between a fading past and an uncertain future, reflected in their conflicting attitudes towards Emily.

·  The Fading Glory of the American South

• The Decaying Grierson Mansion: The once-grand house symbolizes the decline of the Old South and its aristocratic families.
• Emily’s Resistance to Change: Emily’s insistence on maintaining the status quo mirrors the larger social struggle between tradition and progress in the post-Civil War South.

·  The Illusion of Control

• Mr. Grierson’s Influence: Emily’s father exerts extreme control over her life, preventing her from marrying and contributing to her isolation.
• Emily’s Desperate Measures: Emily’s actions with Homer reveal a twisted desire to control love and death, ultimately leading to a horrifying discovery.

·  The Unreliability of Memory and Perception

• The Non-Linear Narrative: The story’s fragmented timeline blurs the lines between past and present, mirroring the town’s unreliable memory of events.
• The Townspeople’s Bias: The collective narrator filters events through their own prejudices and limited understanding of Emily, leaving the truth obscured.

Writing Style in “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

·  Non-linear Narrative: Faulkner disrupts the traditional flow of time with flashbacks and forward jumps. Examples:

• The story starts with Emily’s funeral, then flashes back to her relationship with her father.
• Details about Homer are revealed in fragments, heightening the mystery of his fate.

·  Multiple Narrators and Shifting Points of View: The collective “we” of the townspeople narrates the story, offering a limited perspective. Examples:

• The townspeople speculate about Emily’s purchase of arsenic, drawing their own assumptions.
• Their interpretation of events might contrast with the reality of Emily’s motivations.

·  Vivid, Poetic Language: Faulkner uses striking imagery to evoke a sense of gothic decay and despair. Examples:

• Descriptions of the Grierson mansion as “stubborn and coquettish” and smelling of “dust and disuse.”
• Emily’s appearance is likened to “a body long submerged in motionless water.”

·  Atmosphere of Foreboding Faulkner crafts a palpable feeling of dread and unease, foreshadowing the macabre ending. Examples:

• The townspeople’s observations of a strange smell surrounding Emily’s house.
• Emily’s purchase of arsenic hints at a potentially sinister purpose.

Literary Theories and Interpretation of “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

Questions and Thesis Statements about “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

1. The Theme of Isolation in “A Rose for Emily”

• Strong focus: This topic is directly tied to one of the story’s central themes.
• Character-centered: By analyzing Emily, you can explore how her isolation develops and its consequences.
• How does the town contribute to her isolation?
• Is her isolation entirely negative, or does it offer something to her as well?

2. The Role of Gender in “A Rose for Emily”

• Relevant critique: Gender expectations are a powerful force in the story.
• Potential for depth: This can be connected to broader themes like Southern womanhood, power dynamics, and societal change.
• How do the townspeople’s expectations of women both trap and, oddly, protect Emily?
• Explore other female figures in the story (even minor ones) as a contrast.

3. The Use of Symbolism in “A Rose for Emily”

• Rich with symbolism: The story is layered with meaningful symbols.
• Allows for close analysis: Focusing on specific symbols can enhance your exploration of the key themes.
• Look beyond obvious symbols to less-discussed ones (hair, dust, etc.).
• How do the symbols interact or contradict each other?

4. The Narrative Structure of “A Rose for Emily”

• Unique aspect of the story: Faulkner’s structure is a key element of its impact.
• Connects form to meaning: Analyzing how the narrative is structured helps reveal deeper layers of meaning.
• How does the fragmented timeline influence our understanding of Emily?
• What effect does the collective narrator (“we”) have?

5. The Role of Death in “A Rose for Emily”

• Powerful motif: Death is ever-present in this story.
• Explores multiple facets: This topic could focus on literal deaths, metaphorical deaths (of the Old South), or Emily’s relationship to mortality.
• How does Emily’s connection to death differ from the townspeople’s?
• Does death represent an escape for Emily, or something else?

Short Question-Answer “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

Literary Works Similar to “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman:

• Shared Themes: Both stories explore the psychological deterioration of women due to isolation and confinement. The protagonists descend into fragmented mental states as a result of their restricted circumstances.
• Stylistic Similarities: Gilman and Faulkner employ first-person narration that grows increasingly unreliable, offering the reader a distorted view of events that mirrors the character’s fracturing psyche.

“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe:

• Shared Themes: The decaying mansions in both stories serve as stark symbols of isolation, psychological decline, and the crumbling of old legacies. The themes of death and decay pervade both narratives.
• Stylistic Similarities: Poe and Faulkner are renowned Southern Gothic authors, sharing a talent for creating a haunting atmosphere, exploring macabre settings, and incorporating elements of the supernatural.

“ A Good Man Is Hard to Find ” by Flannery O’Connor:

• Shared Themes: Both O’Connor and Faulkner expose the darker aspects of the South, questioning notions of morality and human nature. Their characters—The Misfit and Emily Grierson—offer enigmatic psychological profiles, inviting speculation about their hidden motives.
• Stylistic Similarities: Both writers portray grotesque scenarios with an air of detachment, forcing the reader to confront unsettling moral implications.

“ The Lottery ” by Shirley Jackson:

• Shared Themes: Both stories challenge the idealization of small-town life, revealing the horrors that can lie beneath the surface of tradition and conformity.
• Stylistic Similarities: Jackson and Faulkner build suspense with matter-of-fact prose that contrasts with the disturbing events, culminating in chilling twists.

“Winesburg, Ohio” by Sherwood Anderson:

• Shared Themes: This interconnected collection of short stories explores the complexities of small-town life, mirroring Faulkner’s focus on themes of loneliness, isolation, and the universal desire for connection.
• Stylistic Similarities: Both authors use fragmented structures and multiple perspectives to construct complex portrayals of their characters and the communities they inhabit.

Suggested Readings: “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

Scholarly Articles

• Bloom, Harold. “Introduction.” Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: A Rose for Emily, New Edition, edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House Publishers, 2008, pp. 1–9.
• Justus, James H. “The Narrator in ‘A Rose for Emily.'” Journal of Narrative Technique, vol. 1, no. 3, 1971, pp. 195-209. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30225170.
• Polk, Noel. “The Narrative Strategy of ‘A Rose for Emily.'” Modern Language Studies, vol. 13, no. 4, 1983, pp. 3-11. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3194650

Books of Literary Criticism

• Brooks, Cleanth. William Faulkner: Toward Yoknapatawpha and Beyond. Yale University Press, 1978.
• Millgate, Michael. The Achievement of William Faulkner. Random House, 1963.
• Tuck, Dorothy. Faulkner’s Mississippi. University Press of Mississippi, 1980.
• SparkNotes: A Rose for Emily. SparkNotes Editors. 2002. https://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/a-rose-for-emily/
• CliffsNotes: A Rose for Emily. https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/faulkners-short-stories/summary-and-analysis-a-rose-for-emily/section-i
• The William Faulkner Project https://english.olemiss.edu/faulkner-in-america-kathryn-mckee/

Related posts:

• “The Use of Force” by William Carlos Williams
• “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison
• “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce: Analysis
• “The Lady with the Little Dog” by Anton Chekhov: Analysis

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William Faulkner: A Rose for Emily. Summary and analysis

Tabla de contenidos, summary of “a rose for emily”..

“A Rose for Emily,” a work by William Faulkner, a prominent author in American literature, initially published in 1930, is a story that delves into the themes of decline, isolation and resistance to change. The story, narrated by an unidentified observer, takes place in a Southern town and centers on the figure of Emily Grierson, a woman who becomes something of an enigma and object of curiosity to the community’s inhabitants.

The story begins with Emily’s death and the town’s inhabitants’ interest in visiting her home, a place closed to the outside world for many years. A series of flashbacks reveals crucial details of Emily’s life and her complex relationship with the town.

Emily, described as a relic of the past, resides in a once stately home, now dilapidated, symbolizing the decay of herself and traditional Southern values. Her father, an authoritative and controlling figure in life, had driven away all of Emily’s suitors, so she was left unmarried after his death. Emily’s refusal to acknowledge her father’s death for three days after his passing is the first indication of her disconnect with reality.

The arrival of Homer Barron, a laborer from the North, introduces a new chapter in Emily’s life. Despite the town’s rumors and skepticism, Emily and Homer seem to develop a relationship. However, Homer mysteriously disappears, and Emily secludes herself in her home, reaffirming her image as a lonely and mysterious figure.

After Emily’s death, the inhabitants discover that Homer’s corpse is lying on a bed in a locked room, along with a lock of gray hair presumed to be Emily’s. This revelation suggests a macabre and haunting connection between Emily and her once furtive lover.

The story explores resistance to change, the impact of rigid social structures and extreme loneliness. The fragmented, non-linear narrative, typical of Faulkner’s style, creates a sense of mystery and depth, allowing the reader to piece together Emily’s story and its meaning gradually. The story also examines the decline of the Old South and certain characters’ inability to adapt to social and temporal changes.

William Faulkner : A Rose for Emily

Cuento completo

Characters and their development throughout the narrative.

In “A Rose for Emily,” Faulkner presents a small but significant set of characters whose development is closely intertwined with the work’s central themes. The narrative is built around Emily Grierson but also includes secondary figures who contribute to the evolution of the plot and deepen the themes Faulkner develops in his story.

Emily Grierson: Emily is the central character of the story. Throughout the narrative, she is shown to transition from being a young girl in a prominent family to becoming a mysterious recluse. After the death of her father, a domineering and controlling being who rejected all her suitors, Emily finds herself alone and isolated. This isolation worsens over time, driving her into a state of denial and delusion, especially evident in her refusal to accept her father’s death and later in her relationship with Homer Barron. Emily is a complex character who represents resistance to change, the influence of the past and oppressive social norms.

Homer Barron: A Northern laborer, represents change and modernity that challenges Southern traditions. His relationship with Emily is viewed with suspicion and disapproval by the townspeople. The relationship never culminates in marriage, and mysteriously, Homer disappears. At the end of the story, it is revealed that this disappearance was caused by Emily, who poisoned him and then kept his body in a room in the old house. The figure of Homer and his ultimate fate are crucial to understanding the depth of Emily’s isolation and disturbance.

Emily’s father: Although dead before most of the events recounted in the story, the influence of Emily’s father is a constant presence. His control over Emily and his rejection of her suitors leave a profound mark on her psyche, contributing to her isolation and eventual imbalance. The father figure symbolizes the social restrictions and gender expectations of the time.

The community: Although not a “character” in the traditional sense, the community plays a vital role in the story. It serves as a Greek chorus, observing and commenting on Emily’s life. The town’s attitude toward Emily reflects the social norms and prejudices of the time. Their curiosity and gossip contribute to the narrative’s tone of mystery and judgment.

The development of these characters takes place through a series of flashbacks and anecdotes, which gradually reveal the complexity of their lives and relationships. Faulkner uses these characters to explore the various themes he develops in the story, creating a narrative fabric in which each character contributes to the plot and the more significant meaning of the story.

The setting of “A Rose for Emily”.

The play is set in a small town in the southern United States, in a time spanning from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. This context is crucial, reflecting the South’s social and cultural tensions in transition after the Civil War.

Emily Grierson’s house: Emily’s house is a character and critical symbol in the story. Once stately and respected, it becomes a decrepit and decaying structure surrounded by garages and cotton tents. This physical transformation of the house reflects Emily’s physical and emotional deterioration and the decline of the Old South and its values. The house, with its locked rooms and dusty, stagnant atmosphere, is also a crucial setting for the story’s climax and final revelation.

The Southern Town: The town reflects the post-Civil War South, grappling with social and economic changes. The narrative highlights the transitioning from a society based on old honor codes and social hierarchies to a more modern, less stratified one. This change is illustrated in how the town’s characters interact with Emily and her family and how these changes affect their perception of them.

The era: The story spans several decades, allowing Faulkner to explore the impact of time on people and societies. The transition from the 19th century to the 20th century brought significant changes to the South, including attitudes toward class, gender, and the legacy of the Civil War. Emily’s resistance to these changes, symbolized by her house and lifestyle, reflects the tension between the past and the present.

Writing techniques employed by Faulkner in “A Rose for Emily.”

Non-linear and fragmented narrator: Faulkner opts for a non-linear narrative structure, moving back and forth in time. This technique creates a sense of mystery and allows the story to unfold gradually, revealing critical details at strategic moments. The fragmented narrative reflects the theme of decay and chaos, both in Emily’s life and Southern society.

Collective Narrator: The story is narrated by an unnamed narrator who represents the collective perspective of the townspeople. This approach creates distance between Emily and the reader while at the same time providing a panoramic view of how the community views and judges Emily and her family. This technique reinforces the themes of gossip, isolation, and social judgment.

Language: Faulkner is known for his rich and poetic use of language. In “A Rose for Emily,” he employs descriptive language to create a dense and evocative atmosphere. For example, the detailed descriptions of Emily’s house are vital to establishing the somber tone and decay that permeate the story.

Symbolism: The story is loaded with symbolism. Emily’s house, for example, symbolizes the decline of the Old South. At the same time, the rose of the title has been interpreted in various ways, including as a symbol of love and compassion for Emily. These symbols enrich the narrative, providing additional layers of meaning.

Themes and Motifs: Faulkner weaves several themes and motifs throughout the story, including death, the passage of time, and resistance to change. The use of these themes contributes to the depth and complexity of the story, allowing for multiple interpretations.

Character Psychology: Throughout his narrative, Faulkner deeply explores the psychology of his characters, especially Emily. This detailed approach offers intimate insight into their motivations, fears, and desires, which adds significant richness to the narrative.

In “A Rose for Emily,” Faulkner’s narrative style is complex and meticulously crafted. His non-linear approach, coupled with a collective narrator, richly descriptive language, use of symbolism, and in-depth exploration of themes and character psychology, creates a work that not only tells the story of a woman and a people but also offers a meditation on broader themes such as time, change, and memory.

Narrative point of view

Collective Narrator: The use of “we” in the narrative suggests that the narrator is a cooperative witness, representing the opinions, perceptions, and prejudices of the village community. This collective point of view is essential to understanding the relationship between Emily and the surrounding society. The narrator is not an individual but a composite voice reflecting the mindset and attitudes of the community.

Limited perspective: Despite witnessing the events in Emily’s life, the narrators have limited knowledge of her inner thoughts, feelings, and motivations. This limitation reinforces the mystery surrounding Emily and her story, as the reader only receives the information filtered through the perspective of the community’s inhabitants.

Implications of judgment and prejudice: By telling the story from the townspeople’s point of view, Faulkner allows the prejudices and judgments of the community to become part of the narrative. How the townspeople talk about Emily and her family reveals their social norms, expectations, and attitudes toward change and decay.

Distancing from the main character: Through this point of view, Emily is presented as an object of fascination and speculation, but she is always kept at an emotional distance from the reader. This distancing intensifies the aura of isolation and mystery surrounding her character.

Reliability of the narrator: The collective narrator in “A Rose for Emily” is unreliable. His account is tinged by gossip and community perceptions, which can lead to biased interpretations of events. This aspect adds a layer of complexity to the story, as the reader must discern reality from the narrator’s perceptions and biases.

Main themes addressed in the story

Isolation and loneliness: Emily Grierson is a profoundly isolated character, both physically and emotionally. This isolation is exacerbated by the death of her father and her inability to form meaningful relationships with others. Emily’s loneliness reflects her internal struggle and disconnection from the outside world.

Resistance to change: Resistance to change is a central theme in the story. Emily symbolizes it, clinging to traditions and ways of life. Her refusal to accept the death of her father and her relationship with Homer Barron are examples of her refusal to accept reality and adapt to change.

Decay: The story explores decay in the physical sense, with Emily’s house, and in the social and moral sense. The decay of Emily’s house parallels her own physical and mental deterioration and the decline of the traditions and values of the Old South.

Death: Death is a constant presence in the story, from the death of Emily’s father to her death and the revelation of Homer Barron’s corpse. Death is used to explore themes of loss, fear of loneliness, and the psychological impact of mortality.

Social Classes and Gender: The story addresses class differences and gender expectations in the South during the post-Civil War period. Emily, belonging to a family of high social standing, faces specific expectations due to her gender and class. Her relationship with Homer Barron, who represents a different social class and culture, challenges these norms.

Madness and obsession: Emily’s story also explores madness and obsession. Her behavior towards her dead father and Homer Barron suggests a disturbed mind, unable to accept reality and obsessed with maintaining control over her loved ones, even in death.

Tradition vs. modernity: The story reflects the conflict between the traditions of the Old South and the arrival of modernity. This theme is seen in Emily’s resistance to the new generations and how the community perceives her home and behavior.

Historical and cultural context

Published in 1930, the story is set in a small town in the southern United States and spans the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. This context reflects several significant social and cultural dynamics:

Post-American Civil War: The story is set in the South after the American Civil War. This era was one of significant social and economic change. The abolition of slavery and the defeat of the South led to a change in traditional social structures. This period was also marked by a struggle for reconstruction and the redefinition of Southern identity.

Reconstruction and resentment: The Reconstruction period saw attempts to integrate the defeated Southern states into the Union and to establish civil rights for formerly enslaved people. However, there was also strong resentment among many Southerners over these transformations, leading to racial and social tensions.

Decline of the Old South: Faulkner presents the Old South through Emily’s house and lifestyle. The physical decay of the house symbolizes the decay of a way of life and a set of values. The story captures the loss and nostalgia for an era that is disappearing.

Change vs. tradition: The South is transitioning, struggling between maintaining traditions and adapting to new changes. This is reflected in Emily’s resistance to accepting change in her life and her community.

Gender roles and social class: During this period, gender expectations and roles were firmly entrenched. As a woman from a high-status family, Emily faces specific pressures. Her isolation and defiant behavior can also be seen as a reaction to these restrictions.

Southern culture: Faulkner, a native of the American South, infuses the story with an intimate understanding of Southern culture. The importance of family reputation, honor, and community perceptions are central elements in the tale.

Conclusions or lessons to be drawn from the story.

Rather than offering direct conclusions or lessons, “A Rose for Emily” invites reflection on several critical aspects of human nature and society.

Impact of social isolation: The story illustrates how extreme isolation and lack of social interaction can lead to disorientation and madness. Emily Grierson, isolated first by her father and then by her own choices, shows how a lack of social connection can lead to destructive behavior and a distorted perception of reality.

Resistance to change and its consequences: The story reflects the struggle between change and tradition. Emily becomes a symbol of resistance to change, which ultimately leads to her ruin. This highlights that clinging to the past can impede personal growth and adaptation to new realities.

Effects of oppression and control: The oppressive influence of Emily’s father and the social expectations of the time illustrate how oppression and control can warp a person’s psyche. This suggests a critique of restrictive social structures and the imposition of rules that limit individual freedom.

Decay and death as universals: The story addresses the inevitability of decay and death in physical and symbolic terms. Emily’s story and the decay of her house are metaphors for mortality and the inevitable passage of time, universal themes in the human experience.

Reflection on social norms: The play also critiques social norms and how the community judges and labels individuals. The story questions the role of hearsay and community perceptions in shaping a person’s identity and reputation.

The importance of understanding and empathy: Although Emily is a tragic figure, the story invites readers to understand and empathize with her situation. This suggests a lesson about the importance of seeking to understand the struggles and contexts of others before judging them.

In conclusion, “A Rose for Emily” does not offer direct or explicit moral lessons; instead, it provides fertile ground for meditation on complex issues such as isolation, change, oppression, and the nature of society. Faulkner uses Emily’s story to explore these themes in a way that invites readers to reflect deeply on their meaning and relevance in the larger world.

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The South is Wilting | An analysis on A Rose for Emily

In 1860 the American South seceded from the Union to preserve their Southern way of life this consequently caused the American Civil War. After years of fighting, the South lost the Civil War and fell into the Reconstruction era lasting from the mid to late 1800s, stripping the South of everything but their proud Southern heritage. In William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” he uses his text as a metaphor for the South’s struggle to abandon their traditions for modernity during the Reconstruction era through the life of Miss Emily Grierson. Using themes of control, isolation, and attachment, Faulkner draws from his old Southern roots to illuminate the turmoil the South faced as they tried to prolong their way of life when everything else was out of their control. In the clash between modernity and traditions, Emily’s traditional neighbors control her attempts to evolve into a modern woman turning her private life into the public. The outside forces controlling Emily’s life ultimately push her to insanity and death as she also tries to preserve her way of life through one of the only things she can control: isolation.

Similar to the South during the Reconstruction era, Emily’s way of life is continually stripped away by outside forces until she decides to resist and control her own life. After the horrors of the Civil War, the federal government imposes reconstruction to rebuild the South and modernize its regressive traditions. At the beginning of reconstruction, the old generation of Southerners resisted modernization and clung to their traditions. However, as the era progressed, a new generation of Southerners took control of the modernization and adapted the region to create a New South and expand on their traditions. Being the last of a long line of Southern aristocrats, Miss Emily represents the end of the old generation and is a relic of her time. Similar to Miss Emily, the author descended from a long line of southern aristocrats and used his upbringing in Reconstruction-era Mississippi for the story. Faulkner’s background helps him draw parallels to the townspeople stopping Emily from modernizing to the South, stopping reconstruction from completely modernizing their home.

Due to her family’s high status, Emily is born into the life of a southern belle, which is a well-off woman who is confined to oppressive gender roles, and her value is based on her beauty and femininity. Under gender roles, southern belle’s are controlled by the men in their life and the critical eye of other high society women whose judgments of each other work to control their reputation and how the rest sees them of society. After the death of EMily’s father, the belle abandons gentry for a reconstructionist life like the new generation of Southerners. With her newfound freedom, Emily begins to evolve into a modern woman, and starts with finding a suitor that she approves of. Although her father was gone there were still people who wanted to keep Emily from evolving. Without knowing anything about her life, Emily’s generation or the old generation of Southerners continually works to control Emily’s personal life. Employing the help of the local priest and Emily’s distinct cousins in Alabama, the ladies of the town work hard to keep Emily in line and maintain the image of an idyllic Southern town.

When the ladies of the town notice how out of character Emily is, they work to stop her from ruining her status of being a “disgrace to the town” (Faulkner 1072) by modernizing and marrying a Yankee. These women want to stop Emily from being “a bad example to the young people” (Faulkner 1072) by giving them the idea to modernize instead of conforming to Jefferson’s traditional agenda. After the Civil War, this old generation of Southern ladies never returned to their way of life before reconstruction. However, groups such as the Daughters of the Confederacy (Hunter 1) used the next generation of Southerners to keep the fantasy of Antebellum South alive. These groups funded Confederate memorial statues, created museums, and educated their children with their skewed views. By controlling modern figures such as Emily, the old generation was able to shield the new generation of Southerners from reconstructionist ideas and created policies that fought modernization. Even though Emily resisted being controlled by her generation and married the Northerner, it came at a price. Emily lives out the rest of her life in isolation, serving a symbolic life sentence for not conforming to Southern society’s norms. Ultimately, by extracting herself from society, Emily loses all control over how the townspeople of Jefferson, Mississippi, view her, leaving herself vulnerable to the harsh judgments chronicled throughout the story.

Spending her early years isolated away from everyone in the town of Jefferson, Mississippi but her father no one really knows anything about Emily or her life, resulting in the misjudgements of the local townspeople. As Emily got older, she began to emerge into society, but quickly went back to isolation when she was criticized for not conforming with others. When Emily felt that she had lost almost all control over her life to the outside world, she took charge over one of the last aspects of her life where no one would control her. Lacking the ability to evolve without the critical eye of her generation, Emily isolates herself inside her home, allowing herself to be the only one to control her life instead of the outside world. Now free from the outside world, Emily finally has control to make her own choices within isolation but now in control she chooses not to control her life. Instead allowing everything around her to die, including the modern woman inside her which marks the end of her life leaving her with nothing to do but grow old in solitude. Emily’s grand home which used to be the model of classic Southern architecture and a representation of the past that the old generation longs for, turned into “an eyesore among eyesores,” (Faulkner 1066) consumed with the smell of Emily’s rotting husband. In her isolation, Emily’s life and everything around her begins to rot as the past is revealed to be not as great as it seems.

Clinging to a life they barely know; the old generation is attached to the past throughout the story. Retelling their idea of the lost cause of the Confederacy as if it were good old days, across the South to fight modernization. The townspeople of Jefferson, Mississippi work within their best interests to bring back the past and raise the next generation to live in a time centuries before them. Interested in the life of a woman they do not know; the old generation involves themselves in the personal life of Miss Emily Grierson to stop her from modernizing. Both groups attached to their own ideas, causing conflict which ends with both sticking to their own ideas. Both tightly clinging to their ideals without any space for adaptation, leads to severe consequences such as insanity by having no allies or obsession of pushing one’s agenda and pushing others to the side. The attachment of traditions led to the South’s struggle with Reconstruction and ultimate destruction of other people through hurtful policies such as Jim Crow. Evolution is needed to loosen the grip of one idea for future advancement that can occur, but due to the importance of preservation the South was isolated from the rest of America’s advancements. Making their situation similar to Emily’s as those in the South try to modernize while the townspeople represent the rest of the South who work to prevent the success of Reconstruction. Ultimately choosing to kill the idea of ever advancing without possibility of changing and symbolically rotting into the ugliness of the Jim Crow era.

Narrated by those who knew Miss Emily the least, the townspeople of Jefferson, Mississippi, recall their life through their critical lenses and speculation. As a product of her generation, Emily tries to evolve and break the oppressed Southern Belles’ trend, defined by superficial qualities. Emily’s story is a metaphor for the South’s constant battle due to the Reconstruction-era as they protected their traditions and defeated modernizing forces. Faulkner places all the worst aspects of reconstructionist south in Emily’s character. Highlighting the individuals who controlled the South’s narrative to preserve their traditions alongside their agenda, those who shut themselves into isolation to avoid judgments for modernizing, and the region’s attachment to a distant memory of Antebellum South. Ultimately the Reconstruction era engaged the South in another Civil War, as the majority fought off modernization and the minority faced a silent battle to any hope of a reformed South. With a region fighting against itself, it is easy to understand why Faulkner wrote “A Rose for Emily,” as an “an irrevocable tragedy” (Jelliffe 1) with citizens fighting against the advancement of their home to preserve their comfortable life. There is nothing you can do to stop this tragedy but pity and offer a rose to the neglected South out of pity of what the region could be instead of how it grew to be. 

Works Cited

A Rose for Emily. Directed by Lyndon Cubbuck. Performances by Anjelica Husto, John Randolph and John Carradine. Chubbuck Production Company, 1983.

Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” McDougal Littell Literature: American Literature . Ed. Applebee et al. 6th ed. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 2008. 1064-1077.

Gone with the Wind. Directed by Victor Fleming. Performances by Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, Selznick International Pictures, 1939.

Google Images for free and fair use.

Hunter, Alex. “Why ‘A Rose for Emily’ is a representation of Reconstruction South.” Medium. 2018. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@alexhunter365/why-a-rose-for-emily-is-a-representation-of-reconstruction-south-46c4b31978c8

Jelliffe, Robert. “Faulkner at Nagano.” Tokyo: Kenkyusha Ltd., 1956. Retrived from http://admin.faulkner.edu/admin/websites/cwarmack/William%20Faulkner%20speaks%20on.pdf

Oneclick. “Blooming Rose Flower || Time-Lapse Movie.” Youtube. 2018. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0TcPkdVsK8

A Rose for Emily

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Analysis: “A Rose for Emily”

William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is a short story that uses the life of Emily Grierson as a microcosm to explore the decline of the American South in the years following the Civil War. Emily, a reclusive woman, was once a prominent member of the town’s aristocracy. The story is told through the eyes of the townspeople, who recount Emily’s tragic life and mental decline. The narrative is divided into five sections, each of which reveals a new layer of Emily’s history and personality. Major themes include The Reconstruction Era and the Decline of the Old South , Challenging Early 20th-Century Southern Gender Roles , and The Dangers of Social Isolation .

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Critique for ‘A Rose for Emily’ Essay (Critical Writing)

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Introduction

Article summary, personal response.

First published in 1930, A Rose for Emily is a captivating must-read chef-d’oeuvre by Faulkner that artistically presents an account of a society that is immensely resistant to the inevitable change. Although the story is narrated in a manner that reflects a mix up of various chronological accounts, it is clear that the story can be analyzed from the perspectives of hidden messages underlying the themes of the story.

Dilworth (1999) is also inclined to this line of view when he asserts that Faulkner attempts to convey themes of change and death (p.253). Indeed, in the paper, I agree with this argument in the sense that, by using various references to A Rose for Emily, Dilworth evidences that death looms right from the first section to the fifth section of the story.

The themes of change are reflected by Miss Emily’s denial of the fate of death and refusal to comply with the obligation for paying taxes. In this perspective, Dilworth argues that the killing of Homer Barron “is eclipsed in the imagination of readers by evidence of some sort of necrophilia” (1999, p. 251).

The focus of this paper is to analyze the article, A Romance to Kill For: Homicidal Complicity in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” published in the journal of Studies in Short Fiction in terms of logicalness of the presented arguments coupled with giving the writer’s response to the article.

Dilworth sees the existing relationship between the narrator and Emily as largely symbiotic. This means that Emily and the society represented by the narrator can only exist mutually with each other. To reinforce this argument, Dilworth argues that the traits and behaviors of Emily are creations of the narrator thus implying that he presents Emily as the symbol of communicating what he believes to be the cultural values of the society in which he lives.

Arguably, therefore, the actions of the main character such as killing followed by evading justice and failure to pay taxes without any legal action being taken upon her are depictive of the eminent shortfalls of the white society of the south during the time of writing of the short story.

For instance, quoting a critique of the short story (Helen Nebeker), Dilworth affirms, “the narrator’s awareness of events implies long held knowledge of murder which the narrator has kept secret to preserve the honor and myth of the south” (p.253). Arguably, therefore, this means that the society was aware of certain atrocities that were committed by certain highly profiled persons and yet they could not be brought to book.

According to Dilworth, this happened due to the idealization of white women belonging to high-class social status. This is evidenced by Dilworth’s argument, “white women of class were not to be troubled by certain worldly obligations” (Dilworth, 1999, p.258). The negation from complying with the worldly obligations includes the refusal to pay taxes.

As Dilworth puts it, the society represented by Emily is highly segregated in terms of compliance to legal provisions. For instance, he argues that Emily went to buy arsenic though on request to explain what and how she meant to use it. She declined to reply although it was a legal requirement for her to do so. Nevertheless, the drug dealer could not force her to do it or even refuse to sell it to her.

Another issue that concerns Dilworth is the nature of the society depicted by Emily in terms of equal applicability of justice especially in the case where a stench issued from Emily’s house. When the matter was brought before a judge, he “refused to make a public issue of it since one does not accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad” (Dilworth, 1999, p.255). Dilworth does not hesitate to criticize the Christianity as being characterized by religious hypocrisy.

For instance, he argues that the fact that Emily and Barron lived together before they were legally married implied that the society engaged in fornication yet people like Emily were Christians. In this context, Dilworth claims that Emily “chose to enter into collusion with the society to the extent of maintaining her image as a proper high-class southern Christian” (Dilworth, 1999, p.255).

However, Dilworth maintains that he believes that the society never knew about the evils of Emily until her death, and a rotting corpse was found by the side of an indent of a woman with Emily’s hair resting on it. However, he also raises several counterarguments including the knowledge of the townspeople that she had bought arsenic, which, if she was to take it, could have made her kill herself (p.269). In a different perspective, this implies that Dilworth thinks that the townspeople are also capable of committing homicide.

One of the central concerns of Dilworth entails placing a logically substantive argument about the townspeople’s knowledge of homicide. In particular, Dilworth argues, “on the basis of the evidence, it is inconceivable, I think, that the townspeople did not know early on about Emily’s killing Homer Barron” (Dilworth, 1999, p.257).

Dilworth assumes that Emily must have expressed the guilt of her sins among the townspeople even though they may not have talked about it amongst themselves. In this argument, there is a breach of one element of logical argument. There lacks a direct evidence from the story depicting Emily in any state of remorse or any other form of emotion that shows her feeling for being sorry for either killing her lover or by denying her father’s death for four days.

However, in linking Emily with the death of Barron, Dilworth uses evidence from the story to prove his argument. For instance, he quotes the townspeople’s knowledge of the last time that they saw Barron enter his lover’s house by arguing out, “they knew that her lover was last seen entering at the kitchen door at dusk one evening” (Dilworth , 1999, p.258).

However, an alternative argument is considered in this particular situation whereby one would also think that Barron could have moved out of the house without the knowledge on the townspeople by chance just as it was by chance that they saw her enter the house. Therefore, although he provides evidence that it happened after Emily had bought the arsenic, Barron having deserted her, when a stench came out upon entering the house. Therefore, it becomes hard to approximate the time of poisoning exactly.

Dilworth places a question on why the four men sent by town council members to “scatter lime around the foundation of the house, in her cellular” (p.257) executed this task while they could have conceived that the intensity of the smell was far greater than that of a rotting rat or a snake as suggested by the judge.

While it could be possible for the four men to suspect that the smell should have emanated from a large corpse, it is also important to note that they could have possibly suspected that the corpse was of a human being if the men knew that Emily had the capacity to kill.

This is only possible if they had the experience of situations in which Emily had killed people and buried them secretly. In this sense, it becomes hard to prove that the four men had the knowledge that Emily could have killed somebody. Amid this argument, Dilworth is quick to point out that there is no evidence of what the four men thought of because Faulkner does not tell the reader about their thoughts. Consequently, this argument is illogical since it lacks evidences and necessary proofs.

Emily had engaged in a number of instances in which she defied her noble responsibilities to the state. She was defiant. Nevertheless, should this be enough to form the basis for the townspeople to suspect her as having taken her lover’s life? In this context, Dilworth argues, “apart from the recent or long awareness of the closed room, knowledge of Emily’s buying arsenic, her refusal to state its purpose, and the memory of the smell of corruption are enough to suggest a 40-year-old suspicion, if not outright certainty of murder” (p.259).

Logically, it is clear that Dilworth implies that, since the townspeople could have had the awareness of the situations in which Emily deviated from the moral line, the situations are also likely indicators of her involvement with killing her lover.

Unfortunately, the situations are distinctive: a clear margin can be drawn between them. Their interconnection that a situation results to another unrelated situation is a complete departure from logical reasoning since the evidences are not connected directly with the consequences associated with each situation.

There are many ways of interpreting or attaching meaning for any literary work. One way is to interpret it from the context of its setting. Historically, racial discrimination, denial of certain rights to women, and even belief in the superiority of persons in the high-class social group were issues that had to be dealt with in the early 20 th century.

A Rose for Emily seems to be set within this chronological period. Consequently, it is possible that, through Emily, Faulkner actually portrayed the differences among people in relation to their social status.

This means that the society may have known about the evils committed by Emily. However, because of the fear associated with her social status, they could not have confronted her. From the arguments raised by Dilworth implicating Emily with the death of her lover, it is arguable that Emily’s failure to respond to the druggist about the purpose of the arsenic is an evidence of suspecting her to have poisoned her lover.

Otherwise, from the story itself, the reader is only told that the status of the corpse by the time it was found was in the last stages of decomposition. Nothing shows that the cause of death was through poisoning. This makes it hard to determine whether Emily actually poisoned rats, just as the arsenic was labeled ’for rats,’ or her lover.

A Rose for Emily is a short story written by Faulkner. It attracts valid interpretations. In this paper, the focus was to analyze Dilworth’s article ‘A Romance to Kill For: Homicidal Complicity in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” who provides one of the ways of interpreting the short story. The concern was to scrutinize the logic of the arguments presented by Dilworth. The paper has argued that, while some arguments are logical, others lack adequate evidence to support them.

Dilworth, T. (1999). A Romance to Kill For: Homicidal Complicity in Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily. Studies in short fiction, 36 (3), 251-264.

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IvyPanda. (2018, November 6). Critique for ‘A Rose for Emily’. https://ivypanda.com/essays/critique-for-a-rose-for-emily/

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IvyPanda . 2018. "Critique for ‘A Rose for Emily’." November 6, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/critique-for-a-rose-for-emily/.

1. IvyPanda . "Critique for ‘A Rose for Emily’." November 6, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/critique-for-a-rose-for-emily/.

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A Rose for Emily

William faulkner.

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The Post Civil-War South

Before the American Civil War (known as the “antebellum South”), the South’s economy relied on the agricultural output of plantations, large farms owned by wealthy Southern whites who exploited black slave labor to keep operating costs as low as possible. By its very nature, plantation life gave rise to a rigid social hierarchy—one in which wealthy white farmers were treated like aristocrats, middle-class and poor whites like commoners, and blacks like property. Along with this…

Tradition vs. Progress

Even as white Southerners in the short story cling to their pre-Civil War traditions, ideals, and institutions, the world around them is quickly changing. Agriculture is being supplanted by industry, and aristocratic neighborhoods with their proud plantation-style houses like the Grierson’s are being encroached upon by less grandiose but more economically practical garages and cotton gins. Likewise, the post- Sartoris generation of authorities in Jefferson—those men who belong to the Board of Aldermen that governs…

Patriarchal Authority and Control

Members of Jefferson’s Board of Alderman, whether old and gallant and nostalgic for the Old South like Sartoris or young and business-like such as the newer generation of authorities, all have something in common: they are all male and govern over—and to the exclusion of—women. Faulkner foregrounds this dynamic when he has his narrator recall Sartoris’s law requiring all black women to wear their aprons in public, and dramatizes it in Miss Emily’s relationships with…

Time and Narrative

“A Rose for Emily” is not a linear story, where the first event treated brings about the next, and so on—rather, it is nonlinear, jumping back and forth in time. However, there is a method to this temporal madness: the story opens with Miss Emily’s funeral, then goes back in time, slowly revealing the central events of Miss Emily’s life, before going back forward in time to the funeral. There, in the story’s final scene…

Gossip, Social Conventions, and Judgment

“A Rose for Emily” is narrated by a plural “we” voice, which stands in for the memory of the collective town. In this way, the story can be read as the town’s collective, nostalgically tinged, darkly disturbed memory. And yet that collective voice has a darker edge than a simple collective memory. Because of that collective narrator, “A Rose for Emily” is also a collection of town gossip centering on Miss Emily , generated by…

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A Rose for Emily: Literary Analysis Essay

William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” Literary Analysis In William Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily” his main character Miss Emily Grierson’s deranged behavior leaves the reader questioning her mental status. Emily comes from a family with high expectations of her a sort of “hereditary obligation” (30). Emily has been mentally manipulated by her as so indicated in the line of the story “we did not say she was crazy then we believed she had to do that we remember all the young men her father had driven away” (32). There is already proof of mental illness in the family “remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great aunt, had gone completely crazy last” (32). The first indication the narrator gives us of Miss Emily’s …show more content…

During the conversation Miss Emily tells the men “See Colonel Sartoris . I have no taxes in Jefferson” (31). Colonel Sartoris has been dead for almost ten years. Emily’s behavior not only shows mental instability but also that she may be delusional and confused. “She was sick for a long time. When we saw her again, her hair was cut short making her look like a girl” (32). Through this image the narrator portrays Emily regressing back to her youth. It is at this point that Miss Emily is being seen around town with a young contractor named Homer Barron. Emily’s behavior takes another dramatic strange twist when she visits the druggist and requests some poison. The druggist asked Miss Emily “What kind? For rats and such?” (33). to which Emily responds “I want the best one you have. I don’t care what kind” (33). It is at this point that we truly begin to question if Miss Emily has foul intentions. “She will kill herself” “She will marry him” “She will persuade him yet” (33). These statements were made in regard to Miss Emily’s relationship with Homer Barron. Homer himself had stated that he liked men, he was known to drink with the younger men in the Elks Club, and that he was not a marrying man. In light of Homers feelings toward marriage Emily had been seen in town at the jewelers purchasing a men’s toilet set in silver with the letters H.B. on each

A Rose For Emily Journal Entry Analysis

After reading “A Rose for Emily”, I feel mournful for Emily because of the fact that it seems like she had some sort of mental illness and perhaps she killed her husband by accident because of it. Over the course of the story, readers are most definitely puzzled by Miss Emily’s mysterious and unusual behavior. Although it’s not quite articulated by Faulkner directly, there are various instances throughout the story that hint to the readers about Emily’s awful mental condition.

William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily Essay

• 4 Works Cited

In William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily,” the main character of the story is Miss Emily Grierson. To analyze and examine her character, it is almost impossible not to look at the psychological aspect of it. Through the narrative of Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” Miss Emily’s behavior and character is revealed as outright strange from any average standard of characters.

Mental Illness In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

Early in the story, before the extent of her symptoms has become clear. Rather, it is her refusal to listen to aldermen at all that makes her more than just a stubborn town weirdo. There are two other incidents that are equally telling. When Miss Emily goes to the store to buy poison, she is described as lacking in emotions, withholding information from the pharmacist about the reason for her request. The other important episode, besides the obvious psychotic act of sleeping with a corpse, involves Miss Emily’s purchases of items for the man that the town believes is her husband to be who is dead and decaying in Miss Emily’s bed. Indeed, when the townspeople kick down the bedroom door years later, the narrator describes a scene that is “adorned and furnished for a honeymoon” frozen in time and covered with spider webs and tarnish (Faulkner 2165). It is obvious Miss Emily’s understanding of reality had slipped completely

A Rose For Emily Literary Analysis

In the short story, “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner uses a modernistic style of writing combined with Southern Gothic themes to show how strange or “perverse” of a character Emily Grierson is. The story is split into five parts which all take place throughout Emily’s life. These five parts are not in chronological order. Not until the story is looked at in chronological order will the reader understand the full personality and life of Emily Grierson.

A Rose For Emily By William Faulkner

Miss Emily Grierson, the main character in William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily,” is definitely an odd character by the standards of an average reader. The character analysis of Miss Emily could follow any number of roads. It would be hard as a reader not to examine her from a psychological perspective as well as within the context that surrounds the character. Throughout the short story of Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” Miss Emily’s peculiar and unstable behavior becomes strikingly unpredictable, and the reader like the townspeople in the story, is left to determine why Miss Emily has spent many years living and lying next to the dead body of Homer Barron. One of the important quotes in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” the townspeople “did not say she was crazy” at first (Magalaner and Volpe 152), and of course, she was never evaluated by a medical professional. Yet by the end of the story, the reader can travel back through the story and recognize many occurrences in which Miss Emily’s behavior hinted towards the possibility of a mental illness, even if the townspeople wanted to remain oblivious to this fact and allow her to remain a monument in Jefferson. Emily never receives any form of mental treatment, but definitely shows signs and symptoms of mental illness. In fact, these details could be used to reinforce the affirmation that Miss Emily suffered from mental illness, quite possibly Schizophrenia as defined by the

A Rose For Emily Character Analysis

In the beginning, it states that, “A deputation waited upon her, knocked at the door through which no visitor had passed since she ceased giving china-painting lessons eight or ten years earlier.” (W. Faulkner, 85) This indicates that Miss Emily was isolated, she cut herself off from the community and did not have much social interaction in a long period. This was after her father’s death, this may have partially contributed to Miss Emily losing her touch and becoming a delusional woman. As well as, Miss Emily isolating herself away from everyone for all those years. These are both contributing factors to what may have led Emily Grierson to become this way.

A Rose For Emily Literary Analysis Essay

An aristocratic woman, Miss Emily Grierson, lived in the Old Grierson family home until she died at the age of 74. Everyone in the town knew of this once “Southern Belle”, but as the years passed, people of the town never really knew the secrets Miss Emily was keeping. William Faulkner’s gothic romantic story “A Rose for Emily” uses symbolism as points of time to unveil Miss Emily’s mysterious past and reveal the horror of the present. By incorporating the Grierson house, stationary, hair, body features and other objects into the story line, Faulkner explains why Miss Emily’s love life and seclusion made her an eccentric person.(Faulkner)

Even though, the narrator makes a slight mention that Homer was seen again entering Miss Emily?s house, the next time a description of Emily is given, she is alone, fat and her hair was iron gray. (4,

Outcasts In A Rose For Emily

She is able to put up a front of normalcy for the town while with him by going about their business normally enough, buying him presents, hinting at marriage(Walker). But due to the strain on Emily, by her father, the town, and her own warped perspective on life, her courtship of Homer Barron ultimately led to his end. After a life of being abandoned by suitors, her father, and arguably the town, she was adamant to sustain her relationship with Homer. Knowing it was the only way to remain in her blissful state, she took her measures to extreme. Nonetheless, his death brought about a change in Emily’s mental state. The struggles were finally resolved. The tension with the town, her past abuse, and her entire life of loneliness, no longer would have an effect on her. Because of Homer’s tomb in the upstairs room, Emily was able to create a world where everything made sense. A world where everything was calm, peaceful, and normal. A world that truly made her

Miss Emily Grierson, the main character in the strange short story “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner. It would be best to examine her in a mental capacity as well as the circumstances that may affect her. Throughout the story, Miss Emily’s unpredictable and eccentric behavior becomes unusual, and the reader, like the townspeople in the story, is left to speculate how Miss Emily has spent years living and sleeping with the body of Homer Barron.

A Rose For Emily Grierson Character Analysis

William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”, displayed a dark and gothic tone and theme. Miss Emily was not only mentally ill, but was an old lady that needed the help that she deserved instead of people talking about her. Emily Grierson exemplifies a psychotic nature by preserving deceased bodies and by inheriting her insanity from her own aunt. Instead of assuming her insanity and questioning about her, people should have actually been worrying for the reason behind this chaos. Society judged her and gave her labels based on her surprising and disturbing actions. Being insane was just a normal for Miss Emily

Rose For Emily Point Of View Analysis

As the town watched Emily and Homer’s relationship, Emily seemed to be happy and making an effort to turn her life around. She would actually leave the house and go out to town with him, the first sign of normality they had seen of her. But one day, the town realized that Homer was no longer around and was not “surprised” at his

Rose For Emily Conflict

With the need of a emotional equivalent, she begins to have feelings for a member of the repair crew on the sidewalk, named Homer Barron. The reality of them being married was no existent because, “Homer himself had remarked-he liked men, and it was known that he drank with others in the Elk’s club-that he was not a marrying man” (Faulkner 725). Homer basically said to the men he simply wanted to use her for her body, and after the sidewalk was finished. He would go onto his next Job and would probably never see Emily again. Soon Emily found this out and went to go buy poison from a vendor. After, “That was the last we saw of Homer Barron” (Faulkner 726). This was the last time Homer was seen before thirty years later, Homer’s body was located in a locked room upstairs. This shows how difficult it was for Emily to let go of the reality that Homer did not want to be with her. And this also explains why they found a lock of hair next to Homer’s dead body. It was because Emily had a desire for physical and emotional

What Is The Message Of A Rose For Emily

Homer Barron was the first person Emily has dated since her father died. Emily gifted Homer and the town was under the impression that the couple were married. Although in reality Emily has killed Homer Barron because she was afraid he would leave her, he was described as “not the marrying kind,” and that he could be gay. Emily did not know how to react to the relationship, and must have known due to those rumors she could not keep him. Therefore Emily kills Homer to keep him by her side forever, and to control him. Emily continues to sleep with the dead body until she dies because she refused to believe he was going to leave her. Once the townspeople enter the house to pay their respects they realize the horrible truth about Emily and Homer in the “wedding place.” The only reality of Emily was that she has built a frame around a world where everything felt good, and stayed in that moment where she felt the greatest in

Analysis Of A Rose For Emily

Emily started to date Homer Barron, who was a part of the construction company in her town. Eventually they would always go out together for their Sunday drives, but the towns people would start to gossip more and more about Emily and Barron. According to her father men

Related Topics

• Mental illness
• William Faulkner

A Rose for Emily

by William Faulkner

Discussion Topic

Critiques and Psychoanalytical Analysis of "A Rose for Emily"

Critiques and psychoanalytical analysis of "A Rose for Emily" often focus on themes of isolation, mental illness, and the impact of societal expectations. Emily Grierson's behavior can be interpreted through a Freudian lens, examining her dysfunctional relationship with her father and her inability to adapt to change. The story also critiques the Old South's resistance to progress and the resulting decay.

characters: Emily Grierson

characters: Miss Emily

plot: part 2

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What are your critiques on "A Rose for Emily"?

A critique essay presents a critical analysis of a literary work, in this case William Faulkner 's short story “ A Rose for Emily .” Such an essay determines the overall message of the story, what the author means for it to accomplish, what lessons he means to show and teach, and then discusses how each element of the story contributes (or not) to that overall message.

Your first step in preparing this assignment, then, is to read the story closely and determine its message. You might, for instance, decide that the story is all about the need to let go of the past, or about the conflict between the past and the present, or about the desire to have control over everything including death (or some combination of these). This main message will form part of your thesis statement along with your claim about how well the story presents the message (extraordinarily well, perhaps, or somewhat well or not well at all).

The body of your essay will cover the literary elements that support the message (or not). You might talk about plot, conflict, characterization , setting, figurative language, theme, point of view, and resolution. For instance, if you are arguing that the story presents its message in a highly effective way, you might focus in on the character of Miss Emily as a representation of someone who refuses to let go of the past and make a change even if that means killing someone to keep him with her.

Your essay will end with a conclusion that restates your thesis and presents your readers with a point to ponder, perhaps with regard to their own desires to live in the past or their own inabilities to accept change.

Cite this page as follows:

Troolin, Amy. "Critiques and Psychoanalytical Analysis of "A Rose for Emily"" edited by eNotes Editorial, 2 Nov. 2021, https://www.enotes.com/topics/rose-emily/questions/critiques-and-psychoanalytical-analysis-of-a-rose-3118929.

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Write a literary analysis of some aspect of "A Rose for Emily."

You might want to approach this question by examining one of the themes in the story and its development in the tale. The theme of isolation is an interesting one to look at, as Emily Grierson is part of this tightly-knit community where clearly everybody knows everybody else's business, and yet somehow, Miss Emily remains strangely isolated throughout her entire life. Note how at the beginning of the story Miss Emily is described as "a fallen monument" for which the men have a respectful affection for. She is likewise described as a "tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town." This is a rather strange statement to make when we consider how little Emily has been involved in the town and how defiantly she has kept herself to herself. In her childhood, it was her father who kept her isolated, but after his death, this is something that she continued herself, apart from her few shopping trips, jaunts with Homer Barron and the art classes that she gives.

However, although it appears Miss Emily couldn't care less about the town, she is clearly a topic of hot gossip. Again and again, the narrator talks of how her actions excite comment from all of the townspeople, especially concerning her relationship with Homer Barron:

So the next day we all said, "She will kill herself"; and we said it would be the best thing. When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, we had said, "She will marry him." Then we said, "She will persuade him yet," because Homer himself had remarked--he liked men,and it was known that he drank with the younger me in the Elks' Club--that he was not a marrying man.

Throughout the story then, the townspeople hotly comment on her life and actions, revealing an interesting conflict. Even though Miss Emily regards herself as separate from the rest of the town, they regard her as one of their own.

Hathaway, John. "Critiques and Psychoanalytical Analysis of "A Rose for Emily"" edited by eNotes Editorial, 8 June 2011, https://www.enotes.com/topics/rose-emily/questions/critiques-and-psychoanalytical-analysis-of-a-rose-3118929.

An essay about William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" will explore some aspect of the story in depth by making a claim about the story's meaning and supporting that claim with solid reasons and evidence. Let's do some brainstorming to get you started.

Begin by asking yourself some questions about the story. You might reflect on why Emily commits murder, for instance, or whether the townspeople should have behaved differently toward Emily and if that would have prevented the tale's tragic outcome. You could think about what the story has to say about changing times and about how some people get left behind in the modern world.

As you reflect on the story, you should begin to develop the thesis for your essay. This is the claim that you are going to make and then support. You might, for instance, argue that Emily's primary motive is loneliness, brought on by both her own pride and the neglect of the townspeople. Alternately, you might claim that Emily is driven by her mental illness (which runs in the family) and by years of hurt from many sources.

You should support your thesis by drawing reasons and evidence from the story itself. If you focus on Emily's pride, for instance, you might talk about her treatment of the townspeople who come to collect taxes and her standoffish nature. If you focus on the mental illness in the family, you might discuss Emily's uncle and Emily's own behavior. Progress through your argument logically, supporting every claim and reason directly from the story, and be sure to end with a conclusion that restates your thesis and leaves your readers with a point to ponder.

Troolin, Amy. "Critiques and Psychoanalytical Analysis of "A Rose for Emily"" edited by eNotes Editorial, 27 Sep. 2022, https://www.enotes.com/topics/rose-emily/questions/critiques-and-psychoanalytical-analysis-of-a-rose-3118929.

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What is the psychoanalytical criticism of "A Rose for Emily"?

A psychoanalytical criticism or reading of "A Rose for Emily" would seek to understand Miss Emily Grierson's psychology and use that to explain her bizarre actions in the short story.

Freudian psychoanalytical theory makes much of children's relationships with their parents, so we would definitely want to examine Emily's relationship to her father. We know that Emily inherits a sense of entitlement from her father, as she wants to continue the traditions of privilege enjoyed by her family in past generations, even as the world around her progresses from the antebellum South to the modern world. The first odd detail we hear about Emily and her father is introduced in Part II of the story, when we learn about her father's death. The narrator relates,

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.

Emily is clearly in denial about her father's death; she refuses to accept that he is truly gone. She keeps this up for three days, and even though several people try to convince her that he is dead and they must take his body away, she refuses. It takes threats of "law and force" to make Emily eventually "[break] down" and let them in. The burial is taken care of swiftly. The narrator reflects that, at this point, they did not think of Miss Emily as insane:

We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.

The community actually understands why Emily acted the way she did. The reason they give is "all the young men her father had driven away." This little detail tells us much more: Miss Emily had suitors, but her father did not approve of any of them. In a way, he made sure she was single, alone. Now that her father is gone, she has no one. The people of the town understand that "she would have to cling to that which had robbed her." In other words, they are doing some psychoanalysis of their own.

If we look at the parallel scenario of Homer Barron's death/disappearance, we can see Emily repeating some of her previous actions following her father's death. Repeated actions are sometimes seen in trauma survivors, as they replay the moment of the trauma. Further, we can see Emily trying to avoid loss a second time through her murder of Homer. Because we hear from an outside perspective, we have to put pieces together on our own, but the story suggests that Homer may have been about to leave Emily rather than marry her. In an effort to keep him with her, she poisons him and lives with his body for many years. Emily is able to replay the death of her father but with more success this time because she can keep the man with her instead of having him taken away. He is only discovered after Emily's death. Many readers are sickened by what they imagine to be Emily's necrophilia, but if we look at the clues to her psychology in the story, we, like the townsfolk, can understand that she is trying desperately to cling to what she has left to avoid loss, loneliness, and solitude.

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Baumgartner, Ester. "Critiques and Psychoanalytical Analysis of "A Rose for Emily"" edited by eNotes Editorial, 6 Apr. 2018, https://www.enotes.com/topics/rose-emily/questions/critiques-and-psychoanalytical-analysis-of-a-rose-3118929.

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