Category: A Rose For Emily

Introduction

First published in 1930, A Rose for Emily is a captivating must-read chef-doeuvre 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 Emilys 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 Faulkners 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 writers 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 narrators 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 Dilworths 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 Emilys 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 Emilys 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 townspeoples 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 Emilys 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 fathers 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 townspeoples knowledge of the last time that they saw Barron enter his lovers 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 lovers life? In this context, Dilworth argues, apart from the recent or long awareness of the closed room, knowledge of Emilys 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 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 Emilys 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 Dilworths article A Romance to Kill For: Homicidal Complicity in Faulkners 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 Faulkners A Rose for Emily. Studies in short fiction, 36(3), 251-264.

A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner vividly depicts the gradual decline of the Southern aristocracy in the Civil War aftermath. The authors intentions are achieved primarily through the extensive use of symbols within the story. In particular, the symbol of the house is of primary importance, since it stands for the demise of the Pre-Civil War epoch.

The author develops this symbolism through several clues, incorporated within the narrative for readers to discover. Indeed, extensive descriptions of the Griersons mansion vividly represent the deterioration of their pre-Civil War well-being. For instance, Emilys house is filled with objects representing the past, such as her fathers crayon portrait, tarnished items, and cracked furniture (Faulkner 51). The Negro butler at Emilys house is also perceived as a relic since the range of his tasks becomes limited to letting visitors in and out, and therefore his services are needless.

The author deliberately mentions the former splendor of the house, which had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies& (Faulkner 49). However, over time, the luxurious appearance of the house and its prestigious location come to nothing: only Miss Emilys house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores (Faulkner 49). In other words, Emilys old-fashioned house becomes opposed to the present-day industrial area around it. Hence, the author emphasizes the conflict between Emily and her community, which is a driving force of the story.

The author identifies the decaying symbolism of the house in the text through the authors constant mentions of dust, which fills the Griersons mansion: faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils (Faulkner 61). Stagnation is further emphasized by the use of adjectives even, patient, and biding: &beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust (Faulkner 61). In such a manner, the author highlights that the time stood still in the Griersons mansion for years. Furthermore, dust defines a specific smell and atmosphere of the house in general: &a dim hall& smelled of dust and disuse  a close, dank smell (Faulkner 50). Later on, terrible malodor starts emanating from the house outside, which naturally disturbs Jeffersons townspeople.

Emily Griersons denial of the new reality and reluctance to adapt to new social norms gradually lead to her isolation from the community of Jefferson. As a result, the dusty house becomes Emilys only shelter from the contemporary world: And so she died. Fell ill in the house filled with dust and shadows (Faulkner 59). The reader perceives this fundamental opposition between Emily and her community when townsmen enter the house: &a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs& (Faulkner 51); The violence of breaking down the door seemed to fill this room with pervading dust (Faulkner 60). As one can easily observe, entering the house is described as a transfer to another universe  the world of the past, where dust is the only thing that welcomes Jefferson townspeople. The biblical dust to dust concept is another significant association, which further supplements the symbolism of the house.

Thus, Emilys house symbolizes the decay of the pre-Civil War upper class, who failed to accept the inevitable changes and new values established in the New South. Through the extensive descriptions of the Griersons house, William Faulkner emphasizes the necessity to adapt to new conditions of life. The author consistently develops the deteriorating symbolism of the house by repeatedly using specific lexical units, such as dust, tarnished, and the like. Due to the presence of this symbol, readers perceive the literary work as not only Emily Griersons life story but as a representation of a historically significant shift in the U.S. worldview.

Work Cited

Faulkner, William. Selected Short Stories of William Faulkner. New York: Modern Library, 1961.

Introduction

William Faulkners 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 Emilys funeral. On the other hand, Lyndon Chubbucks 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 Faulkners eerie story, the treatment made the film very predictable and less enigmatic.

Comparison of story and film

In Faulkners 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-servanta combined gardener and cookhad seen in at least ten years. With utter grace, Faulkner describes how Emilys 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 Faulkners 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 Emilys 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 [couldnt] 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 wasnt 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 Emilys 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 Chubbucks 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 Faulkners 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 Emilys 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 Emilys kitchen. The set design was also remarkable as it was suitable to complement the films Gothic theme. Another worth mentioning is that the costumes were anachronously appropriate as it exhibited the 19^th 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 Faulkners classic short story. It changed essential parts that might have had been effective to delineate the viewers 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 Faulkners A Rose for Emily. (Special Issue: William Faulkner). The Mississippi Quarterly. 47.3 (1994): p391.

Introduction

First published in 1930, A Rose for Emily is a captivating must-read chef-doeuvre 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 Emilys 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 Faulkners 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 writers 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 narrators 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 Dilworths 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 Emilys 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 Emilys 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 townspeoples 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 Emilys 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 fathers 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 townspeoples knowledge of the last time that they saw Barron enter his lovers 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 lovers life? In this context, Dilworth argues, apart from the recent or long awareness of the closed room, knowledge of Emilys 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 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 Emilys 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 Dilworths article A Romance to Kill For: Homicidal Complicity in Faulkners 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 Faulkners A Rose for Emily. Studies in short fiction, 36(3), 251-264.

Introduction

William Faulkners 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 Emilys funeral. On the other hand, Lyndon Chubbucks 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 Faulkners eerie story, the treatment made the film very predictable and less enigmatic.

Comparison of story and film

In Faulkners 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-servanta combined gardener and cookhad seen in at least ten years. With utter grace, Faulkner describes how Emilys 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 Faulkners 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 Emilys 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 [couldnt] 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 wasnt 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 Emilys 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 Chubbucks 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 Faulkners 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 Emilys 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 Emilys kitchen. The set design was also remarkable as it was suitable to complement the films Gothic theme. Another worth mentioning is that the costumes were anachronously appropriate as it exhibited the 19^th 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 Faulkners classic short story. It changed essential parts that might have had been effective to delineate the viewers 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 Faulkners A Rose for Emily. (Special Issue: William Faulkner). The Mississippi Quarterly. 47.3 (1994): p391.

Introduction

Widely considered to be one of the most significant American writers of the 20th century, Faulkner concentrates on themes that are universal. His novels, The Sound and the Fury, Absalom! Absalom! are experiments with shifts in time and narrative. A Rose for Emily is the strange story of love, obsession, and death. The narrator speaks for the town of Jefferson in Faulkners fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. The short story is a gruesome revelation after Emilys funeral. Faulkner himself claims that it is a ghosts story. Frank A Littler writes in Notes on Mississippi Writers, A Rose for Emily has been read variously as a gothic horror tale, a study in abnormal psychology, an allegory of the relations between the North and South, a meditation on the nature of time, a tragedy with Emily as a sort of tragic heroic. (Faulkner 2008).

The narration of the story

The narrator, in order to produce the desired effects, uses two devices  flashback and foreshadowing, that utilize time. Flashbacks are used to present action that has not happened. The story told by the narrator is a series of non-sequential flashbacks. The narrator begins by describing the scene of Emilys funeral and no soon does he flashback and forth through various events in the life and time of Emily Grierson and the town of Jefferson.

Each piece of the story is a recount by the narrator regardless of chronology. The description of Emilys funeral is immediately followed by the incident where Col. Sartoris relieves her of taxes. Thus its quite evident that the narrator works in a hap-hazard manner as human memory does. The house which Emily has occupied all these years has turned into a mausoleum where Emily has stored her corpse and guarded over it for 40 years. In sec. 2 of the short story, Emilys house stinks, yet she remains unruffled.

The story is narrated by an unnamed narrator in the 1st person collective. The narrators identity is never revealed throughout. He is clever humorous and sympathetic. He has successfully created a shocking climax that has left every reader feel pity for Emily and at the time arouse a certain eerie feeling.

The setting is Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi  Faulkners mythical county wherein Emily is trapped in Jeffersons past. She turns out isolated and withdrawn and nevertheless becomes one among the living dead.

As regards the structure, Faulkner has exhibited his craftsmanship in revealing the history of Jefferson and linking it to the final scene which is powerful enough to evoke a sense of suspense and horror. The story is not told in a straightforward beginningtoend fashion yet it is more entertaining and enlightening as it covers a considerable length of time.

Psychological examination

The story could be seen as a psychological examination of character. Emilys obsession with Homer and his denouement forces Emily to take the offensive by poisoning him so that he cant abandon her. The discovery of a strand of her hair on the pillow next to the rotting corpse suggests that she slept with the cadaver, or even worse, had sex with it. Her repressive life has contributed to her psychological abnormality  necrophilia. Emilys special confinement is a metaphor for her psychic confinement. Her identity is not determined by her but by the construct of her fathers mind. There is a strong Oedipal bonding with her strange father.

A rose is a flower of tribute and a symbol of youth, beauty, and love. As one preserves a rose by pressing it within the pages of a book, so Emily has preserved her rose  her love, her youth, her happiness by decorating the room as a bridal chamber and keeping it that way with her lover there beside her forever. This is the significance of the title.

Delving into the possible themes, death lurks in the minds of the reader. Five actual deaths have been discussed. Literally and figuratively, this theme pervades the whole story. In section 1, the narrator recollects Emilys funeral, the madness, and the death of old lady Wyatt, Emilys great aunt. The discovery of a long strand of iron-grey hair lie on a pillow next to the corpse entombed in Emilys boudoir suggests that she could be necrophilia. Yet another theme could be the decline of the old South, after Civil War. The dark secret might serve as a metaphor for the general decadence of the old South. As the town people view as &and ideal in a niche &passed from generation to generation  dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse, the story could be a study of community versus isolation.

The central conflict of the story is that through insanity she triumphs over reality. If she had maintained her sanity, she would have been defeated by the pressures of society and life. Through insanity, one can gain an emotionally satisfying triumph over faith and reshaping reality forcing it to conform to the hearts desire. Hence, the theme of conflict and resolution gains significance.

The symbol of the tableau where the sprawled figure of Emilys father with a horsewhip in hand and sitting between her and the outside world represents the jealous concern of the honor and virginity of Southern white womanhood too good for most men.

There are beliefs that the story is an allegory of relations between North and South.

Homer is a Yankee and Emily kills him. There is little to sustain the allegory apart from the above evidence.

Conclusion

A Rose for Emily is a meditation on the nature of time as it covers three-quarters of a century and shows the elusive nature of time and memory. There is a conflict between time on a subjective experience and time is a powerful force to be reckoned with.

An overall analysis of the short story highlights various aspects of forms in literature the story is a peep into the framework of a single mind calculated and read by many.

References

Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. Introduction. 2008. Web.

In William Falkners A Rose for Emily, the narrators word choice and attitude towards Emily gives us good insight into the character of Tobe, Emilys faithful servant that had been with her for many years up until her last breath. He was the last connection Emily had with the outside world after shutting herself in the house. Coincidently, we are still given insight into Emilys actions despite the rest of the town not being able to go inside of her house. It is then safe to assume that the Narrator is close to Emily and is next to her most of the time. The only person that would fit that category would be Tobe. Not to mention that the Narrator also refers to her as Miss Emily, which is how a butler would normally address the people they are serving. So, it is safe to say that the Narrator is Tobe himself.

Various arguments can be developed to support that point. Firstly, Tobe expresses his thoughts towards Emily quite often throughout the story and even goes against the townspeoples thoughts but still makes them seem like their real feelings. Tobe often puts Emily on a pedestal and even goes as far as to call her a fallen monument (Falkner). We are never really given a reason why Emily would be considered a monument by the townspeople, especially since whenever the townspeople actually speak about Emily, it is almost always done from a negative perspective. For example, the first time that we are given dialogue of the townspeople, it is them arguing with Emily to pay her taxes, and the second time is the townspeople complaining about the awful smell that comes from her home. Despite these sensible reasons to be angry or upset with Emily, Tobe still gives her the name Fallen Monument, emphasizing Tobes admiration and obsession with Emily (Falkner).

This is further reinforced when Emily meets Homer, a Northerner who started working near Emilys house. Tobe may have perceived Homer as a poor Northern man who was unworthy of Emily. When the townspeople begin spreading rumors of Emily committing adultery with Homer, Narrator immediately defends her in the next paragraph. She carried her head high enough  even when we believed that she was fallen (Falkner). As if to emphasize that she would never do such a thing and that she still stood firm. Despite Tobe being in the house and witnessing almost everything that goes on, Emily is somehow still able to kill Homer with arsenic. Any man with common sense would try to stop this murderer; however, it still happens and isnt discovered until the men enter Emilys house after her death and open the attic door. Actually, Tobe may have played a role in that murder, as there is no way he could not notice the closed door and the putrid smell that even the people from nearby houses detected. However, it remains questionable why he did not dispose of the body, thereby helping his mistress avoid problems.

Another point to mention is that before Homers disappearance, he is last seen with Tobe. A neighbor saw the Negro man admit him at the kitchen door at dusk one evening. And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron (Falkner). This supports the point that Tobe played a role in this murder, further emphasizing that he had never liked Homer in the first place and hadnt seen him as a worthy man for Emily to the point where he helped to kill him. Towards the end of the story, we notice a change in Tobes words: the use of they (Falkner). Throughout the novel, Tobe deliberately groups himself with the townspeoples thoughts and makes it seem as if his thoughts are everyone elses as well; however, when the townspeople decide to break down a door in Emilys house, he quickly switches to they (Falkner). It seems as if Tobe did not want that door to be opened, and theres an apparent reason why and thats because Homers body is in there.

Tobes character is talked about specifically, but through the Narrators choice of words and their thoughts on Emily, we can deduce who the Narrator is and get a better understanding of Tobes character overall. Tobe admired and obsessed over Emily enough to the point where he was even willing to help in the murder of Homer because, in his mind, he just wasnt good enough for Miss Emily.

Works Cited

Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. Harcourt College Publishers, 2000.

A Rose for Emily is a beautiful short story written by William Faulkner in which the writer uses new structural devices of story telling. The central character, Emily, is a symbol of changes. She also represents the victimized generation in South America after the civil war. The North was getting industrialized and moving forward. Emilys father did not give her a chance in her life to choose a partner of her liking, or give her freedom to lead a happy life. A critical analysis of the story is the focus of this paper.

The obvious doubt lingering in the mind of the reader is what would have happened to Emily, if Homer Barrons murder had been detected before Emilys death. Such a doubt cannot be sustained, as the story itself rejects such possibilities. Therefore, there is no question of defending her, or even thinking of prosecuting her for her crimes, because Emily is not painted as an individual in the story, capable of taking independent decisions. She is, as the narrator points out, Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town (Faulkner). Her morals, motives, and even love are governed by the the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson. Only in privacy she can fulfill her desires and impulses. It resulted in a form of disease, called necrophilia. Her subconscious self is in love with loneliness, murder, filth, stinking rooms, and the erotic desire to sleep with corpses. When she says, I have no taxes in Jefferson (Faulkner), she means that she is not part of the society or the state. Hence, she does not come under any kind of social scrutiny.

The chronology of the events given in the story is very complex. Emilys father ruled her life by turning away every suitor. No one living nearby knows what really goes on in that house. The only curiosity is to know what happens next in her life in the present context. However, the writer holds back all events going on chronologically. Only after her funeral, the readers come to know that she is a Jefferson and that her mysterious loneliness has many events behind it. Then comes the exposure of events related to her house, her father, taxes, painting, etc. The author prefers to present them in a muddled way. To know that Emily was an Angel and she changed into a witch due to reasons beyond her power, the readers have to rearrange the events again in a chronological time. At one stage, when she buys the poison, the readers suspect suicide, and the stench spreading from the house causes great suspicion. The rat that is killed is the next curiosity. It is only at the end of the story that one can discover the actual rat that was given arsenic.

The story is charged with symbolism. The murder and Emilys love for the corpse indicate her desperation for human love. When the Yankee, Homer Barron, enters her life, the people in the town feel a sigh of relief, thinking that at last she has a man to live with her. The ticking of the watch, the hair near the skeleton, etc, have something to add to the richness of the story, though they are inanimate objects. The role the time plays and the jumbling of the chronology make the story very sophisticated at a time when the readers were accustomed to conventional reading. Taking all these into consideration, one can say that A Rose for Emily occupies a great place in the history of literature.

Reference

Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. Web.

William Faulkners short story A Rose for Emily is a story about a woman who is isolated from her town because of the attitudes and beliefs of the Old South social structure. Throughout the story, she is seen as a town oddity because she represents the ways of the Old South even though social structures have been changing. The changing social structure is demonstrated through the disjointed way in which the story is told as well as in the attitudes and beliefs of the plural narrator. This world of the present with its absence of social propriety is strange and unrecognizable to Miss Emily, who has always been kept strictly within the bounds of Old South expectations. As a result, Miss Emilys relationship with the town is one of superior distance as a result of their social position and pitiable isolation as a result of her strangeness.

Faulkner introduces Miss Emily Grierson as a woman who has been strictly contained within the boundaries of her fathers old world ideals. None of the young men were quite good enough to Miss Emily and such. 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, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door (437). This created a situation in which Miss Emily got to be thirty and was still single (437), forced to live in her maidenhood forever and lacking any connection to the rest of the world; she is alienated from her society. As a result, the town cannot think of her in any way other than in her association with the values and traditions of the Old South rather than releasing her into the more liberal conceptions of the new.

After her fathers death, Miss Emily is seen to attempt to break out of the mold he has placed her in through her willingness to date Homer Barron. When she is seen in public following her fathers funeral, her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows  sort of tragic and serene (438). At the same time, she is seen defying the old order of her class in her willing appearances on Sundays in the company of Homer Barron, a Northerner, a day laborer (438) so far beneath her station in life. However, she is still not permitted to escape the bonds of the Old South as her cousins are quickly sent for (by the townspeople) to bring Miss Emily back into her destined role.

While the town insists on Miss Emily retaining her social position, she remains isolated from the community, but this strangeness also gives her a degree of power over them. For example, although the new generation insists the town needs to do something about addressing the issue of the odor coming from Miss Emilys home, the older generation is more concerned about propriety when addressing a woman of her status. Dammit sir, Judge Stevens said, will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad? (436). The communitys adherence to these rules is shown as the board of Aldermen take action, four men crossed Miss Emilys lawn and slunk about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base of the brickwork and at the cellar openings & They broke open the cellar door and sprinkled lime there, and in all the outbuildings (436). While they insisted that she remain in an elevated if antiquated social position, they also found that they could not relate to her in the normal way.

The strictures of the community as they tended to weigh on Miss Emily are symbolized through the figure and ideals of her father, reinforced by the appearance of her cousins and upheld by the rigors of the watching community, finally locking Emily into the rigid figure she appears to the townspeople in the end. Her action of bringing Homer into her life through poisoning was the only means by which Emily was able to finally get someone to cross the division line of propriety and accompany her through her isolated existence. Thus, her strangeness as a result of her social position irrevocably traps her within the isolation of a dying social era.

Works Cited

Faulker, William. A Rose for Emily. Anthology of American Literature  8^th Edition. Ed. McMichael, George, James S. Leonard, Bill Lyne, Anne-Marie Mallon and Verner D. Mitchell. Boston: Prentice Hall, 2004. 433-444.

Symbolism of Emily’s House as a Keeper of Southern Gentility

Anthony C. Lee Professor Waggoner Engwr 303 26 Feburary 2019 Emily Trapped in Time As time ticks, society continues to develop in pop culture, social norms, rules, regulations and so much more. We as the people of the society must continuously keep up with these developments to understand how the world alters and functions. To many people, this is not important and they may become a recluse, yet other people are quick to follow the social trends or figure out the algorithm of our society.

Going back in time we can see that all things have drastically changed from style to communication, to values, and morals and it is up to us to decide if we want to stay in the past or continue adapting. William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is a short story about Miss Emily Grierson’s life and through the symbolism of her house, the town, and her hair he is able to use her story as an allegory for the “death” or changes in the South–post-civil war.

Faulkner uses Emily’s house to symbolize how it is a keeper of the American southern gentility. Southern gentility is The beauty that this house once possessed has disappeared and it has become just an old building. It once was “white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies,” and as time passed the house has become an “eyesore among eyesores” (451). The Southern style of the house is the first indication of Emily’s house being a symbol of the past because we come to learn how their society was devloping into modern times.

Symbolism of Miss Emily’s House and Relationships

We see that Miss Emily’s house and her traditions symbolize that they were keepers of southern gentility when, the “negro appeared” to escort the tax collectors out, when she did not allow a house number to be placed on her door for free postal service, or how the mayor had to write a tax notice to Emily using archaic shapes and flowing calligraphy. These moments show that the house is cemented in a certain time era, one that is far removed.

Miss Emily’s house is a symbolism of how Southerners may have tried relentlessly to keep southern gentility alive, but as time progresses death in any form is inevitable. Add one more pargraph about the towns perception of emily and how they see her as a monument and sort of inhuman until her father died. Although Miss Emily never receives an actual rose in the story the rose comes in the form of a person and we learn that Miss Emily and love are just not meant to be.

Miss Emily grew up raised with a strict father that scared away all her courting lovers and so when he died she had no one. It is not until Homer Baron, a day laborer from the North appears in her life. Homer is the rose, is the love that Miss Emily thought she could have, but because she was a Grierson there was a certain set of noblesse oblige (expectations) that she was held to. Although Homer was the rose, the love to complete Miss Emily’s life he said he “was not a marrying man”(454). And so Miss Emily kills him with arsenic in order to keep him.

Symbolic Significance of Miss Emily’s Actions and Appearance

The death or murder of Homer symbolizes how obsessive Southener’s may have been with keeping their loved traditions, like having slaves or servants, however, after the war, these traditions could no longer stay. This symbolizes how the love of the past cannot coincide with the present because traditions like slavery do not coincide with freedom, but can only serve as a “loving” memory to some. Miss Emily’s strand of gray hair found at the very end of the story symbolizes how the old Americna South will remain in history.

In the opening of the story Faulkner says, “When Miss Emily died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument” (451). It is evident to readers that Miss Emily is more than just a woman, she is a monument, a tradition, a hereditary obligation of the town they say. And as Miss Emily aged her hair only became grayer and grayer till the day she died. When she died the townspeople forced themselves into her room that no one had seen in decades. They found Homer’s skeleton on a bed next to a pillow with a strong “indentation of a head” and a “long strand of iron-gray hair” (456). First, the head indentation on the pillow is a symbolism of how the past does not just disappear, but remains as indentations in history.

Symbolic Resilience of Southern Culture and Miss Emily’s Legacy

It symbolizes how deeply southern culture was rooted in many peoples lives and to dismiss that lifestyle after the war was not going to happen. Secondly, the word choice to describe the piece of hair is oddly interesting. The hair referencing iron, which is a strong metal that only heat can morph, symbolizes the undying strength of the southern traditions after the civil war. The strong symbolism that Miss Emily is and carries throughout the story evidently shows how carrying onto the past can lead to ones demise and symbolizes the undying strength of the southerners post war.

In Faulkner’s short story about Emily Grierson, we must remember that as times change things cannot stay the same, however, do remain as memories. Miss Emily is a woman who symbolized the traditional ways of the south. Her house symbolizes how she physically lives in the past. The rose symbolizes how loving something bad cannot continue forever. And her hair symbolizes how the Southern ways are respected and remembered even after the prime of southern traditions have passed. In society, we act as a collective and so as a collective we must strive to be individuals of progressiveness and growth in order to reach higher ground, whether that be in technology, medicine, or ethics.

References:

1. Faulkner, W. (1930). A Rose for Emily. The Forum, 84(2), 451-456. [This is the source for the short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner.]
2. Blotner, J. L. (1974). Faulkner: A Biography. University Press of Mississippi. [For information about Faulkner’s life and works.]
3. Genovese, E. D. (1974). Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made. Pantheon Books. [Provides insights into the South’s historical context and traditions, which could help support the essay’s analysis of Miss Emily’s situation.]
4. Wyatt-Brown, B. (1984). Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South. Oxford University Press. [Offers a deeper understanding of Southern culture, gentility, and societal norms.]
5. Polk, N. M. (2015). Faulkner and Southern Womanhood. LSU Press. [Provides context on Southern womanhood and how it’s portrayed in Faulkner’s works.]
6. Williams, T. H. (1997). Realigning Modernism: Postmodernism and the American Literary Canon. University of Georgia Press. [Offers insights into the shifts from modernism to postmodernism in literature, which could be relevant for discussing Faulkner’s writing style.]