The novella “A Rose for Emily”, written by the famous American author, William Faulkner, tells the story of a lonely woman, Emily Grierson, who lives in seclusion and has virtually no contacts with other people. She has always been restricted by her father, who believed that his daughter was the most beautiful woman in the neighborhood and no man could be a suitable match for her. When he dies, Emily is unable to find a substitution for him because she has always viewed her father as the embodiment of all virtues. The only person, who takes interest in her, is Homer Baron. Yet, he does not intend to marry Emily, because she is just a plaything for him. Having learned that, the main character murders Homer, and his dead body remains in her house for many years, this horrible secret is disclosed only when Emily dies.
In this short story, William Faulkner explores such highly complicated issues as the attitude towards an individual. The author shows how people can take pleasure in the misfortunes and miseries of another person. The narrator says, “So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated” (Faulkner, 14). This novella is a deep psychological analysis of relationships between individuality and community.
“The Handsomest Man Drowned in the World” is a short story by a prominent Latin American writer Gabriel Garcia Marques. At the very beginning, people living in a coastal village find the body of a man that has been cast ashore. Initially, it seems to them that this is just some see animal or even whale though later they understand that this is the body of a human being. As the story progresses, villagers begin to worship this corpse, they even name it, Sebastian. Women, living in the village believe that this is the embodiment of male beauty. Nevertheless, they have to bury him. These people can never forget him because Sebastian has become an inseparable part of their community.
This story can be interpreted from different standpoints. It seems the author illustrates the way in which people can create idols for themselves. The fact that a “slinky bulge” may eventually transform into an object of worship and even an animate being is very telling (Marques, 18).
Raymond Carvers short story “Cathedral” evolves around the person who is firmly convinced of his well-being and his happiness. Probably, it would be better to say that he wants other people to believe that it is true. As it turns out this is just a deceptive façade, which is broken when the narrator encounters a blind man Robert. The narrator tries to feel superior to this man though later he realizes that Roberts life is much more satisfying than his own. The storyteller tries to convince oneself that this blind man is somewhat handicapped, he says that blind “men never laugh”, wishing to find a drawback or defect in Robert (Carver, 209). Throughout the text, Raymond Carver compares such notions to physical and spiritual blindness. Although the narrator deems himself to be a self-sufficient person, his addiction to drugs and his unhappy relationships with his wife clearly indicate that this man follows the principle “Ignorance is bliss” whereas Robert, in spite of his physical blindness can see the best in other people. To a certain degree, Raymond Carvers novella springs from the famous ancient tragedy “Oedipus the King”, in which Sophocles also shows how terrible it is to be spiritually blind.
It is difficult to recommend only one of these stories because all of them are masterpieces of world literature. Yet, I would like to recommend “Cathedral” by Carver, because the author skillfully demonstrates how often we may be mistaken in our judgment and how dangerous it is to cherish only one’s illusions.
Bibliography
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Gregory Rabazza. “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the
World: A Tale for Children”. Creative Education, 1995.
Raymond Carver. “Cathedral: stories.” Vintage Books, 1989.
William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”. Dramatic Publishing, 1983.
Dear Sir, I am writing to you about the short story that might be published in the upcoming issue. In particular, I would like to speak about William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily since it can appeal to many well-educated readers who buy our magazine. It has been selected among others for several reasons. First of all, the author enables the readers to feel the atmosphere of the American South after the end of the Civil War.
By describing a fictional Yoknapatawpha County, William Faulkner recreates various aspects of American life. The time of the action is not specified by the author, but one can deduce that people live at the end of the nineteenth century. This is one of the details that can be singled out.
William Faulkner examines the.tensions between Southerners and Northerners by showing the people’s prejudices against Homer Barron. In my view, the readers may be willing to learn more about this issue. So, this short story can be important for understanding the culture of the United States as well as possible tensions within the society.
Moreover, it is important to mention that the writer creates a very interesting plot. For instance, the author creates a non-linear narrative which portrays the life of the main character Emily Grierson during different periods. In this way, the writer shows how the personality of Emily Grierson evolves. The writer subtly describes the events and factors which could have shaped her behavior.
This approach to writing can appeal to many readers. Moreover, William Faulkner adds a shocking ending to his short story, and it will produce a profound impression on the readers. To some degree, this short story has the elements of a thriller, and the plot is very engaging. This is another reason why this literary work can be published in the upcoming issue of our magazine.
This short story is also interesting because it portrays the struggles of a person who does not to accept the changes in external environment. For instance, he does not want to admit that she no longer lives in the antebellum South. William Faulkner gives a powerful psychological portrayal of this individual and seamlessly incorporates it into the plot. In my view, this goal cannot be easily achieved by many writers.
This is one of the main details that can be identified. I was astounded with the way in which the writer characterizes the main characters by using only several phrases. In my opinion, other readers may also find this writing style very enjoyable since it prompts a person to use his/her imagination while thinking about the protagonist or secondary characters.
Additionally, the author’s work can be viewed as a great example of Southern Gothic. William Faulkner relies on grotesque images that enhance the sense of mystery. For instance, the readers do not know what is hidden in the house of Emily Grierson. Moreover, the personality of the protagonist remains unknown to the reader until the very end of the narrative.
Nevertheless, this short story can be seen as a great example of realist literature since William Faulkner meticulously describes the life of a Southern American town. One can understand the challenges that this people encountered or the way in which they could perceive the world.
This is one of the things that may attract the attention of readers since the ability to combine realistic and Gothic literature is not very widespread nowadays. This quality can distinguish William Faulkner among other writers. This is one the main aspects that can be identified.
Apart from that, I was impressed with the author’s approach to narration. William Faulkner’s novella is told by the collective voice of the town. The author uses the personal pronoun we and the readers do not know to what extent he/she is familiar with the main characters. One cannot determine whether the collective voice is omniscient or not.
This narrator makes the story much more arresting because readers do not know how the narrative will evolve or what kind of decisions the characters can take. This is another reason why I selected this novella among short stories that were submitted for publication.
In my view, this short story can be of great interest to people who read our magazine. It has two elements that you value. In particular, I can speak interesting plot and the presence of many thought-provoking details that the readers will like. I do hope that this text can be included into the upcoming issue of our magazine. Certainly, there may be other short stories that are also worth attention.
Their literary merits cannot be disregarded. Nevertheless, I believe that this novella combines the best qualities that are valued by the audience of our magazine. This is why it can be incorporated in the following issue of the magazine. So, hopefully, you will consider this short story. In my opinion, the readers will not be disappointed.
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.
Article Summary
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.
Analysis
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.
Personal Response
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 20th 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.
Conclusion
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.
Reference
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.
In her analysis, Basinger actively refers to the original text, emphasizing the lines necessary for her position. At the same time, she mainly uses direct quotations, inserting whole blocks of descriptive quotations into her text. The size of these inserts differs depending on the length of the description but does not exceed a few lines, unlike references to works by other authors (Basinger, 2019). Such an approach is one of the most effective in this context and allows for proving the position taken by a literary analyst. To argue about how the author portrays the characters and their gender roles, it is necessary to conduct a deep analysis of the descriptions. In this case, paraphrasing cannot be used since it is necessary to refer to specific words. However, to facilitate the understanding of the text, she could give larger-scale quotations containing specific descriptions and the context of the situation.
Suggested Quotations
“She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue.” (Faulkner, 2019, p. 852).
This quote is a continuation of one of the descriptions already used by Basinger. This passage refers to the same situation in which the new administration came to Miss Emily to ask her to pay her taxes.
The connection between the position defended by Basinger and the quote lies in the way the author neutrally describes a woman: shapeless, without any prominent male or female features. In addition, she appeared somewhat dead, which makes her gender role even more blurred and inaccurate.
“We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip” (Faulkner, 2019, p. 854).
This quote reflects the symbolic perception of Miss Emily and her father by the city’s inhabitants. These words demonstrate the townspeople’s attitude and the image that they have of a relatively famous family.
This piece of text can be used as an argument that, despite the lack of any evidence, the townspeople assigned Miss Emily a clear gender role of a woman standing in the shadow of a man.
“Now and then, we would see her in one of the downstairs windows–she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house–like the carven torso of an idol in a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which” (Faulkner, 2019, p. 858).
This fragment refers to the description of the last days of Miss Emily’s life and how she looked to the residents from the outside.
This quote can be used to emphasize how detached from the human essence and, accordingly, the gender of Miss Emily is reflected by the author. The more she ages, the less Faulkner distinguishes her gender characteristics, despite all the prejudices of the townspeople.
References
Basinger, B. (2019). Tension, contradiction, and ambiguity: Gender roles in “A rose for Emily.” In R. Bullock & M.D. Goggin (Eds.), The Norton field guide to writings with readings (5th ed., pp. 838-843). W.W. Norton.
Faulkner, W. (2019). A rose for Emily. In R. Bullock & M.D. Goggin (Eds.), The Norton field guide to writings with readings (5th ed., pp. 851-860). W.W. Norton.
William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is a melancholic short story based on the life and death of a spinster named Emily Grierson. An unknown narrator tells the story in his or her point of view, as the eccentric Emily goes through uncanny circumstances in her life: the complicated relationships she had with her father, lover and people around the Jefferson community. Her mysterious life had puzzled the townspeople of Jefferson and later on they were appalled to know the horrible secrets she kept in the mansion.
Faulkner kicks off the short story during Emily’s funeral. On the other hand, Lyndon Chubbuck’s film adaptation of this short story made it all different by picking up the events in chronological order. Although the film can be helpful in interpreting Faulkner’s eerie story, the treatment made the film very predictable and less enigmatic.
Comparison of story and film
In Faulkner’s original version, he opens the tragic story of Emily at her funeral where people disclosed their puzzling reactions to her death: “the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant–a combined gardener and cook–had seen in at least ten years.” With utter grace, Faulkner describes how Emily’s mansion looks like and how her face matches the whole place.
Everything was plain and depressing. The large house in which she lived stood in a decaying state among signs of the new South, where there are “cotton wagons and gasoline pumps.” Miss Emily is described as being “a tradition… a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town.” Curry (1994) believed that the “stylistics of Faulkner’s language… serves to subordinate Emily, ostensibly the subject of the tale, and to elevate the town as the truer subject”. Emily was described to be “a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane.” She had a small frame which only caused the extra weight to make her look “bloated.”
The death of Miss Emily’s father devastated her and she rarely left her home. Then, when her lover abandoned her, Miss Emily became more of a recluse. The only evidence of life that could be observed at the Grierson home was “the Negro man… going in and out with a market basket.” Inevitably, a smell began emanating from the Grierson home and some of the local women thought it was because “a man [couldn’t] keep a kitchen properly.” As more neighbors complained to local authorities about the smell, the authorities argued over how to handle the matter. After all, as Judge Stevens asked, “Will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?”
Later, it was revealed in the story that Emily was a victim of a tyrannical father, who believed that no one was good enough for Emily. After her father died during the summer, Emily fell in love with a construction foreman named Homer Barron. Because of this sudden relationship, townspeople began gossiping about the love affair and wondered if the two were bound to get married. They were seen driving around town together and this pleased some people. Still, they believed that she would never wed “a Northerner, a day laborer.” However, everyone was puzzled when she purchased some arsenic from the local druggist.
When he informed her that, by law, she must tell him for what she would be using the arsenic, she simply stared him down until her package of arsenic was wrapped and produced. The druggist had written “For rats” on the box. After her purchasing the poison, the townspeople speculated that Miss Emily was contemplating suicide. Ultimately, it is revealed that Homer had said that he wasn’t “a marrying man.” In fact, “he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks’ Club.” This evoked pity for Miss Emily from the townsfolk. After Emily’s death, it later turned out that Emily killed Homer because he disappointed her of bringing her to the altar for their wedding.
While Faulkner was effective as a writer, Lyndon Chubbuck struggled to effectively convince viewers that he is doing a film adaptation for “A Rose for Emily”. The film, which was produced in 1982, literally exposed Chubbuck’s inexperience in doing films, as he is more attuned to television directing. In the film version, Emily was portrayed by Anjelica Huston in a lackluster performance. What was unbelievable in the film is that there many discrepancies that avid Faulkner readers would generally find absurd.
For instance, the physical appearance of Emily in the film was surprising because Faulkner’s short story portrayed Emily to be “fat and short”. In the film version, Huston remained beautiful all throughout the movie. Also changed in the short story was that it was Emily’s cousins that discovered the dead body of Homer in a bed inside a locked up room. It was then viewers will find out that Emily creepily slept beside him for many years, despite the fact that he is dead. This destroyed the original dramatic and horrific ending seen in the original short story.
Another observable flaw in the movie is when Emily is buying arsenic in the drugstore. When the drugstore owner asked her on how she planned to use the drug, she looked away, instead of staring back as suggested in the original short story. Because of these changes in the film, Clark et al. (1984) determined that Faulkner enthusiasts will definitely be disappointed with this movie. The camera work, however, succeeded in evoking the important emotional moments in the film.
For example, it effectively showed the gloominess of the house by effectively panning through the pale curtains and dusty furniture. To demonstrate the horror of being poisoned to death, the camera did amazing close-ups while Homer was choking in Emily’s kitchen. The set design was also remarkable as it was suitable to complement the film’s Gothic theme. Another worth mentioning is that the costumes were anachronously appropriate as it exhibited the 19th century look among the actors.
Although the camera work was quite satisfactory in evoking emotions in the film, the whole enigmatic appeal is lost when the scriptwriter decided to change some of the more important scenes that were issued by Faulkner in the original story. Ultimately, the film did not do proper justice to Faulkner’s classic short story. It changed essential parts that might have had been effective to delineate the viewer’s reactions about the scenarios presented in the short story.
Works Cited
Clark, Betty D., Gerhardt, Lilian N., and Mandell, Phyllis Levy. “A Rose for Emily”. School Library Journal, 30.7 (1984): 128.
Curry, Renee R. “Gender and authorial limitation in Faulkner’s ‘A Rose for Emily.’ (Special Issue: William Faulkner).” The Mississippi Quarterly. 47.3 (1994): p391.