Analysis of the Short Story: A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

Title

A Rose for Emily" is a short story by American author William Faulkner, first published in
the April 30, 1930, issue of The Forum. In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily,"
Miss Emily Grierson is a lonely old woman, living a life void of all love and affection; although
the rose only directly appears in the title, the rose surfaces throughout the story as a symbol. ...
The rose symbolizes dreams of romances and lovers.

Faulkner described his reasoning for the title "A Rose For Emily" as an allegorical title;
this woman had undergone great tragedy, for this Faulkner pitied her. And as a salute, he
handed her a rose. The word rose in the title has multiple meanings to it. The rose may be seen
as Homer, interpreting the rose as a dried rose. Homer's body could be the dried rose, such as
one that is pressed between the pages of a book, kept in perfect condition as Emily did with
Homer's body. The "Rose" also represents secrecy. Roses have been portrayed in Greek legends
as a gift of secrecy and of confidentiality, known as sub rosa, introducing that the "Rose" is a
symbol of silence between the narrator and Miss Emily, the narrator keeps Emily's secrets until
her death.

Author: William Faulkner

 Born: September 25, 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi to Murry and Maud Butler
Faulkner.
  Childhood: Shortly before his 5th birthday, he and his family moved to Oxford,
Mississippi. His artistic talent was obvious since a young age showing interest in poetry
and drawing. In his older teenage years, he met a man names Phil Stone who was able
to recognize Faulkner’s talent and encouraged him and advised him to keep writing. He
later became a member of the Royal Air Force in Canada after being turned down by the
US Army Air Force.

 Grown life: After coming back to Oxford, he enrolled in the University of Mississippi
where he published poems and short stories in the campus newspaper.

 About 10 years later, a former childhood sweetheart divorced her husband and married
Faulkner 2 months later, bringing into the family two kids. Due to his growing family, he
started working nights at a power plant where he wrote a book, As I Lay Dying, which
was a sequel to his previously written book, The Sound and the Fury.

 In 1932, Faulkner started as a screenwriter in Hollywood where he got credit for six
screenplays. He participated as a screenwriter in Hollywood several other times. The
last time he went to Hollywood was in February 1951 where he did a rework of “The
Left Hand of God”.

 Death: On July 6th 1962 at 1:30 am his heart stopped and died of a heart attack. He was
buried on July 7th at a St. Peter’s cemetery in Oxford. (Olemiss.com)

ACHIEVEMENTS!

Novels:

Soldiers’ Pay

The Sound and the Fury

As I Lay Dying

Light in August
Go Down, Moses, and Other Stories,

Awards:

Nobel Prize for Literature (1950)

National Book Award, Collected Stories (1951)

National Book Award, A Fable (1955)

Pulitzer Prize, A Fable (1955)

Pulitzer Prize, The Revivers (1963)

Setting – it includes place, time and social conditions where the story moves along.

a. Place – In a southern town somewhere in Jefferson.

b. Time – the late 1800’s up to the early 1900’s.

c. Weather conditions – Fine.

d. Social Conditons – Fine

Characters – the person in a work of fiction.

Miss Emily Grierson, a reclusive Southern belle harboring a gruesome secret.

Emily's father, a proud, aristocratic man who chases away his daughter's suitors because they
aren't good enough for her.

Homer Barron, a foreman who has a brief relationship with Emily before mysteriously
disappearing.

The townspeople do indeed, suspect something afoul after Emily's father died and after "her
sweetheart went away.

Miss Emily’s two female cousins - Even haughtier than Miss Emily is, these cousins come from
Alabama to Jefferson to live with Miss Emily and oversee her conduct, presumably to make sure
that she doesn’t violate their Southern society’s strict code of propriety while she and Homer
are romantically involved with one another.

Judge Stevens - The mayor of Jefferson some time before Sartoris, Judge Stevens receives
complaints that Miss Emily’s property is issuing a bad smell, but, so as not to humiliate the
woman, he dispatches men to investigate the smell in secret and to neutralize it by spreading
lime around Miss Emily’s property.

Tobe - Miss Emily’s black servant.

Wyatt - Miss Emily’s great aunt; according to the narrator, she went “completely crazy,” and in
this her fate foreshadows Emily’s own.

Major Characters:

Protagonist: Emily Grierson

Antagonist: Emily Grierson, The Town of Jefferson, Mr. Grierson/Emily’s Father and Homer
Barron

Minor Characters: Judge Stevens, Tobe, Wyatt and Emily’s two female cousins.

Conflict - opposition of forces which ties one incident to another and makes the plot move.

- The Conflicts here are External

1. Man vs. Himself – Emily Struggles to her realities in life.

2. Man vs. Society - This occurs between the townspeople and Miss Emily. Because she is
so old-fashioned and proper, the townspeople despise her. They continue to “pity her”
throughout the story, gossiping about the way she conducts herself and the things that
have happened in her life. The Board of Aldermen tried to readmit her taxes, but Emily
refused to pay them. When the mailboxes went up around the town, Emily refused to
hang hers. She ultimately becomes the representation of the town’s past and a
monument among the “august names” in the Confederate graveyard
 3. Man vs. Man - This conflict occurs between Homer Barron and Miss Emily. Because she
was unable to let go of her father's death, Emily falls in love with Homer Barron.

Plot Structure

1. Beginning of Action - is where the characters and setting are established. During this
part of the novel, the conflict or main problem is also introduced.
- Started with the people of her town attending her funeral, and looking inside of her
house.
2. Conflict - A struggle between opposing forces in a story
- When her father died she refused to believe it (or let on she believed it) for four
days (counting the day he died); the summer after her father died, she finally gets a
boyfriend (she's in her thirties); when worried that her boyfriend might leave her,
she bought some poison and her boyfriend disappeared, but there was a bad smell
around her house. We technically have enough information to figure everything out
right here, but we are thrown off by the issue of the taxes, and by the way in which
facts are jumbled together.
- There are three major conflicts in “A Rose for Emily:” man vs. man, man vs. society,
man vs. self and man vs. supernatural. The first conflict involves man vs. man. This
conflict occurs between Homer Barron and Miss Emily. Because she was unable to
let go of her father's death, Emily falls in love with Homer Barron.
3. Complication - An intensification of the conflict in a story or play.
- For this stage it might be helpful to think of this story as the town's confession. This
section is what complicates things for the town's conscience. The town was horrible
to Miss Emily when she started dating Homer Barron. They wanted to hold her to
the southern lady ideals her forbearers had mapped out for her. She was finally able
to break free when her father died, but the town won't let her do it. When they
can't stop her from dating Homer themselves, they sick the cousins on her.
4. Climax – highest point of the short story.
- Faulkner did a great job with symbolism here. Homer was a bit of a “ rat” – yhe
climax is the image of the skull and cross bones on the rats poison.
 5. Falling Action – the action following the climax of the work that moves it towards its
denouement or resolution.
- the towns people all a flutter over weather Miss Emily and Homer are married, are
about to married or will never be married.
6. Denouement – resolution of the plot of a literary work.
- We learn what exactly Miss Emily has been doing for forty years.
7. Ending- resolution or conclusion.
- Homer Barron, I pressumed, Is that a grey hair next to your head.

Theme – the total mening of the story

- Death, isolation, and the decline of the Old South. Of these death takes center stage,
with the skeleton in Emily’s bed thematically reflecting the decay of the Old South.
- Emily’s isolation fuels the curiosity of the townspeople.

Author’s Style – refers to the writer’s choice of diction, sentence structure, literary techniques,
and use of rhythm.

- Flashback and Foreshadowing

- Flashback and foreshadowing are two often used literary devices that utilize time in
order to produce a desired effect. Flashbacks are used to present action that occurs
before the beginning of a story; foreshadowing creates expectation for action that
has not yet happened. Faulkner uses both devices in "A Rose for Emily." The story is
told by the narrator through a series of non-sequential flashbacks. The narrator
begins the story by describing the scene of Emily's funeral; this description,
however, is actually a flashback because the story ends with the narrator's memory
of the town's discovery of the corpse in the Grierson home after Emily's funeral.
Throughout the story, the narrator flashes back and forth through various events in
the life and times of Emily Grierson and the town of Jefferson. Each piece of the
story told by the narrator prompts another piece of the story.

Symbolism – is any major or minor character whose very existence represents.

 1. Miss Emily's house - symbolize Miss Emily’s physical and emotional decay, and as well
as her mental problems. The representation between herself and her house is shown
through constant neglect and unappreciation. In one point that Faulkner makes, the
house is described to be stubborn and unrelenting, as Miss Emily is also portrayed on
many occasions.
2. Rose - The rose is most often thought of as a symbol for love in which case Homer is the
"rose " or love for Emily. Her father thought no man was good enough for her or for the
Grierson family.

3. Emily Grierson - Miss Emily also represents the “Old South”. Her southern heritage and
points of view are represented through her actions. Her stubbornness and unrelenting
attitude are very strong characteristics of the Southern heritage. She refused to believe
that the times were changing and refused to change into the new society.

Summary – summarize the importance events of the story.

- Townsperson recalls, through a series of flashbacks, Emily Grierson, whose father

prevents her from marrying when she was younger out of snobbery and arrogance.
After the South loses the Civil War and her father dies, Emily has difficulty adjusting
to a less privileged lifestyle. Emily later is courted by a man the townspeople
consider unacceptable because he's from the North. Eventually the man disappears
from Emily and the town's life. Forty years later, at Emily's death, the townspeople
discover that she poisoned this man and has slept next to his corpse.
Refferences:

https://www.enotes.com/topics/rose-emily/themes

https://www.slideshare.net/mrscarr/a-rose-for-emily-plot

https://www.shmoop/a-rose-for-emily/analysis

www.cliffnotes.com/a-rose-for-emily/plot.html