critical analysis on a rose 4 emily.docx
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1. The short story A Rose For Emily written by William Faulkner
is a tale about an old woman named Emily living in the town of
Jefferson. The story is written in the classic Faulkner method of
a streaming consciousness. A Rose For Emily illustrates the
theme of decay in the town, the house, and in Miss Emily
herself. Set in the early nineteen hundreds, the story opens
with the town finding out about Emily's death. The story is told
by an unknown narrator who lives in the town of Jefferson. We
learn of the life and times of Emily, and her relationship with
the town, her father, and her lover. At the end of the story we
find out about the disturbing truth that Emily Grierson was
hiding.
As Emily grows older so does the town that she has lived in for
her entire life. While she had once lived on one of the nicest
streets in Jefferson, the street in now considered to be one of
the worst in the town. It would seem that the street had agedand decayed with Miss Emily. In her youth, Emily and her family
were respected and known as some of Jefferson's finest
citizens. As Emily has grown older the town sees her in a
different way. In her old age she is seen as a monument to the
past that is never seen outside of her house. All of the respect
that her father had earned died with the old men and women
of the town. The old ways of the town of Jefferson decayed and
passed away with all of the men and women that had called it
home.
The house that Emily lives in was at one time one of the most
beautiful homes in the whole town of Jefferson. In Emily's
youth the house was always well kept. As Miss Emily aged so
did the house she lived in. The house became an eyesore for
the entire town. With faded paint and an unkempt yard it even
began to smell at one point. The men of the old Jefferson
would never tell a lady that her house smelled so they cured
the odor themselves. It would seem that the house and Emily
where connected in a way. Both of them had grown old and
lost their splendor. The house was also looked at in the same
way as Emily. They where looked at as a monument to the past.
Emily had once been one of the most beautiful ladies in
Jefferson. With her father alive no man dared to court her. As
Emily grew older she began to decay and lose some of her
looks. In her old age she became a fat and gray haired old
women. It would also seem that her mind had decayed as well.
She had one love, Homer Barron, which the town had believed
had left her. It is revealed at the end of the story that he in fact
did not leave Miss Emily. Emily had poisoned Mr Barron and left
his body in her bed. Emily's mind had decayed to such a point
that she was not aware of what was right or wrong. She could
not even understand what was normal. The state of mind that
she was in explains why she and the house had decayed to such
a point.
While Faulkner had many themes in "A Rose For Emily", the
theme of decay was the most prevalent throughout the entirestory. The town of Jefferson, the house, and Emily all grew old.
Miss Emily lost her mind and her looks. The house lost the
beauty it once held due to old age. The town of Jefferson
changed and grew old. What had once been a nice southern
town had decayed. William Faulkner truly wrote a wonderful
story about an old women who loses her mind. "A Rose For
Emily" shows the way in which we all grow old and decay.
2.When one reads "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, it is
easy to be overwhelmed by the very obvious gender issues
contained therein. Almost every other line has something to do
with what the women do, or how the men act. It is not so much
a story about Emily herself, the seemingly crazy old spinster, as
it is about the townspeople who lead her to do what she does.
It is narrated by an unknown character, who often refers to his
or herself as "we", implying that this person is an active
member of the community in which Emily lives. The narrator
constantly brings gender to the forefront, and makes a very
clear distinction of how each gender reacts to certain
situations. Miss Emily Grierson herself was not as insane as the
story made her out to be. Emily was driven to such a fate by the
stereotypical gender depiction of the townspeople, for the sole
reason of not residing within these standards.
Faulkner wastes no time in revealing gender concerns in his
story. The narrator begins by telling us what the town's women
did at the funeral versus the men, setting up a stereotype that
is reinforced heavily throughout the story. "When Miss Emily
Grierson dies, 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". Women are presented to us as having a somewhat
callous view, being nothing more than nosy and fraudulent in
their funeral attendance. Faulkner continues to assault us with
an ill will towards women. It is said of the town's debt to Emily
that "only a man of Colonel Sartoris' generation and thought
could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed
it". It seems later that Faulkner attempts to (negatively)
stereotype men too, but the stereotyping is done by the
women in the story. This further pushes an unfriendly stance onfemales. "'Just as if a man-any man-could keep a kitchen
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properly,' the ladies said; so they were not surprised when the
smell developed".When the smell developed in Miss Emily's
home, it was a woman, very clearly, that first complained
rather unkindly to the mayor. Faulkner makes no secret and no
excuse of his view on women. In "A Rose for Emily" women are
presented very harshly by him, whereas the men in the story
are given more of a glorified stance.
The men in "A Rose for Emily" are given positions of power and
are respected highly by the women. All of the male main
characters (apart from the Negro, which clearly signifies racial
issues) hold a high position within the town. Even when their
job does not warrant it, as in the case of Homer Barron, a
foreman of a construction company, he is respected and known
for his good humor and cruelty to the "niggers". Judge Stevens,
Colonel Sartoris, and Emily's father all preside over andsometimes intimidate the women with their power, wealth and
manhood. The town's men are presented as an obverse
reaction to the town's women, doing everything completely
opposite, and presumably in Faulkner's eyes, correctly. They
are given a certain authority by the narrator, which is severely
lacking in the case of the women, save one.
Emily Grierson is given to us as a mysterious and dissimilar
character, differing greatly from all of the other characters
within the story. Faulkner chose to write her almost as a male
character, possessing more of their qualities than that of the
women in the town. The mere three times that she actually
speaks for herself in the story, she speaks with great authority
and spite. She refuses to believe what the men are telling her,
going so far as to interrupt them and have them thrown out of
her house by her Negro housekeeper, who happens to be male,
turning the previous gender and racial statements on their
heads. This was incredibly taboo and rare for a woman of her
time to do. She is given some strong qualities, and seems as if
she has a mind of her own. But for all the unique personality
traits she is given, she too falls prey to the power of the men,
embodied in her father and in Homer. She can't hold herself
when she loses them, which shows her dependance on the
dominant male figure. "After her father's death she went out
very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw
her at all". It is only revealed at the very end that she had kept
the body of her "sweetheart", proving her dependance and
disbelief in death. We see it with her father as well, when she
refuses to relinquish his body even days after he had passed.
Emily is very unlike any other woman in the town, and thiscauses static among the community. She is given certain
attributes by the town's women, which may or may not be
correct. They constantly gossip and meddle in her affairs,
saying, in succession, "She will kill herself", "She will marry
him", "She will persuade him yet" and finally, "Poor Emily". She
is never given a voice of her own, and her character is
developed largely by the town, and what they think of her
"odd" ways. She is hounded, criticized and almost idolized for
being different, and not fitting within the stereotypical realm of
women that Faulkner has given to us. It seems that Emily only
wants to be left alone, and that her actions are read so deeply
into that even she begins to succumb to them. She is delivered
by the town's women into the arms of deep seclusion, and
obviously, of deepening madness.
Through Faulkner's writings, we can easily see his sharp-edged
views on gender. He reinforces them not only by writing aboutit, but by showing the consequences of what happens when a
woman doesn't stick to her role, as in the case of poor Emily
Grierson. His writings reveal a snapshot of the times in which
they were written, and how most women depended deeply on
a male figure, and meddled into other's business when they
congregated. "A Rose for Emily" is thoroughly infected with
gender inequalities, as can be detected by even the most
simple and straightforward reading. Emily Grierson was only
slightly outside of the women's stereotype, and for that, she
was driven into solitude and ultimately, into insanity.
The man himself lay in the bedwhat was left of him, rotted
beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become
inextricable from the bed in which he lay (Faulkner).The body
from years gone by is met with shock and unease with the town
peoples of a new era. William Faulkners A Rose for Emily can
be seen using the New Critical approach as a story of an older
and outdated generation struggling to find its home in the
modern era.
3. The New Critical approach to studying literature does
not look at external influences on a piece of literature. It looks
at just the piece. It focuses on the text as a discrete object
and looks for features within the story such as
imagesymboltensionand irony (Guerin et al. 121). The
text itself is the legend to the literature map. There is no need
to look beyond the words that reveal the multi-layers of the
story. Just by the way the author has arranged the words can
give insight. The phrases he uses helps to clear the muddy
waters. In fact, as the reader a llows the words, phrases,
metaphors, images, and symbols to do the job they were
intended to do, the piece of literature will display its own
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internal logic (Guerin et al. 75). The reader just needs to be
aware of the form of the literary piece and be willing to pick up
on what the piece has to say.
In looking at A Rose for Emily, one does not need to
concern themselves with Faulkners past or the time in which
he wrote it. In the New Critical approach, that means nothing
as it should come out in the text if it is important and plays a
part of holding the fibers of the story together. Everything one
needs to truly see the heart of this short story of Faulkners in
found his words describing Emilys life and death. Various
themes can arise including one major one: the past versus the
present.
From the beginning of the short story, there is a
comparison drawn between the days of old and that of themore modern times of when the story is set. There is tension
between two generations (Fu Jen University). Emily was
called a fallen monument and her house as stubborn and
coquettish decay while comparing it to the modern gasoline
pumps next to the house (Faulkner). From there Faulkner
describes how she was a town fixture that the newer
generation had inherited. The town saw her as a tradition, a
duty, and a care (Faulkner). She was a figure of an era long
gone by. They viewed her as a defunct institution, someone
who served a purpose at one time but had outlived herusefulness aside from gossip and speculation (Heller). She,
along with her house, refuses to move forward and remained
frozen in the past. It becomes a tug of war between the
generations.
As the tensions escalate between the town and Emilys
way of life, the differences between her and the town become
more apparent. Images of death and the past appear in the
same scenes with Emily and her life. Even her correspondence
is reminiscent of the distant past when the town received a
reply from her on paper o f archaic shape, in thin, flowing
calligraphy in faded ink (Faulkner).
Her home is kept in the shadows of a time that is more.
Visitors do not see bright rooms and hallways. Instead they only
see shadows and seeing how the house smelled of d ust and
disuse(Faulkner). The furniture was old and beat up and
showed no use. Her entire being was encased in a time that no
one in the town could connect to.
After a span of time withdrawing into her home, Emily
reaches out to the town and attempts to connect to the ones
who were coming up in the ranks by offering classes on how to
paint china in her home. When the newer generation became
the backbone and the spirit of the town, Emily lost her
students who were no longer interested in what she had to
offer (Faulkner). This led her to close her door on the world
that she could not find a home in and was not accepted as she
was.
With the final attempt to be a part of a world that
rejected her, she refused to even do the simple things that the
new world required of her including putting postal numbers on
her house. She closed up parts of the house and presented the
town of picture of stubbornness and a reminder of a time long
ago that they could not relate to.
It is only upon her death that Emily fades into the past
where she belonged. She is buried among those that were part
of history. It is also upon her death that the town discovers how
far in the past she had buried herself. The body of her lover
who had been assumed to have deserted her was found in the
upper floors that had been enclosed as in a tomb. She
essentially enclosed herself into a tomb along with the lover
she poisoned.
Emily refuses to let go of the past where was happiestand more comfortable. She kept the house as it had been for
decades. She refused to let her lover leave her and kept him
through death in a tomb she created just for him and her. She
rejected the world even though she reached out a few times
and felt the pain of rejection. She was a relic of the past who
formed the past in the present to find some peace in her soul.
The tomb becomes her own as she takes her place beside the
body of Homer. The past cannot be severed.
Just by reading the story and letting the words take the
reader the tomb of Emilys life, the New Critical approach does
not need excessive research. It allows the words to expose the
depths of the story instead of the reader having to put in extra
energy. The work is done by Fualkners pen as Emilys life is
woven to reveal the darkness of her past.
4. The story A Rose for Emily can be viewed as criticism of the
post-Civil War Southern society. Reading this story, we find very
blatant, almost stereotypical depictions of the harshest parts of colonial Southern culture, including racism and class structure.
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Faulkner is clearly commenting on the ways of his own culture
which he finds unfair or unjust.
Racism is an unforgettable part of southern history which
Faulkner certainly explores in A Rose for Emily. In the third
paragraph, Faulkner begins by almost randomly reminding us of
the law that "no Negro woman should appear on the streets
without an apron," to remind us of the sort of culture the story
is set against (96). In the story itself, the only African-American
character in the story is rarely referenced by name, referred to
throughout the story simple as "the Negro." The nameless
character has virtually no lines, and his only interaction with
the white characters is very limited. Here Faulkner showing the
"silent Negro" of the South, demonstrating how low and
unworthy these people were considered by Southern culture,
and how many of them went almost unnoticed as human
beings. The unnamed Negro also disappears near the end of the novel, just as the body of Emily's former love is discovered,
obviously fearing that he will be blamed for the murder. This
suggests tendencies in Southern culture to use the African-
American community as scapegoats for their own crimes and
mistakes.
Class-structure is another aspect Faulkner explores in A Rose for
Emily . He places the main character as a member of a formally
upper class family. It is heavily implied that she no longer holds
the former wealth of her family, but she is nonetheless feared
by the community as an upper class citizen. When explaining
"Miss Emily's" past, Faulkner delves into her relationship with
her father, and the fact that he expected her to act as an upper
class lady. He would not let his daughter court any man that he
deemed "below" her social status, which was virtually
everyone, and Emily finds herself terribly lonely and without
the love of a husband. Emily is nonetheless deeply saddened by
her father's passing. It is implied that, despite his abuse, her
father's love was the only she ever truly knew. This could be
interpreted as the Southern people clinging to their traditional
class structure, as it is the only way of life they have ever
known. After her father's passing, when Emily does finally
develop romantic feelings, it is for a man who belongs to a
lower class. Here Faulkner explores the state-of-mind and
judgment of the Southern people: "But there were still others,
older people, who said that even grief could not cause a real
lady to forget noblesse oblige-without calling it noblesse
oblige" (98). The "older people" are the traditionalists clinging
to that old way of Southern living, passing judgment against
those who act progressively against the status quo. When Emily
finally realizes that her relationship with this man of a lower
class can never actually be fulfilled, she acts out her frustration
by murdering him. Emily breaking the "law of God" is Faulkner's
criticism of how close her spiritual values are tied with her
Southern class code. That is, she had already gone against her
upbringing by having this affair with a lower man, so
committing murder, to her, is just part of that rebellion. As
Faulkner put it: "She had broken all the laws of her tradition,
her background, and she had finally broken the law of God too"
(103).
Although his intent was not to write a story which simply
criticizes the South, Faulkner's negative opinions about his own
culture and lifestyle speak very loudly throughout A Rose for
Emily. He clearly demonstrates to us how racism and a rigid
class structure were present in the colonial South, and also
shows us the inhumanity and injustice of it all.
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