Free Essays on A Rose For Emily

Sybolism In the short story, â€Å"A Rose for Emily† by William Faulkner, symbolism is used frequently throughout the story. There are several different symbolic subjects in this story such as the house, Miss Emily as a â€Å"monument,† Homer and the â€Å"Yankee† views, and Miss Emily’s old Negro servant who represents death in the story. Miss Emily is compared to her house in many different ways, there is the description of the decaying house which symbolizes Miss Emily’s physical and emotional decay, and as well as her mental problems. The representation between Miss Emily and the house is shown through the constant neglect that is given to her from the neighbors and people in the town. Faulkner in one point makes, the house is described to be â€Å"stubborn and unrelenting,† as Miss Emily portrays the same aspects. Miss Emily shows her stubbornness when she doesn’t let the new guard attach metal numbers above her door. Also many other signs of this stubbornness is when Miss Emily refuses to believe that her father is dead and when she refuses to pay taxes. This retracts back to the house on how it rejects progression and updating, so does Miss Emily, as they become decaying symbols of their dying generation. Miss Emily really is representing the â€Å"Old South,† her southern heritage an d her points of view are given through her actions. That’s where she gets her stubbornness and attitude from the strong characteristics of her Southern heritage. She refused to believe that the times where changing and refused to change into the new society like everyone else in the town was doing. The Southern heritage is also represented through Miss Emily’s strict and repetitive ways. The story basically addresses the changes in the South after the Civil War. Miss Emily is considered a â€Å"monument† of the Southern manners and her past values that she has. The Old South generations were dying quickly by the changing in traditions and to t... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily Free Essays on A Rose For Emily In William Faulkner’s short story, â€Å"A Rose for Emily†, Faulkner chooses to use the community as a narrator because they are not only telling Miss Emily Grierson’s story, they are also observers of Emily’s life. Using the town as the narrator is crucial to the story because it gives the reader a positive outlook on Miss Emily, the narrator recalls past events that took place in the town, the narrator gives the reader insight into Miss Emily’s problems, and the view of the narrator gives the reader a feeling of pity for Miss Emily. By Faulkner telling â€Å"A Rose for Emily† from the townspeople’s point of view, it allows the readers to have a more positive view of Miss Emily. The townspeople viewed Miss Emily as their â€Å"property†. â€Å"Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town† (Faulkner 75). The community regards Miss Emily as â€Å"tragic and serene† (Faulkner 77). This shows readers that the town Miss Emily lives in respected her and her family. Another purpose of using the community as the narrator is the recollection of past events by the narrator. Without knowing Miss Emily’s history, the reader would just assume Miss Emily was born crazy. Instead, the narrator gives the reader past events that give the reader insight into why Miss Emily is so strange. The narrator tells how Miss Emily’s over-protective father was responsible for Miss Emily’s solitude after his death. â€Å"We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will† (Faulkner 77). After Miss Emily’s father’s death, Emily has no one to turn to because Miss Emily’s father has not let Miss Emily live a â€Å"normal† life. The townspeople also recall that Miss Emily did not have to pay taxes in the town. After her father’s death, Colonel Sartoris felt pity... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily Letting Go When people begin to age they are often faced with many psychological and physical changes. In the short story, â€Å"A Rose for Emily† by William Faulkner, Miss Emily leads a difficult life. Letting go is one of the common problems older people are faced to deal with because of their fear of being alone. Many older people have trouble letting go of those who are close to them. Miss Emily has a lot of trouble letting go of her father, of her friend Homer Barron, and of her old traditions. In â€Å"A Rose for Emily† William Faulkner demonstrates ones troubles of letting go of someone close to you. Everyday millions of people have to say good-bye to someone they love. Miss Emily, an older woman from Jefferson, Mississippi, has trouble saying good-bye to the ones she loved. In this short story, Faulkner shows us through Miss Emily how older people have trouble letting go of the ones they love. Miss Emily lives in a very old house that needs to be repaired dramatically. â€Å"An eyesore among eyesores,† is how Faulkner describes the house in the story to show that Miss Emily has a problem letting go. This house is the house that her father lived in and died in which she remains living in showing her troubles of letting go. When her father died Miss Emily told everyone that came to give their condolences that he was still alive (p. 52). Miss Emily could not let go of her father when he died so she kept him in the house in fear of being alone with no one to love or be loved by. The thought of her father not being there is very disturbing to Miss Emily. This is the reason she is alone when her father dies. Her father was there her whole life telling her what to do. Her father was her everything and the only one she had in her life, so she could not let go of him even when they took him away to be buried. â€Å"Just as they were about to resort to law and force , she broke down and they buried her father quickly (p.52).ï ¿ ½... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily A Rose for Emily: An analysis of â€Å"A Rose for Emily† A Rose for Emily, written by William Faulkner, first came out in 1930. It was considered one of Faulkner’s darkest stories he ever wrote as a writer. However, there is a theme to this story. Many ideas underlie this story and should not be taken as a simple horror story. Through the plot and characterization, the reader feels an emotional impact when completing this story due to the realism and details given. Faulkner chose a point of view that contributes to the overall affect of the story. The narrator used a distinctive manner of telling the story, which I will explain in more detail. One of Faulkner’s unique writing talents is his ability to use detailed and creative description. The use of description shaped my views on the characters, Miss Emily’s house as well as the whole town. When writing A rose For Emily, Faulkner used a first person minor point of view. Emily’s story is told after her death; therefore, an outside perspective was necessary. Another reason William Faulkner chose this point of view is that it is a limited point of view. The result is that readers cannot truly understand what the characters are truly thinking and feeling. The â€Å"true story† is not known until the townspeople enter the bedroom where Homer’s corpse is. The point of view keeps readers in a questionable matter of suspense. As of who the narrator is, is never disclosed at all to the readers. The dialogue indicates a town’s person is most likely the narrator. This works for the overall effect because everything comes together at the end of the story. The narrator in this story seemed to have a distinctive manner in telling the story. The sequences of events were not told in chronological order, which at times became confusing. The narrator begins th e story by telling us of Miss Emily’s death and how everyone in the town attended her funeral. Then the narrator starts into th... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily Before this class I had heard of A Rose for Emily, but I had never read it. To be honest, I don’t completely understand it. At first Miss Emily seems like a depressed person who is in mourning, but as the story goes along she never changes. She never gets over her mourning. When the people of the town see her with Homer Baron, they see her through a different light. She seems to have found someone with whom she will share her life. They town people think that that they will be married and at one point they think that they did get married. But then he disappears and everyone think that he has left her. Years later when Miss Emily dies, they find out that they were wrong. Homer never left her. He died there in the house. This is where I am confused. Miss Emily’s gray hair is in the bed next to him. There is an imprint of a head on the pillow next to him. This would lead me to think that she had been lying in the bed next to him. If so, this would mean she was loving and couldn’t let go of him. She had a hard time letting go of her father after his death. Maybe she decided that she wasn’t going to let go again because of the lo9neliness that she had felt. She did buy arsenic before she met him. This leaves open the possibility, that she poisoned him. I think that it was the first thought. I think that Miss Emily loved Homer and she didn’t want to be alone so she didn’t let him go. She sound like she was probably lonely and depressed after her dad died. Homer was the other man that had been in her life. She didn’t want to be alone again.... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily â€Å"A Rose for Emily† Generally speaking, a work of fiction moves from one set of circumstances or relationships into another. Observing this phenomenon, Francis Ferguson, Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale, developed his theory of action. For the purpose of discussion, Ferguson distinguishes three phases of the action: purpose, passion, and perception. Ferguson’s theory will be applied to William Faulkner’s â€Å"A Rose for Emily† in an effort to elucidate its major theme. Purpose, according to Ferguson, â€Å"is the movement of the psyche towards that which it wants.† Purpose is found in the Central character who happens to be a southern aristocrat named of Emily Grierson. In this essay Emily embodies a â€Å"fallen monument†. She was a monument of the old southern values, and felt so strongly about them that her purpose was to stop time. In a well-structured story purpose is shared analogously by the other characters either positively or negatively. The characters who share the purpose positively represent the past in which Emily was bound. For instance Tobe her servant, he catered to all of Emily’s needs, and helped confine her psyche to the past by keeping the house impervious. Col. Satoris, and Judge Stevens also played a role which would help stop time. The Board of Alderman who accepted the Colonel's attitude toward Emily and rescinded her taxes was instrumental in Emily’s campaign against time. Sharing the purpose negatively was the narrator. From what I’ve gathered the unnamed narrator in this story is the present day town. The town is in a state of transition from the old to the new which is detrimental to Emily’s purpose.... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily A Rose for Emily, must be the last rose that was presented to Emily’s lifeless body in her eternal state. This story from my perspective, paints a picture in my mind on how Miss Emily Grierson’s life unfolds from a third person’s point of view. The story starts off with Emily being kept in her house by her father. Emily’s father eventually dies and Emily cannot let go of her father’s ephemeral life. Emily stays inside the house for a period of time until she eventually musters the courage to go outside where she meets Homer Barron, a homosexual. Emily and Homer ride around town in his buggy leading everybody in town to think that she will marry him. Suddenly Homer disappears and is not seen again until the end of the story, where Homer’s lifeless body is found in Emily’s home. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the story using the moral and intellectual approach method. According to what I read, the moral of the story is; you should let go if a loved one passes away. That is why as human beings we go through bereavement. Consistent with the text, â€Å"She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body.†(Faulkner, 104). It is good to cry in a time of grief, it is the first step in the process of acceptance of death of a loved one. To help me live a better life, as stated by the text, ‘ â€Å"I want some poison,† she said to the druggist. â€Å"Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such? I’d recom-† â€Å"I want the best you have. I don’t care what kind.† ’ (Faulkner, 105). The way I perceive this excerpt is that rejections from the opposite sex are sometimes hard to take, but sometimes fatal-attraction occurs. There have been many cases in my life, in which the hurt party has taken away the life of the one that they mostly loved because of rejection. For the better understandi... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily An Analysis of â€Å"A Rose for Emily† In William Faulkner’s â€Å"A Rose for Emily†, the role of the community plays a major part in the story. The community’s feelings and viewpoints affect the events that are portrayed in the story. The narrator of this story is a member of the community. Therefore, the reader views Emily through the eyes of the community. Miss Emily is a very respected woman in her town. Her Grierson name is one reason the community holds her in such high regard. However, not all of the community feels this way about Emily. Many people in the town disapprove of the relationship between Miss Emily and Homer Barron, which affects the reader’s view of Miss Emily as well. Miss Emily is also unable to let go of her past. Her inability to leave her past behind causes the community to wonder if something is wrong with Miss Emily. The reader gets mixed emotions and feelings of Miss Emily because the community is narrating the story. In â€Å"A Rose For Emily†, Miss Emily is greatly respected by the community; everyone in town knows about Miss Emily. The respect of Miss Emily begins with her father, Mr. Grierson. Her father was a very strict but also respected man. His strictness was shown through his dating restrictions for Emily. He didn’t think any man was good enough for Miss Emily. Having the last name Grierson made Emily a respected woman just like her father. A tale made up by Colonel Sartoris helped make Miss Emily and her father respected. Colonel Sartoris made up a story about Miss Emily’s father that he loaned money to the town. He then told Miss Emily that he emitted her taxes. Colonel Sartoris did this because he respected Miss Emily and felt sorry for her, and this was the only way he could pay her back for her father’s loan. These stories sculpt the reader’s perception of Miss Emily. The older generation in Miss Emily’s life respected her more t han the younger generatio... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily Sybolism In the short story, â€Å"A Rose for Emily† by William Faulkner, symbolism is used frequently throughout the story. There are several different symbolic subjects in this story such as the house, Miss Emily as a â€Å"monument,† Homer and the â€Å"Yankee† views, and Miss Emily’s old Negro servant who represents death in the story. Miss Emily is compared to her house in many different ways, there is the description of the decaying house which symbolizes Miss Emily’s physical and emotional decay, and as well as her mental problems. The representation between Miss Emily and the house is shown through the constant neglect that is given to her from the neighbors and people in the town. Faulkner in one point makes, the house is described to be â€Å"stubborn and unrelenting,† as Miss Emily portrays the same aspects. Miss Emily shows her stubbornness when she doesn’t let the new guard attach metal numbers above her door. Also many other signs of this stubbornness is when Miss Emily refuses to believe that her father is dead and when she refuses to pay taxes. This retracts back to the house on how it rejects progression and updating, so does Miss Emily, as they become decaying symbols of their dying generation. Miss Emily really is representing the â€Å"Old South,† her southern heritage a nd her points of view are given through her actions. That’s where she gets her stubbornness and attitude from the strong characteristics of her Southern heritage. She refused to believe that the times where changing and refused to change into the new society like everyone else in the town was doing. The Southern heritage is also represented through Miss Emily’s strict and repetitive ways. The story basically addresses the changes in the South after the Civil War. Miss Emily is considered a â€Å"monument† of the Southern manners and her past values that she has. The Old South generations were dying quickly by the changing in traditions and to t... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily William Faulkner’s â€Å"A Rose for Emily† uses the character Emily Grierson to show contrast between the past and present, specifically of her life as it was, in the town of Jefferson, located somewhere in the southern United States. The narrator begins with the funeral of Emily. Miss Emily is referred to as a â€Å"fallen monument† (ARE 531, NIL). This indicates to us that Emily represented what was left of the prominent Grierson name, long time, and upstanding citizens in the town of Jefferson. She was the ideal of past values but fallen, because of her passing. Emily is the product of an earlier era and surrounds herself with reminders of the past. After the death of her father, his crayon portrait is given prominence in her house and is hung above her coffin upon her death. The image of Emily trying to hold back the encroachment of new generations is shown in the description of her house, which is of a traditional style mansion, of southern well-to-do families, despite being surrounded by newer buildings. Faulkner writes: â€Å"Only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn coquettish decay about the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps† (ARE 532, NIL). Her home was an eyesore amongst the newer, yet different buildings in her neighborhood. A description of her home â€Å"the house smells of dust and disuse–a close, dank smell† (ARE 532, NIL) and a description of Emily in relation to her home is disclosed by the narrator â€Å"She looked bloated like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that palled hue (ARE 532, NIL). We can see the comparison of the two and find they are closely related. Emily did not always have a drab-used appearance. In the crayon picture Emily with her father, which hung in the home, she had a slender figure and looked the part of that era. After her father’s death, she cut her hair â€Å"looked like a girl with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windowsï ¿ ½... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily A Rose for Emily In Faulkner’s short story A Rose for Emily has a underlying theme of loneliness. A character like Miss Emily is with out a doubt depressed and lonely. Emily has a strong potential disposition for mental instability. The story was intentionally written in a dreary tone making way for the horrifying conclusion. For the most part the story gives us insight into the dark side of human personality. Miss Emily is a character that leads a repressed life caused by her upbringing and developing into a depressive state. For some time in the story Emily is portrayed as a very depressed person who never leaves the house and never sees anybody. A person like that is really seen to have a mental disorder or was the main objective to cover-up a murder? Most likely in Emily’s case it is both going on at the same time. I think it is assumed that Emily had emotional scars but the story doesn’t focus on that alone. It is really up to the reader that judges the scale of Emily’s emotional distress. I think it is true that Emily’s emotional state was on a downward spiral after she poisoned Homer. Emily didn’t murder because she was mental. The murder came more from emotional hardship than anything else. After she murdered homer she became increasing insane. The fact is that she had to deal with the consequences of killing another person such as the disposal of the body, suspicion by others, and mental capacity to deal with the after affects. Emily couldn’t deal with another emotional scar. She might have taken her own life if she was emotional stable. Instead she is fixated on how things could have been which turns into the story of her life. Emily’s loneliness is manifested in her depressive state and emotional detachment from the world.... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily Letting Go When people begin to age they are often faced with many psychological and physical changes. In the short story, â€Å"A Rose for Emily† by William Faulkner, Miss Emily leads a difficult life. Letting go is one of the common problems older people are faced to deal with because of their fear of being alone. Many older people have trouble letting go of those who are close to them. Miss Emily has a lot of trouble letting go of her father, of her friend Homer Barron, and of her old traditions. In â€Å"A Rose for Emily† William Faulkner demonstrates ones troubles of letting go of someone close to you. Everyday millions of people have to say good-bye to someone they love. Miss Emily, an older woman from Jefferson, Mississippi, has trouble saying good-bye to the ones she loved. In this short story, Faulkner shows us through Miss Emily how older people have trouble letting go of the ones they love. Miss Emily lives in a very old house that needs to be repaired dramatically. â€Å"An eyesore among eyesores,† is how Faulkner describes the house in the story to show that Miss Emily has a problem letting go. This house is the house that her father lived in and died in which she remains living in showing her troubles of letting go. When her father died Miss Emily told everyone that came to give their condolences that he was still alive (p. 52). Miss Emily could not let go of her father when he died so she kept him in the house in fear of being alone with no one to love or be loved by. The thought of her father not being there is very disturbing to Miss Emily. This is the reason she is alone when her father dies. Her father was there her whole life telling her what to do. Her father was her everything and the only one she had in her life, so she could not let go of him even when they took him away to be buried. â€Å"Just as they were about to resort to law and force , she broke down and they buried her father quickly (p.52).ï ¿ ½... Free Essays on A Rose for Emily A Rose For Emily By William Faulkner When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservanta combined gardener and cookhad seen in at least ten years. It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumpsan eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson. Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayorhe who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apronremitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity. Not that Miss Emily would have accepted charity. Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily's father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this way of repaying. Only a man of Colonel Sartoris' generation and thought could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed it. When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction. On the first of the year they mailed her a tax no... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily A Rose For Emily is a story of a southern women and the secret she has kept for 40 years. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place takes place in a cafà © in a Spanish country. There are three characters in this story, two which are waiters, and an old drunk man. This story is very mysterious just as A Rose for Emily. Both stories are told in an omniscient point of view. A Rose for Emily begins off telling us that Miss Emily has now died and people have come to her funeral. We see how the men have come out of respectful affection yet the women have come because of their curiosity, since no one has seen her in years except the gardener, manservant, and the cook. We really do not get a time frame expect the fact that it is after the death of Miss Emily now. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place begins straight off with taking us into the story at the cafà ©. We get the picture of the old man drinking and the two waiters observing him and understanding he was drunk. Unlike A Rose for Emily we find out a little more about the character when we find out that the old man is deaf and is a regular client at this cafà ©. We also get a better depiction of the scene, â€Å"†¦In the daytime the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Ernest Hemingway also sets up a time frame for us. He lets us know that it is late at night. We can also compare the last paragraph of each story. In both stories we get a revelation at the end. In A Rose for Emily it is discovered that next to the dead body of old Homer Barron in Miss Emily’s room, is a pillow where Miss Emily would lay. This ending is really grearisome and grotesque. In A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, we get a realization of what the title of the story is all about and how the older waiter feels. He explains how he prefers a clean-well lighted cafà © over a bar or bodega. We also hear how he can not sleep at night and much prefers to sleep in the daylight, a weird case of insomnia. Bo... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily Time Throughout the story â€Å"A Rose For Emily† William Faulkner uses different people, places, and things to validate his continuous southern themes. Faulkner’s themes are that nobody shall control our lives except ourselves and that traditions are difficult to change and let go of. â€Å"A Rose for Emily† communicates that when we let other people control our lives we can end up very lonely and sad. There are two things that happen as a result of this concept. The first thing that can occur is a loss of one’s self and value. The second thing that occurs is that the controlling factor will gain a sense of power and will eventually want to control you entire life if you let them. This kind of domination can occur in our lives at anytime; it could happen between friends, husband and wife, siblings, and a parent and child. As in Emily’s case, a child does not willing give up their freedom of choice to their parents but rather it is taken when they are young. This happens because when children are young they need the guidance of their parents wisdom and knowledge. They are not fully capable of making certain decisions and need to have these made for them in conjunction with their age. However, many children when never given a choice do not realize they even have this power. This occurs when the parent abuses their power and continues to make decisions for their child, controlling their lives even into adulthood. As this story is a play on past and present, the past which Emily refused to let go of was a complete contradiction of what was happening as a result of post Civil War. The Chivalric Code because contaminated with sexism and racism. Because this story uses past and present as a theme to represent much of Emily’s life story the reader is shown the changes that are taking place even in town. For example, when the town receives a free mail service Emily refuses to have them install the numbers on the ou... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily In the short story â€Å"A Rose for Emily† Emily, an old spinster, has difficulty acknowledging that death and change are inevitable. Emily’s reluctance to let go of the past is a representation of the â€Å"dying south†. The author, William Faulkner, is able to reveal the story’s theme through various forms a symbolism. Faulkner begins the story with the narrator describing the funeral of the aristocratic Miss Emily. Faulkner mentions: †our whole town went to the funeral with a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument† ( p.28). By characterizing Emily as a â€Å"fallen monument† Faulkner deliberately makes Emily a symbol of the south’s transition from grandiosity into a modernized less refined society. . The choice of the word monument reveals that Emily was the last of her kind and that with her death, the past that she represented will only be a memory of a dying institution. â€Å" †¦The ladies sibilant and macabre; and the very old men†¦confusing time with its mathematical progression†¦ to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided to them now by the narrow bottleneck of the most recent decade of years.† (p. 34) Emily surrounds herself with reminders of the past as if surrounding herself with old things will prevent the years from passing. Faulkner gives this impression by pointing out that Emily looks like someone that has been submerged in â€Å"motionless water†. This evokes in the reader a feeling of stillness as if time were stagnant around Miss Emily. â€Å"She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue.† (p. 29) After Emily’s father died his portrait was given prominence in her home. This symbolizes Emily reluctance to let go of the past. Her father’s portrait hangs as if he was still watching over her. â€Å"On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplace... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily The Character of Emily In the story "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, Miss Emily is the main character, the protagonist. Several main points surface with regards to this character. It is apparent that Emily does not like change or advancements in technology. She cannot be alone as, it is evident, she always needs a man in her life. Emily’s family, the Grierson’s, are a prominent and wealthy family in town. Being a descendant of the Grierson family, Emily expects exceptions to be made for her and demands respect. Emily is a monument in the town; everyone knows of her and is always wondering what she is hiding. When Miss Emily was thirty years old she appeared to be slender with haughty black eyes (Faulkner, 58). When she had been sick for a long time and came back her hair was short, which made her look young (57). Later in her life, Miss Emily had grown fat and her hair was turning gray, like pepper and salt iron gray (57). Her physical appearance seemed important, yet she was never described as being clean. She was presented in a way that left you wondering that something did not seem right about her. One thing never changed about Miss Emily's appearance; that being she always held her head high with dignity. Emily Grierson had many notable traits. She was respected by the town and was known as an idol. Her personality traits painted a picture of her being better than others; as stated, none of the young men were good enough; she thinks she is better than everyone (57). When people came over, she did not ask them to sit down, coming across as being rude. She was very strong-minded; she would not let people bother her about her taxes. Miss Emily also had a lot of unusual or wretched traits. She was a hermit, never leaving her home; she kept herself secluded from outside her domain. Emily did not want to be alone even when her father died; she did not release the body for three days. She a... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily How the North and South are represented in A Rose for Emily In the short story â€Å"A Rose for Emily† Faulkner symbolizes the north and south through two individual people. Miss Emily Grierson represents the south, and Mr. Homer Barron represents the north. Faulkner displays these traits all through the story. Miss Emily demonstrates the characteristics of the south all throughout the story. Emily Grierson has a sense of tradition that makes it very difficult for her to accept change. In the beginning of the story Miss Emily’s father passes away. Miss Emily does not accept that her father is dead and does not let anyone into the house to get the body. Finally after three days of trying to get into the house the get the body miss Emily lets the men into the house. After her father’s death Colonel Sartoris out of pity for Miss Emily says that her father has donated so much charity to the town that she does not have to pay taxes. Somewhere around 10 years after Colonel Sartoris’s death the town tried to get miss Emily to pay her taxes, but she refused saying, â€Å"See Colonel Sartoris, I have no taxes in Jefferson†.(28). The biggest thing that Miss Emily does that lets shows how hard it is for her to accept change is when she kills her lover Homer Barron. Homer Barron was a man whose job took him from place to place, and Miss Emily knew this. So Miss Emily did what she had to do to keep him with her always even if that meant killing him. Even after she killed him, she kept his body in her house and continued to sleep in the same bed as him. The south has some of the same problems that Miss Emily has. The south does not like change, so when they heard that the south wanted them to end slavery the south did not oblige. And even today the south still fly the rebel flag sometimes as a sort of racist remark to the blacks. The south is also very old fashioned just like Miss Emily. Miss Emily lived in a very old style h... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily A Rose for Emily creates a character in Emily Grierson that is very dynamic. She is a strong woman with a great sense of tradition but at the same time she suffers from a very skewed perception of the world. While her seeming insanity drivers her to murder it also seems to be balanced by her character and her strong inner sense of pride, both in herself and in her family. Throughout most of this story Emily Grierson gives us the sense of strength. She shows strength when she rebuffs the men who come to collect her taxes, even though her source of proof has been dead for several years. She seems to show strength even when the men are creeping around her house putting down lime to block out the smell. But this strength that she shows is merely a front. It is merely a cover to hide her inner insecurities and doubts about herself. What Emily Grierson shows on the outside is a front to protect her from the world as she sees it has changed. Another thing that strongly shows in Emily Grierson's character is her deep respect, and sometimes even reliance, on the past and her ancestry. Emily Grierson comes from an "old style" southern family. While most of the town changes she does not. She relies on the past to dictate how she should act. In the situation where she is involved with Homer Barron, the man working for the city, she seemingly tries to persuade him to stay with her. She acts with him as she would have in days gone by. But this is another situation where her underlying mental problems intercede and she goes to far to protect herself, killing Homer with arsenic then sleeping with his dead body every night until her death. Emily Grierson does not like change and is unwilling to do so. Emily Grierson is a dynamic character in this story in only one aspect. After her father dies she, does the unexpected and takes a liking to man who would ordinarily be beneath her. On the contrary she is very stubborn as well. Emily Gri... Free Essays on A Rose for Emily William Faulkner a man from the south with very little education became one of the most famous southern writers of his time. He wrote the story, â€Å"A Rose for Emily,† that contained one of the strangest characters I have ever encountered in a story. This character is Emily Grierson who lived in Mississippi, which was where Faulkner was from. Emily Grierson is viewed an anomaly for her gender and time period. An anomaly is one that is peculiar, irregular, abnormal, or difficult to classify. The social life, and social status of Emily Grierson is one way that she is so different from any woman. Emily is looked at as a very powerful woman due to the prestige of her father who was a war veteran. She lives in a very nice house that had at one point been on a very select street. She is looked at very highly from other people’s views, and she knows that she has power. The woman refuses to pay taxes to the town of Jefferson. â€Å"Perhaps he considers himself the sheriff†¦I have no taxes in Jefferson.† (Page 31) She believes that she doesn’t have to pay because of her father who has been past away for ten years. When her father did die, Emily did not want to dispose of the body. She kept telling the ministers that her father was not dead. In her mind, she tells the men who came to collect the taxes to see Colonel Sartoris. Obviously, she is so deranged to believe these men can go talk to her father, and that she is so powerful she doesnâ⠂¬â„¢t have to pay taxes. The social life that Emily does not have. She has not let anyone into her house in years. The only person who really saw the inside of her house was the manservant, and Homer Barron who wishes he probably never did. That is no way for any person to live. People need to interact and see other people because it is essential for a healthy life. The poor woman didn’t have any friends to come to her house, or anywhere for her to go. Along came this Negro man ... Free Essays on A Rose for Emily A ROSE FOR EMILY A Rose for Emily takes place after the Civil War and into the 1900’s in the town of Jefferson, Mississippi- a town very similar to the one in which William Faulkner spent most of his life. It is a story of the conflict between the old and the new South, the past and the present- with Emily and the things around her steadfastly representing the dying old traditions and the present expressed mostly through the words of the narrator but also through Homer Barron and the new board of aldermen. The issue of racism also runs throughout the story. In part I, Faulkner refers to Emily as a "fallen monument", a monument to the southern gentility that existed before the Civil War. Her house is described as having once been white- the color of youth, innocence and purity, and also of the white society- but decayed now and smelling of dust and disuse. It stands between the cotton wagons (the past) and the gasoline pumps (the present)an "eyesore among eyesores". Emily comes from an upper class family and grew up privileged and protected by her father. An agreement between her father and Colonel Sartoris- a character we assume was a veteran of the Civil War and who also represented the old South with his edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apronexempted her from paying taxes. The authorities decide to pay Emily a visit to try to collect the taxes due the town. When we are introduced to Emily, she is described as being in black- the color of death- and her eyes are lifeless†¦"two small pieces! of coal". The description of Emily is not unlike that of her house, and I thought of a corpse when reading that "she looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue."the dying old traditions. The tarnished gold head on her black cane is the one reminder of her affluent, upper class position of years ago. An... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily â€Å"Time which destroys and renews all things has placed us here.† This quote can be analyzed through William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily. This story is about an old woman who was held in high regard in her society. She lives a lonely life due to the overbearing wishes of her father, who did not allow her to socialize as a young lady. Once her father dies, the town sees it as a duty to care for Emily as a way to pay respect to her dead father. Emily, at the end of her life, meets a gentleman and takes a great interest in him. The two of them are seen all over town as if they were an intimate couple. One day the man disappears and is never seen again. It is not until the end where he is found dead in a locked room in Emily’s house. Emily could not change the past and therefore could not change the future. She had shocked the community with her secret; her decision to â€Å"stop time.† As a young child, Emily is deprived of friendship. Her father is a well-respected member of the community and holds his daughter to the same standards. Her father would not approve of any of her male suitors; nobody was ever good enough for Emily. She has to rely solely on her father for love and support. When her father dies, she is left alone with nobody to fill the loveless void in her life. It is at this point in time that her life is â€Å"destroyed† and it is not until she meets Homer Baron that her life is â€Å"renewed.† With Homer in her life she felt more alive and walked around with â€Å"her head high.† Although, it is ironic that she takes an interest in a laborer knowing that her father would have forbid it. Emily is rebelling against her father and taking control of her own life, even though it is late in her life. It is towards the end of the story that the idea of â€Å"you can never go home again† is presented. Homer decides that he is going to go back up North. When Emily hears of this news she does not know what to ... Free Essays on A Rose for Emily Adapting to Change William Faulkner examines the theme of adapting to change in â€Å"A Rose for Emily.† In the story, Emily Grierson lives a life almost completely free of change. The people around her have taken control of her life, leaving her confused about making a life of her own. Emily allows herself to become trapped from reality. Instead of facing reality, some people find it easier to trick the mind, never adjusting to change. Faulkner shows that people caught in controlling relationships will have a hard time adjusting to change, leaving them lonely and with a loss of reality. Faulkner explains that victims of controlling life styles have a hard time adapting to change. Emily allowed her father and other people in her community to control her. Throughout her life, the town’s people described Emily as a â€Å"hereditary obligation upon the town†, almost as though she owed them her life (81). After the death of her father, the town believed she wanted to â€Å"cling† to him because she had allowed him to be the only man in her life (84). It is expected that we would want to hold on to someone if they were all that we knew. Emily was so strictly controlled by her father, that she would become lost without him. She did not have a life of her own. She was even described as â€Å"the background† of her father (84). The narrator recalled all of the men in her life that â€Å"her father had driven away† (84). Even at thirty years old she â€Å"was still single†, implying that by allowing someone else to control your personal life, you could still be affected long into adulthood (84). But the town’s people agreed that she would never change her father’s ways, saying that she â€Å"would not think seriously† about dating a man like Homer Barron (84). They also felt that she held â€Å"her head high† to prove that she deserved dignity because of her family’s last name (85). The town’s people believed that Emily wo... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily A Rose for Emily as a Metaphor for Life Life is fickle and most people will be a victim of circumstance and the times. Some people choose not to let circumstance rule them and, as they say, "time waits for no man". Faulkner’s Emily did not have the individual confidence, or maybe self-esteem and self-worth, to believe that she could stand alone and succeed at life especially in the face of changing times. She had always been ruled by, and depended on, men to protect, defend and act for her. From her Father, through the manservant Tobe, to Homer Barron, all her life was dependent on men. The few flashes of individuality showed her ability to rise to the occasion, to overcome her dependency, when the action was the only solution available. Like buying the poison or getting money by offering china-painting classes. Life is sad and tragic; some of which is made for us and some of which we make ourselves.Emily had a hard life. Everything that she loved left her. Her father probably impressed upon her that every man she m et was no good for her. The townspeople even state "when her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad being left alone. She had become humanized" (219). This sounds as if her father’s death was sort of liberation for Emily. In a way it was, she could begin to date and court men of her choice and liking. Her father couldn’t chase them off any more. But then again, did she have the know-how to do this, after all those years of her father’s past actions? It also sounds as if the townspeople thought Emily was above the law because of her high-class stature. Now since the passing of her father she may be like them, a middle class working person.Unfortunately, for Emily she became home bound. She didn’t socialize much except for having her manservant Tobe visit to do some chores and go to the store for her. Faulkner depicts Emily and her family as a high soc... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily â€Å"A Rose for Emily† by William Faulkner is a remarkable story of a Miss Emily Grierson, who at the beginning of the story is deceased and her funeral drew the attention of the entire population of a small southern town named Jefferson. An unnamed narrator suggests that the narration were done in the 3rd Person Omniscient. This narrator, who somewhat is considered to be â€Å"the town† or at least the collaborative voice of it, aligns key moments in Emily’s life, including the death of her father and her brief and weird relationship with Homer Barron, a man from the north. The story basically addresses the symbolic changes in the South after the civil war, the transition from Old South to New South. The Grierson House symbolizes neglect and the new changes in the town of Jefferson. Beginning with Emily’s funeral, throughout the story Faulkner foreshadows the ending and suspenseful events in Emily’s life, and Emily’s other awaiting circumstances. This story tells the tale of Emily, a young woman who lives and abides by her father’s strict rationale. The rampant symbolism and Faulkner’s descriptions of the decaying house, coincide with Miss Emily’s physical and emotional decay, and so emphasize her mental degeneration, and further illustrate the outcome of Faulkner’s story. Miss Emily’s decaying house, not only lacks genuine love and care, but so does she in her adult life. Faulkner best uses characterization to examine the theme of the story, too much pride can end in homicidal madness. Miss Emily, the Protagonist of this story, lives for many years as a recluse, someone who has withdrawn from a community to live in seclusion. Faulkner characterizes Emily’s attempt to remove herself from society through her actions. She wouldn’t go out a lot after her sweetheart went away and people hardly saw her at all. The death of her father and the shattered relationship with her sweetheart contributed to her seclusi... Free Essays on A Rose For Emily â€Å"A Rose for Emily† In William Faulkner’s story â€Å"A Rose for Emily†, we are introduced to a multitude of characters. Our main character in the story is Miss Emily Grierson. As we read the story we get an insight into her life as a young woman up until her death. How from her early years as a young lady she has lived under the rule of her father and then after his death becomes a surrogate child of the town of Jefferson. But what is it that has driven Miss Emily to commit the murder of Homer Barron. What does the town of Jefferson do, if anything, that allows her to do this and what influence her father had on it. Miss Emily lived under the strict rule of her father up until his death. He did not allow her to live or enjoy life as she would please, he â€Å"had robbed her† (Faulkner 624) of all the â€Å"young men† (624) in her life. Her family was of great importance to the town of Jefferson, so important in fact that upon the death of her father the mayor of Jefferson, Colonel Sartoris, â€Å"remitted her taxes†¦into perpetuity† (622). This act was the beginning of the â€Å"foster care† it would extend to Miss Emily. We learn years later that the Board of Aldermen tries, without much success, to get Miss Emily to pay her taxes. After sending out the tax notice they would wait until â€Å"February came, and there was no reply† (622). The mayor â€Å"wrote her himself† (622) and offered â€Å"to call or to send his car for her† (622) but all attempts had gone ignored. Miss Emily’s neighbors did not have much luck with her either. They had noticed a â€Å"smell† (623) protruding from her residence and requested that Judge Stevens, the current mayor of Jefferson, speak to her about it but none of the â€Å"noble† gentlemen of the Board of Aldermen could bring themselves to confront Miss Emily and â€Å"accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad† (623). In order to correct the problem it was decided that at night â€Å"after midnight†...