critical analysis on a rose 4 emily.docx

7/27/2019 critical analysis on a rose 4 emily.docx

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1. The short story A Rose For Emily written by William Faulkner

is a tale about an old woman named Emily living in the town of

Jefferson. The story is written in the classic Faulkner method of

a streaming consciousness. A Rose For Emily illustrates the

theme of decay in the town, the house, and in Miss Emily

herself. Set in the early nineteen hundreds, the story opens

with the town finding out about Emily's death. The story is told

by an unknown narrator who lives in the town of Jefferson. We

learn of the life and times of Emily, and her relationship with

the town, her father, and her lover. At the end of the story we

find out about the disturbing truth that Emily Grierson was

hiding.

As Emily grows older so does the town that she has lived in for

her entire life. While she had once lived on one of the nicest

streets in Jefferson, the street in now considered to be one of

the worst in the town. It would seem that the street had agedand decayed with Miss Emily. In her youth, Emily and her family

were respected and known as some of Jefferson's finest

citizens. As Emily has grown older the town sees her in a

different way. In her old age she is seen as a monument to the

past that is never seen outside of her house. All of the respect

that her father had earned died with the old men and women

of the town. The old ways of the town of Jefferson decayed and

passed away with all of the men and women that had called it

home.

The house that Emily lives in was at one time one of the most

beautiful homes in the whole town of Jefferson. In Emily's

youth the house was always well kept. As Miss Emily aged so

did the house she lived in. The house became an eyesore for

the entire town. With faded paint and an unkempt yard it even

began to smell at one point. The men of the old Jefferson

would never tell a lady that her house smelled so they cured

the odor themselves. It would seem that the house and Emily

where connected in a way. Both of them had grown old and

lost their splendor. The house was also looked at in the same

way as Emily. They where looked at as a monument to the past.

Emily had once been one of the most beautiful ladies in

Jefferson. With her father alive no man dared to court her. As

Emily grew older she began to decay and lose some of her

looks. In her old age she became a fat and gray haired old

women. It would also seem that her mind had decayed as well.

She had one love, Homer Barron, which the town had believed

had left her. It is revealed at the end of the story that he in fact

did not leave Miss Emily. Emily had poisoned Mr Barron and left

his body in her bed. Emily's mind had decayed to such a point

that she was not aware of what was right or wrong. She could

not even understand what was normal. The state of mind that

she was in explains why she and the house had decayed to such

a point.

While Faulkner had many themes in "A Rose For Emily", the

theme of decay was the most prevalent throughout the entirestory. The town of Jefferson, the house, and Emily all grew old.

Miss Emily lost her mind and her looks. The house lost the

beauty it once held due to old age. The town of Jefferson

changed and grew old. What had once been a nice southern

town had decayed. William Faulkner truly wrote a wonderful

story about an old women who loses her mind. "A Rose For

Emily" shows the way in which we all grow old and decay.

2.When one reads "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, it is

easy to be overwhelmed by the very obvious gender issues

contained therein. Almost every other line has something to do

with what the women do, or how the men act. It is not so much

a story about Emily herself, the seemingly crazy old spinster, as

it is about the townspeople who lead her to do what she does.

It is narrated by an unknown character, who often refers to his

or herself as "we", implying that this person is an active

member of the community in which Emily lives. The narrator

constantly brings gender to the forefront, and makes a very

clear distinction of how each gender reacts to certain

situations. Miss Emily Grierson herself was not as insane as the

story made her out to be. Emily was driven to such a fate by the

stereotypical gender depiction of the townspeople, for the sole

reason of not residing within these standards.

Faulkner wastes no time in revealing gender concerns in his

story. The narrator begins by telling us what the town's women

did at the funeral versus the men, setting up a stereotype that

is reinforced heavily throughout the story. "When Miss Emily

Grierson dies, our whole town went to her funeral: the men

through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument,

the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her

house". Women are presented to us as having a somewhat

callous view, being nothing more than nosy and fraudulent in

their funeral attendance. Faulkner continues to assault us with

an ill will towards women. It is said of the town's debt to Emily

that "only a man of Colonel Sartoris' generation and thought

could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed

it". It seems later that Faulkner attempts to (negatively)

stereotype men too, but the stereotyping is done by the

women in the story. This further pushes an unfriendly stance onfemales. "'Just as if a man-any man-could keep a kitchen


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properly,' the ladies said; so they were not surprised when the

smell developed".When the smell developed in Miss Emily's

home, it was a woman, very clearly, that first complained

rather unkindly to the mayor. Faulkner makes no secret and no

excuse of his view on women. In "A Rose for Emily" women are

presented very harshly by him, whereas the men in the story

are given more of a glorified stance.

The men in "A Rose for Emily" are given positions of power and

are respected highly by the women. All of the male main

characters (apart from the Negro, which clearly signifies racial

issues) hold a high position within the town. Even when their

job does not warrant it, as in the case of Homer Barron, a

foreman of a construction company, he is respected and known

for his good humor and cruelty to the "niggers". Judge Stevens,

Colonel Sartoris, and Emily's father all preside over andsometimes intimidate the women with their power, wealth and

manhood. The town's men are presented as an obverse

reaction to the town's women, doing everything completely

opposite, and presumably in Faulkner's eyes, correctly. They

are given a certain authority by the narrator, which is severely

lacking in the case of the women, save one.

Emily Grierson is given to us as a mysterious and dissimilar

character, differing greatly from all of the other characters

within the story. Faulkner chose to write her almost as a male

character, possessing more of their qualities than that of the

women in the town. The mere three times that she actually

speaks for herself in the story, she speaks with great authority

and spite. She refuses to believe what the men are telling her,

going so far as to interrupt them and have them thrown out of

her house by her Negro housekeeper, who happens to be male,

turning the previous gender and racial statements on their

heads. This was incredibly taboo and rare for a woman of her

time to do. She is given some strong qualities, and seems as if

she has a mind of her own. But for all the unique personality

traits she is given, she too falls prey to the power of the men,

embodied in her father and in Homer. She can't hold herself

when she loses them, which shows her dependance on the

dominant male figure. "After her father's death she went out

very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw

her at all". It is only revealed at the very end that she had kept

the body of her "sweetheart", proving her dependance and

disbelief in death. We see it with her father as well, when she

refuses to relinquish his body even days after he had passed.

Emily is very unlike any other woman in the town, and thiscauses static among the community. She is given certain

attributes by the town's women, which may or may not be

correct. They constantly gossip and meddle in her affairs,

saying, in succession, "She will kill herself", "She will marry

him", "She will persuade him yet" and finally, "Poor Emily". She

is never given a voice of her own, and her character is

developed largely by the town, and what they think of her

"odd" ways. She is hounded, criticized and almost idolized for

being different, and not fitting within the stereotypical realm of

women that Faulkner has given to us. It seems that Emily only

wants to be left alone, and that her actions are read so deeply

into that even she begins to succumb to them. She is delivered

by the town's women into the arms of deep seclusion, and

obviously, of deepening madness.

Through Faulkner's writings, we can easily see his sharp-edged

views on gender. He reinforces them not only by writing aboutit, but by showing the consequences of what happens when a

woman doesn't stick to her role, as in the case of poor Emily

Grierson. His writings reveal a snapshot of the times in which

they were written, and how most women depended deeply on

a male figure, and meddled into other's business when they

congregated. "A Rose for Emily" is thoroughly infected with

gender inequalities, as can be detected by even the most

simple and straightforward reading. Emily Grierson was only

slightly outside of the women's stereotype, and for that, she

was driven into solitude and ultimately, into insanity.

The man himself lay in the bedwhat was left of him, rotted

beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become

inextricable from the bed in which he lay (Faulkner).The body

from years gone by is met with shock and unease with the town

peoples of a new era. William Faulkners A Rose for Emily can

be seen using the New Critical approach as a story of an older

and outdated generation struggling to find its home in the

modern era.

3. The New Critical approach to studying literature does

not look at external influences on a piece of literature. It looks

at just the piece. It focuses on the text as a discrete object

and looks for features within the story such as

imagesymboltensionand irony (Guerin et al. 121). The

text itself is the legend to the literature map. There is no need

to look beyond the words that reveal the multi-layers of the

story. Just by the way the author has arranged the words can

give insight. The phrases he uses helps to clear the muddy

waters. In fact, as the reader a llows the words, phrases,

metaphors, images, and symbols to do the job they were

intended to do, the piece of literature will display its own


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internal logic (Guerin et al. 75). The reader just needs to be

aware of the form of the literary piece and be willing to pick up

on what the piece has to say.

In looking at A Rose for Emily, one does not need to

concern themselves with Faulkners past or the time in which

he wrote it. In the New Critical approach, that means nothing

as it should come out in the text if it is important and plays a

part of holding the fibers of the story together. Everything one

needs to truly see the heart of this short story of Faulkners in

found his words describing Emilys life and death. Various

themes can arise including one major one: the past versus the

present.

From the beginning of the short story, there is a

comparison drawn between the days of old and that of themore modern times of when the story is set. There is tension

between two generations (Fu Jen University). Emily was

called a fallen monument and her house as stubborn and

coquettish decay while comparing it to the modern gasoline

pumps next to the house (Faulkner). From there Faulkner

describes how she was a town fixture that the newer

generation had inherited. The town saw her as a tradition, a

duty, and a care (Faulkner). She was a figure of an era long

gone by. They viewed her as a defunct institution, someone

who served a purpose at one time but had outlived herusefulness aside from gossip and speculation (Heller). She,

along with her house, refuses to move forward and remained

frozen in the past. It becomes a tug of war between the

generations.

As the tensions escalate between the town and Emilys

way of life, the differences between her and the town become

more apparent. Images of death and the past appear in the

same scenes with Emily and her life. Even her correspondence

is reminiscent of the distant past when the town received a

reply from her on paper o f archaic shape, in thin, flowing

calligraphy in faded ink (Faulkner).

Her home is kept in the shadows of a time that is more.

Visitors do not see bright rooms and hallways. Instead they only

see shadows and seeing how the house smelled of d ust and

disuse(Faulkner). The furniture was old and beat up and

showed no use. Her entire being was encased in a time that no

one in the town could connect to.

After a span of time withdrawing into her home, Emily

reaches out to the town and attempts to connect to the ones

who were coming up in the ranks by offering classes on how to

paint china in her home. When the newer generation became

the backbone and the spirit of the town, Emily lost her

students who were no longer interested in what she had to

offer (Faulkner). This led her to close her door on the world

that she could not find a home in and was not accepted as she

was.

With the final attempt to be a part of a world that

rejected her, she refused to even do the simple things that the

new world required of her including putting postal numbers on

her house. She closed up parts of the house and presented the

town of picture of stubbornness and a reminder of a time long

ago that they could not relate to.

It is only upon her death that Emily fades into the past

where she belonged. She is buried among those that were part

of history. It is also upon her death that the town discovers how

far in the past she had buried herself. The body of her lover

who had been assumed to have deserted her was found in the

upper floors that had been enclosed as in a tomb. She

essentially enclosed herself into a tomb along with the lover

she poisoned.

Emily refuses to let go of the past where was happiestand more comfortable. She kept the house as it had been for

decades. She refused to let her lover leave her and kept him

through death in a tomb she created just for him and her. She

rejected the world even though she reached out a few times

and felt the pain of rejection. She was a relic of the past who

formed the past in the present to find some peace in her soul.

The tomb becomes her own as she takes her place beside the

body of Homer. The past cannot be severed.

Just by reading the story and letting the words take the

reader the tomb of Emilys life, the New Critical approach does

not need excessive research. It allows the words to expose the

depths of the story instead of the reader having to put in extra

energy. The work is done by Fualkners pen as Emilys life is

woven to reveal the darkness of her past.

4. The story A Rose for Emily can be viewed as criticism of the

post-Civil War Southern society. Reading this story, we find very

blatant, almost stereotypical depictions of the harshest parts of colonial Southern culture, including racism and class structure.


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Faulkner is clearly commenting on the ways of his own culture

which he finds unfair or unjust.

Racism is an unforgettable part of southern history which

Faulkner certainly explores in A Rose for Emily. In the third

paragraph, Faulkner begins by almost randomly reminding us of

the law that "no Negro woman should appear on the streets

without an apron," to remind us of the sort of culture the story

is set against (96). In the story itself, the only African-American

character in the story is rarely referenced by name, referred to

throughout the story simple as "the Negro." The nameless

character has virtually no lines, and his only interaction with

the white characters is very limited. Here Faulkner showing the

"silent Negro" of the South, demonstrating how low and

unworthy these people were considered by Southern culture,

and how many of them went almost unnoticed as human

beings. The unnamed Negro also disappears near the end of the novel, just as the body of Emily's former love is discovered,

obviously fearing that he will be blamed for the murder. This

suggests tendencies in Southern culture to use the African-

American community as scapegoats for their own crimes and

mistakes.

Class-structure is another aspect Faulkner explores in A Rose for

Emily . He places the main character as a member of a formally

upper class family. It is heavily implied that she no longer holds

the former wealth of her family, but she is nonetheless feared

by the community as an upper class citizen. When explaining

"Miss Emily's" past, Faulkner delves into her relationship with

her father, and the fact that he expected her to act as an upper

class lady. He would not let his daughter court any man that he

deemed "below" her social status, which was virtually

everyone, and Emily finds herself terribly lonely and without

the love of a husband. Emily is nonetheless deeply saddened by

her father's passing. It is implied that, despite his abuse, her

father's love was the only she ever truly knew. This could be

interpreted as the Southern people clinging to their traditional

class structure, as it is the only way of life they have ever

known. After her father's passing, when Emily does finally

develop romantic feelings, it is for a man who belongs to a

lower class. Here Faulkner explores the state-of-mind and

judgment of the Southern people: "But there were still others,

older people, who said that even grief could not cause a real

lady to forget noblesse oblige-without calling it noblesse

oblige" (98). The "older people" are the traditionalists clinging

to that old way of Southern living, passing judgment against

those who act progressively against the status quo. When Emily

finally realizes that her relationship with this man of a lower

class can never actually be fulfilled, she acts out her frustration

by murdering him. Emily breaking the "law of God" is Faulkner's

criticism of how close her spiritual values are tied with her

Southern class code. That is, she had already gone against her

upbringing by having this affair with a lower man, so

committing murder, to her, is just part of that rebellion. As

Faulkner put it: "She had broken all the laws of her tradition,

her background, and she had finally broken the law of God too"

(103).

Although his intent was not to write a story which simply

criticizes the South, Faulkner's negative opinions about his own

culture and lifestyle speak very loudly throughout A Rose for

Emily. He clearly demonstrates to us how racism and a rigid

class structure were present in the colonial South, and also

shows us the inhumanity and injustice of it all.

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