A over A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner - Research Paper Example

College A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner was initially published on the 30th of April 1920 (Barnes 374). The author employs the use of unnamed narrator to describe Emily’s relationships with her lover, father and the dark mysteries that Emily has managed to conceal for a long time. The setting of the story occurs in Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha (Faulkne 666). The setting plays a critical role in most of the author’s fiction. The main themes of the narration are: resentment, bitterness, generation gap, suppressed forbidden love as well as disillusionment. This narration helps one to better understand the human psyche. Faulkner manages to brush on several issues that are related to the human life’s dark aspects. The author’s position is that it is impossible for one to find absolute good or evil. These are some of the aspects that form part of the human soul (Allen 689). The story reveals to its audience how a spinster is holding onto her lover’s body and refusing to let it go. The narrative tells a story of a murder that was due to possessive love. It also causes compassion and repulsion at the same time by revealing the face of death (Faulkner 670). The audience is made to understand that she punished her lover by forcing him to have an eternal life by her side. The story manages to reveal that she was not afraid of death herself. Death had come to an agreement with her based on the principal of life to life. The cost to Emily was her personality and freedom. Faulkner manages to show how death can bring to light various dark human mysteries and secrets that will have the effect of changing indifference to sympathy. ‘A Rose for Emily’ is centered on a woman who has caused death to her lover but still went ahead and stayed by his decaying body for several years to come. The story has a psychopathological and a horror sub-story that manages to excite its audience. However, the horror is predominant in the story (Allen 690). Emily is a conscious person that has freedom to make her own decisions as well a spirit that is independent. She looks at the world around her through the glass lenses tinted by her own personal rules. Impressive aspects of her personality are shown through her conduct (Faulkner 671). Many of her actions in the narrative are due to decisions of value. The story manages to cement the concept that if a person is resistant to change, the same person must be prepared to live together with death. Therefore, nobody must fully accept or resist change. The aspect of death is initially described in the story’s first paragraph. This is then mentioned severally with her father’s death, Colonel Sartoris’ death and finally the death of Homer Barron. Barron is a mostly flat character throughout the story. His role in the story is very crucial since he is the one that provides that cadaver that is very critical to the story’s plot. The collective narrator describes him as a Northerner day laborer, a man who is big, dark and ready who laughs constantly and curses “the niggers”. Emily manages to cut a controversial figure. The narrative manages to make the audience create an aura to of elevated meanings around Emily and see her as being very impressive. The narrator also manages to make the audience feel the pressure due to the several contrasting ways that the main character can be perceived. Nobody in the audience can doubt that Emily committed a despicable murder (Barnes 376). The most confusing and in the same time significant part of the story is when she poisoned her lover and later held onto his decomposing body for almost four decades. Emily treats her deceased lover’s decomposing body as if he was still alive for several years after his death. The author managed to create an image of a woman with inadequate perception of reality. Her borderline between fantasy and reality was hugely blurred. She is also portrayed as struggling with her traditions and life in the old south. The author manages to use a language that predicts builds towards the story’s climax. He deliberately uses very descriptive choice of words. The story starts with death then eventually shifts to the near distant past. It eventually leads to the woman’s decease and the past’s traditions that she had personified in the narrative (Rodgers 127). This story can be described as a multi-layered masterpiece. Faulkner makes use of characterization, the language, chronology, sober commentary and a psychological narrative. Faulkner actually begins her this story at the end of the narrative. This is when the audience eventually discovers that Miss Emily actually passed away. This further reinforced the theme of death in the story and it is used to help the audience understand the boundary between death and life, our lives’ lovers as well as the value of parents in our lives (Barnes 376). The audience sees how the passing away of two individuals that were close to her have influenced her character. Both her lover and father passed away. People tried to advice Emily to bury her father and it took her almost three days for it to sink in that it is the appropriate thing to do. She is only left with house where she snow stays alone. This house stands for “stubborn and coquettish decay” and amongst new traditions and generations; “an eyesore among eyesores”. The house was closed to the general public for one decade. The house was opened after her death. The town’s people manage to see a room that has been elegantly furnished with valance curtains, rose-shaded lights and a toilet that is backed with silver that tarnished to the point of an obscured monogram. All these symbolize a happy life which is in stark contrast to the body that was lying in the bed. At the ending of the story, she is described as female who appeared bloated resembling a body that had been left motionless water. Her voice is also described as being cold and dry. Faulkner may have used this flash back to reveal to the audience the events that contributed her demise. The author mentions a smell that had been present three decades before. This stimulated curiosity amongst the audience since Faulkner did not reveal its significance throughout the whole story. Faulkner hints to the audience the story’s tragic ending whilst describing her father’s demise. Emily told everybody that he was not in fact dead. The anonymous narrator afterwards commented that they had not said that Emily was crazy then (Allen 689). This statement alluded to the sad ending when she bought arsenic and her eyes were haughty, cold and black. At the end, it is evident that Emily is portrayed as not being afraid of death and was a hugely misunderstood figure by the other people in society. Her late father was a very stubborn man who was of the view that nobody was good enough for Emily. He took part in the war and was a powerful man in society. This stubbornness had the effect of driving away potentially able men that were interested in Emily. She however managed to fall in love with Barron. This however ended in disappointment when she discovered later on that he was gay hence they could not get married. All these events ultimately led to her choosing death as the easiest way out of this predicament. The setting and timing of the story help the audience understand the way the people in that society though and acted. In a different setting and time, the society’s perception would have been different of her. Works Cited Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” Literature: The Human Experience. 8th ed. Ed. Richard Abcarian and Marvin Klotz. Boston: Bedford, 2002. 666–672. Allen, Dennis W. “Horror and Perverse Delight: Faulkner’s ‘A Rose for Emily.’” Modern Fiction Studies 30, 4 (1984): 685-690. Inge, M. Thomas, ed. William Faulkner: A Rose for Emily. The Merrill Literary Casebook Series. Columbus: Charles E. Merrill, 1970. Barnes, Daniel R. “Faulkner’s Miss Emily and Hawthorne’s Old Maid.” Studies in Short Fiction 9 (1972): 373-377. Rodgers, Lawrence R. “‘We All Said, “She Will Kill Herself”’: The Narrator/Detective in William Faulkner’s ‘A Rose for Emily.’” Clues: A Journal of Detection 16.1 (Spring-Summer 1995): 117-129. Read More