A rose for emily2

A detailed Summary of A rose for emily2

In a "A Rose for Emily" the author, William Faulkner, symbolizes the state of the post civil war south in the story of Miss Emily Grieson. This leads Miss Emily to be the center of the tale, a woman sheltered by her father as a girl and betrayed by her lover as a woman. The setting for "A Rose for Miss Emily" is in a post civil war era in the town of Jefferson, an imaginary town used by Faulkner in his stories, a south becoming aware of its role in a nation. In a way the whole story is symbolic of change in the town's life, or the south, through out Miss Emily's life. The symbolism in the decaying house coincides with the emotional and physical status of Miss Emily; the house needs the love and care it never gets; so does Miss Emily throughout her childhood and her adult life. The relation can be shown by the various use of symbolism set in the story by Faulkner; as an example, the house used to be in a good neighborhood which has decayed, as in Faulkner's words " It was a big squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires" ( 75), and then the vivid transformation of the house to " coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and t

he gasoline pumps- an eyesore among eyesores" (75). The narrator being unknown to us, who is assumed to be the town, gives a sense of grandeur to Miss Emily, as if she were one of the town's monuments, something beautiful and worth caring for. " Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care" ( 75), which gives Miss Emily a sense of beauty --" Miss Emily a slender figure in white" (77), which in turn decays into being obese and bloated-- " she looked fat and bloated like a body long submerged in motionless water" ( 75). The fall of Miss Emily is symbolized through her relation with Homer Barron, who in a way is replacing her father. For when Homer was about to leave, Miss Emily killed him to hold on to the forbidden, which her father never allowed her to have. This in a way symbolizes the conditions of the south in that time period, Homer being " a Northerner, a day laborer" ( 77), characteristics that were not appreciated by the south at that time. The society is locked up to progress, and stuck in the old ways, as is Miss Emily who shuts herself from the world around her and doesn't want any contact with it. When the town saw her, a while after her father's death, she was described as "sort of tragic and serene" (77), which represents the condition of the south at that time, and even when the modern times were coming around and a "newer generation became the backbone

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 941
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English