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Minia University Faculty of Al-Alsun English Department
Literary Texts
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ndPreliminary Year, Monday 2-4, Second Semester-2019/2020
Course Format: online (Pdf)
INSTRUCTOR INFORMATION Instructor: Dr. Lamees Elgafi E-mail: [email protected]
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Overview:
The course aims to introduce students to the main concepts used in the analysis and interpretation of fictional narrative. We will develop this set of critical tools through close reading and class discussion of a series of contemporary short stories, novels and plays.
Course Learning Outcomes:
This course introduces fundamental concepts of literary interpretation as well as some key issues in literary criticism and theory. The course presupposes deep affinities between creative and critical thought and therefore speaks to students in all tracks. We will read poetry and fiction alongside critical, contextual, and theoretical texts in order to widen students‘ range of options when thinking about how to talk and write about literature.
5th & 6th online lecture Outcomes:
1. Reading & analyzing William Faulkner‘s A Rose for Emily 2. Discuss the story‘s main & minor characters.
3. Identify the main themes.
4. Discuss how certain objects in the story are symbols for the story‘s essential themes.
5. Determine the significance of the title and the ending.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Text and Other Materials: Attached.
Methods of Evaluation: Research project, Quizzes on assigned reading material and Final exam.
Course Evaluations: Course evaluations are completed online by the student during the specified time period before final exams.
Reserve Clause: The instructor reserves the right to revise, alter, or amend this syllabus as necessary. Students will be notified in writing / email of any such changes.
2 A Rose for Emily
Summary and Analysis of A Rose for Emily Summary of Part I
The narrator of this story is the voice of the town rather than a specific person. The story begins with a recounting of when Miss Emily Grierson died, and how the whole town went to her funeral. The women of the town went mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which is "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."
The reader then gets a explanation of why Miss Emily had been a "hereditary obligation upon the town." In 1894, the mayor, Colonel Sartoris, remitted her taxes after the death of her father. When the next generation came into office, the Board of Alderman had a meeting to decide how to collect taxes from Miss Emily, who was in the habit of not paying them. A "deputation" went to her house and waited in the dusty parlor until Miss Emily entered. She repeats that Colonel Sartoris has told her she has no taxes in Jefferson, though the Colonel had been dead for almost a decade.
Summary of Part II
The narrator now skips back in time thirty years, to two years after the death of Miss Emily's father and just a short time after the disappearance of her sweetheart. The neighbors complained to Judge Stevens, the mayor, about the smell. The Board of Aldermen met to discuss what to do, and rather than confront Miss Emily, as the young one suggested, they sneak over to her house and sprinkle lime around. As they crossed the lawn to leave, a light came on, and they saw Miss Emily in the window.
The narrator recalls that this was when "people had begun to feel really sorry for her." He discusses how they had, in a way, resented the Griersons as being too high-and-mighty, and so when Miss Emily reached the age of thirty and was still unmarried, they felt "not pleased exactly, but vindicated." When the ladies of the town went to the house to call on Miss Emily the day after her father's death, Miss Emily told them that her father was not dead. Finally, after three days and under threat of law and force, she allows her father to be buried. The townspeople did not say she was crazy then, because they assumed she had to "cling to that which had robbed her" of a married life, since her father had driven away her suitors.
Summary of Part III
The narrator follows chronologically now, to the arrival of the construction company to pave the sidewalks. Homor Barron was the gregarious foreman, and the townspeople began to observe him in Miss Emily's company driving on Sundays. The old people said,
"Poor Emily. Her kinsfolk should come to her."
Then the narrator tells the story of when Miss Emily went to the druggist to request
"some poison." The conversation between Miss Emily and the druggist is related word for word, and the druggist gives her the poison while strongly implying that it should only be used "for rats and such." When the package is delivered to her, "For rats" is written on it.
Summary of Part IV
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The women of the town began to say that her riding around in the buggy with Homer Barron, with no intention of marriage, was a "disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people." The Baptist minister called upon her, but left and refused to return; his wife wrote to Miss Emily's family in Alabama a week later. Her "kinsfolk" came to her, from Alabama, even though there had been a falling out in the family. The townspeople thought that "the two female cousins were even more Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been." The town had become a "cabal, and we were all Miss Emily's allies to help circumvent the cousins." Homer Barron disappeared, but after the cousins from Alabama left, a neighbor reported seeing Homer Barron return to the house "at dusk one evening."
But he was never seen again.
After that, Miss Emily did not leave the house for six months.
For a period of "six or seven years" when she was about forty years old, Miss Emily gave china-painting lessons to "the daughters and granddaughters of Colonel Sartoris' contemporaries." Then the students stopped coming. Miss Emily also refused to let a mailbox be attached to her house when the town got postal delivery service. Years pass and Miss Emily "passed from generation to generation - dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse." The town did not even know she was sick before she died, since Tobe, her servant, did not talk to anyone.
Summary of Part V
After letting in the mourners after Miss Emily's death, Tobe disappeared out the back door. The two female cousins from Alabama arrived and held the funeral. The narrator describes how a group of townspeople waited until Miss Emily "was decently in the ground" before forcing open the door to a deserted room above the stairs. The room was coated in dust, and "decked and furnished as for a bridal," including a man's toiletries and
"carefuly folded" suit. And there on the bed was the rotting body of Homer Barron in a nightshirt. On the pillow next to him, also coated in dust, was the indentation of a head, and a single strand of "iron-gray hair," which the reader can assume belonged to Miss Emily.
Analysis
The narrator, who is the voice of the town in general, uses anecdotes to tell the story of Miss Emily's life as observed by the people around her. This technique is used to transcend time, from the time right before Miss Emily's death to her youth to the time around her father's death, etc.
Foreshadowing is also used to allude to the ending, in which the townspeople discover that Miss Emily has been living with the body of her dead sweetheart for many years. In Part II, the story about how the house began to smell takes place "a short time after her sweetheart - the one we believed would marry her - had deserted her." In Part III, when she buys arsenic from the druggist, she will not confirm that the arsenic is for killing rats.
There is no explanation provided right away, but later the reader can assume that it was used to poison Homer Barron, Miss Emily's sweetheart.
Because the narrator is the voice of the town, the story unfolds to the reader through the town's eyes, and thus their assumptions are the readers' own. For instance, when the narrator reports about the awful smell that pervaded the Grierson house, he/she includes she small detail that it started "a short time after her sweetheart - the one we believed would marry her - had deserted her." Like the townspeople, the reader does not discover
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that the source of the smell is the sweetheart's dead body until the very end of the story when the body is discovered.
Simile is used to imply a macabre tone. For example, in the first description the reader has of Miss Emily, when the aldermen visit her house to ask for her taxes, she is described as "bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue." This comparison of Miss Emily to a drowned body suggests that she has been dead inside for a time now. The "motionless water" is the house around her, which remains frozen in a time past as the world outside changes. When the door is forced open to the deserted room in Part V, the narrator reports that "a thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room..." The diction choice of "tomb" hints to the reader what he or she is soon to discover: this room is, in fact, a tomb for Homer Barron.
The theme of the gap between generations is clear in this story. Miss Emily is stuck in the time of Colonel Sartoris and his contemporaries. Her inability to adapt to change is demonstrated not only in her refusal to pay taxes after Colonel Sartoris remitted them, but by her refusal to have a mailbox when free postal delivery becomes available to the town.
"Thus she passed from generation to generation - dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse."
Originally published in the April 30, 1930, issue of Forum, "A Rose for Emily" was Faulkner's first short story to be published in a major magazine. Casual readers find it to be one of his most accessible short stories, and the revelation of Miss Emily's horrible secret at the end contributed to its popularity.
The story's accessibility is the result of its versatility, for which it is praised. In Notes on Mississippi Writers, Frank A. Littler describes how it has been ‗‗read variously as a Gothic horror tale, a study in abnormal psychology, an allegory of the relations between North and South, a meditation on the nature of time, and a tragedy with Emily as a sort of tragic heroine.‘‘
A Rose for Emily | Introduction
William Faulkner's ―A Rose for Emily‖ was originally published in the April 30, 1930, issue of Forum. It was his first short story published in a major magazine. A slightly revised version was published in two collections of his short fiction, These 13 (1931) and Collected Stories (1950). It has been published in dozens of anthologies as well. ―A Rose for Emily‖ is the story of an eccentric spinster, Emily Grierson. An unnamed narrator details the strange circumstances of Emily‘s life and her odd relationships with her father, her lover, and the town of Jefferson, and the horrible secret she hides. The story‘s subtle complexities continue to inspire critics while casual readers find it one of Faulkner‘s most accessible works. The popularity of the story is due in no small part to its gruesome ending.
Faulkner often used short stories to ―flesh out‖ the fictional kingdom of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, for his novels. In fact, he revised some of his short fiction to be used as chapters in those novels. ―A Rose for Emily‖ takes place in Jefferson, the county seat of Yoknapatawpha. Jefferson is a critical setting in much of Faulkner‘s fiction. The character of Colonel Sartoris plays a role in the story; he is also an important character in the history of Yoknapatawpha. However, ―A Rose for Emily‖ is a story that stands by itself. Faulkner himself modestly referred to it as a ―ghost story,‖ but many critics recognize it as an extraordinarily versatile work. As Frank A. Littler writes in Notes on
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Mississippi Writers, ‗‗A Rose for Emily‘‘ has been ‗‗read variously as a Gothic horror tale, a study in abnormal psychology, an allegory of the relations between North and South, a meditation on the nature of time, and a tragedy with Emily as a sort of tragic heroine.‘‘
The narrator of "A Rose for Emily"
The narrator is the voice of the townspeople of Jefferson, never identified as male or female. He or she is sympathetic to Miss Emily, though the opinion of her changes slightly during different periods in her life. By the end of Part V, the narrator seems to have lived his or her life alongside Miss Emily, to have gained the perspective with which he tells her story.
The gap between generations
In "A Rose for Emily," the gap between the generation of Colonel Sartoris and that which has "more modern ideas" is bridged by Miss Emily's life. She remains in the past, however, a relic of a time forgotten. Her house, too, seems stuck in the past; when the aldermen call upon her to demand her taxes, they wait in the parlor "furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture," where "a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray." This theme is demonstrated in Miss Emily's rare interactions with the outside world, when she gives china-painting lessons to "the daughters and granddaughters of Colonel Sartoris' contemporaries;" when "the newer generation became the backbone and spirit of the town," the students stop coming. When free postal delivery becomes available to the town, Miss Emily's refusal to let an address be assigned to the Grierson house, or to have a mailbox attached to it, exemplifies her refusal to change with the times. After Miss Emily's death, the "very old men" that talk about her amongst themselves at the funeral represent the old generation of Colonel Sartoris:
...confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminshing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years.
The gap between the world of the rich and that of the poor
In "A Rose for Emily," the Grierson family is seen as belonging to another world than that of the rest of the town. When the smell of death lingers around Miss Emily's house shortly after the disappearance of her sweetheart, the narrator (who is the voice of the town) sees it as "another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons."
This gap is also clear in "That Evening Sun," when the Compsons are removed from the fear that Nancy experiences. She and the other black servants are expected to be at their beck and call to clean and do laundry; they are kept a part of the poor class because of their race.
The old maid
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In "A Rose for Emily," the narrator, who is the voice of the town, describes how the town people had resented the Griersons because they "held themselves a little too high for what they really were. None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such." So when Miss Emily reached thirty and was still unmarried, they felt "not pleased exactly, but vindicated." After Miss Emily's father died and left the house to her, they were glad to pity her because "being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized."
Character Analysis based on “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner
Perhaps, the most enticing word for Emily isn't ―sick‖. Demented and perpetually disturbed appears more appealing to a novice that does not understand the true depth of Emily's nature. The narrator that speaks of this story has a personality that of the old with an age of the young. Whether it may be girl or boy, the rose symbolizes kudos to Emily as a maverick in early women's movement. The type of person Emily is wholly due to the men that have left a drastic yet resonating impact on her life; them being her father and Homer Barron. And with their coexistence in her life, she became the women that she is at the end from their impact and the town‘s comments.
Borne into a family of great wealth with a well pronounced rich lineage; a duty of any woman of her age was supposed to follow, was expected to be followed and with exact precision. But with Emily being highly concealed by her father, she had to live with many restrictions of life, resulting in a pronounced backlash and profuse alteration of her personality. Giving the reader a limited impression that as a character, she is shown with excessive pride, leaving an enduring imagination to readers, as to what she was as an adolescent; but imagination does permit us to consider her as any young child; easily manipulative. Yet as a person Emily reacts to her situation in her youth filled years like any child would during this time; reserved, complacent and with the utmost respect, as could be seen in the following excerpt ―So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly…‖; although this does not state and show her obedience it bluntly, as it does imply that although she had wonderful suitors and her father sent them away she did nothing to stop it; clearly sending the message that she is a acquiescent child.
Her father however there is no imagination needed for; from context we can plainly see that he is a powerful man with much character. Nevertheless his impressionable nature has been left to us in the very beginning of the story where it is shown to the reader from the thoughts of the town as such ―Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a straddled silhouette with foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip…‖ It is this image that offers this lingering image of a demonizing man with intimidation as his most favored pass time. We can tell he is clearly successful with such a trait for when he died ―Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead…Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly.‖
Yet the damage had been done; she quickly grew into the one that she is late in life after her father‘s death. And having been a women of immense prestigious lineage; she began to look at the world in a condescending manner. To her those in the "ordinary" or "lower class" men were something she was not only used to but abhorred. After some time she reemerged as what the people of the town would say "a girl, with a vague resemblance to
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those angels in colored church windows-- sort of tragic and serene." It is this image that shows the reader that her father‘s death was a catalyst in changing her yet again-- this time into an independent woman dependent on past actions and future values.
However she would not let the 'tragic' fact that she was a woman bring her down into the world of the 'poor'; she would hold her head up high, work to make a living and not live by the support of another. However much she did try she was still considered as "Poor Emily" in the eyes of her fellow townsmen. With her growing interests in Homer Barron, so did the pitiful remarks that the townspeople. This did not discourage her at all; but instead allowed her to hold her head up higher and look at them with the eye of a sort of
"noblesse oblige". Plainly we can tell she obviously heard the comments made by those in the ―lower classes‖ about her and she didn‘t care. She was going to live her life the way in which she wanted to and they would have to like it. That is why when they stated that ―Homer himself had remarked—he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks‘ Club—that he was not a marrying man‖. Later we said,
―Poor Emily‖‖ she kept her head up high; like a rebel intended on doing what she felt even if the towns people didn‘t approve it. Clearly she knew that he didn‘t want to commit; of course not at first but later into their relationship. This was another catalyst in changing Emily; knowing previously that Homer Barron was not intending to stay pushed her into going into the drug store demanding in the most noble and dignified manner ―I want arsenic‖. At this point it appears that Emily was fighting against the town. As though, if she wanted to be happy she was going to have to fight for her right. But yet, it almost seems that to show the town that even though she was the last Grierson, she was going to keep her head up high and act like a true noble woman, which was getting what she wanted.
Emily is clearly not a sick or twisted woman; she is a woman that is fighting for her right to live and be happy as much as she can. It‘s the damage that was inflicted upon her that coexists within her from the moment her father dies till the moment Homer Barron leaves that makes her a woman of strong wits and beliefs. And fighting for the right that women deserve to have, which is happiness be it if the man likes it or not. It is this influence that her father leaves on her that remains throughout the rest of her life-- a firm able impression that continuously molds her into the woman she eventually becomes at the end, which is a woman at ―seventy four…vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man.‖
Psychological Character Analysis of Emily in “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner
Miss Emily Grierson, the main character in William Faulkner‘s short story ―A Rose for Emily,‖ is certainly strange by any average reader‘s standards and a character analysis of Emily could go in any number of directions. It is nearly impossible not to examine her in a psychological as well as contextual light. Over the course of Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily", Miss Emily‘s erratic and idiosyncratic behavior becomes outright bizarre, and the reader, like the townspeople in the story, is left wondering how to explain the fact that Miss Emily has spent years living and sleeping with the corpse of Homer Barron.
According to the narrator in one of the important quotes from "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner the townspeople ―did not say she was crazy‖ at first (Faulkner 2162), and of course, she was never evaluated, diagnosed, or treated by a mental health professional. Yet by the story‘s conclusion, the reader can go back through the narrative
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and identify many episodes in which Miss Emily‘s character and behavior hinted at the possibility of a mental illness, even if the town wanted to deny this fact and leave her intact as a social idol. In fact, this information could be used to support the claim that Miss Emily suffered from schizophrenia as defined by the American Psychiatric Association‘s DSM-IV criteria (American Psychiatric Association 159). It is reasonable to propose that Miss Emily developed this mental illness as a response to the demanding conditions in which she was living as a Southern woman from an aristocratic family.
Miss Emily decompensate because she was unable to develop healthy and adaptive coping and defense mechanisms. While most people can handle the kinds of stressors Miss Emily faced, those who cannot develop psychotic symptoms in response to their situation.
Diagnosing a mental illness is often a challenging task, and one that implies a great deal of responsibility on the part of the mental health professional who assesses the patient and determines the diagnosis (American Psychiatric Association 5). Among the numerous variables that a clinician considers are the patient‘s prior history. In the case of Miss Emily, an analysis of the setting and the other characters in the story, as well as an examination of some of the themes in "A Rose for Emily" and especially incidents involving Miss Emily‘s father, helps the reader to understand the particular pressures with which Emily was trying to cope and how, by extension, she might have developed schizophrenia. Miss Emily was from a family of great stature and wealth in their small Southern community, and Miss Emily had always been burdened with the great expectations that others had of her. Her community viewed her as having a ―hereditary obligation‖ (Faulkner 2160) to maintain certain traditions, traditions that had been established generations before her. Her father, charged with transmitting these traditions and values to Miss Emily, was rigid in reinforcing these expectations, and in the words of the narrator, the father was a man who had ―thwarted her woman‘s life so many times‖
(Faulkner 2164). Just one example of his behavior was that he drove all of Miss Emily‘s suitors away because none were perceived as good enough for her. As a result, she never married.
Despite his oppressiveness, it is when her father dies that the reader begins to observe the acceleration of Miss Emily‘s mental decline. While this phenomenon may seem paradoxical, it is not at all uncommon. When the ill individual suddenly no longer has to cope with managing external stressors, their defenses yield completely and they succumb to the psychotic symptoms that have been latent (Staton 275). The narrator observes that after her father‘s death and her subsequent breakdown, Miss Emily was ―sick for a long time,‖ though he does not offer more specific details as to the type of illness that she suffers (Faulkner 2162). It is also at this time that Miss Emily begins to avoid contact with others and other psychotic symptoms become evident. Immediately after the death of her father, the ladies of the town come to Miss Emily‘s home to offer their condolences, and they observe that she had ―no trace of grief on her face‖ (Faulkner 2162). The inability to either feel or demonstrate appropriate affect, or emotion that is congruent to a particular situation is one of the classic symptoms of schizophrenia (American Psychiatric Association 147). Perhaps more tellingly, Miss Emily insisted to the visitors that ―her father was not dead‖ (Faulkner 2162). For this reason, she would not
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permit his body to be removed until ―she broke down‖ and the townspeople removed the body quickly before she could protest (Faulkner 2162).
Despite this and other evidence that Miss Emily is not emotionally or mentally well, the townspeople persist in enabling her to maintain her delusions. In fact, their denial is almost as pathological as Miss Emily‘s own symptoms. The townspeople avoid confronting Miss Emily about any important concerns, such as the terrible smell that is emanating from her home, which itself is becoming more ―detached, superseded, and forbidding‖ (Stone 87) every day. While the newer generation of townspeople advocates addressing the matter with Miss Emily directly, Judge Stevens responds to this suggestion in a rage, saying, in one of the important quotes from "A Rose for Emily"
―Dammit, sir…will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?‖, as if the smell was merely a body odor rather than a pervasive stench (Faulkner 2162). The younger generation relents, and the men responsible for such local concerns sneak into Miss Emily‘s basement surreptitiously to spread lime as an effort to eliminate the odor.
Meanwhile, as the reader will soon learn, Miss Emily has retreated entirely into a world of delusion and fantasy. At first, Miss Emily has few callers, and those townspeople who dare to visit her ―were not received‖ (Faulkner 2161). Then, there is a period where she withdraws from society altogether, and ―From that time on her front door remained closed‖ (Faulkner 2164). The changes that the narrator reports the townspeople having observed the time the townspeople ―next saw Miss Emily‖ also hint at symptoms of advanced psychosis. Miss Emily ―had grown fat and her hair was turning gray‖ (Faulkner 2164). This failure to attend to her personal appearance and to perform what mental health practitioners call the ―tasks of daily living‖—such as hygiene and grooming—also demonstrate severe deficits in the area of ―social/occupational functioning,‖ which is one of the criteria for the diagnosis of schizophrenia (American Psychiatric Association 147).
At this point, Miss Emily is totally unable to relate to other people in an appropriate manner. Although her contact with others is limited, when she is forced to interact socially she is irrational and inappropriate, yet another symptom of schizophrenia (American Psychiatric Association 147). The narrator reports one episode that is particularly telling: When the town got mailboxes, ―Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She would not listen to them‖ (Faulkner 2165).
There are other episodes sprinkled throughout the story that indicate Miss Emily‘s compromised mental state. Early in the story, before the extent of her symptoms has become clear to the reader, the narrator relates an episode in which Miss Emily appears before town officials to insist that she does not owe taxes. She repeats several times that she has ―no taxes in Jefferson‖ and that the county‘s Board of Aldermen could speak with Colonel Sartoris if they felt otherwise (Faulkner 2161). It is not the fact that she said this that hints at her psychosis. Rather, it is her insistence against the facts that they present and her refusal to listen to aldermen at all that makes her more than just a stubborn town eccentric. There are two other episodes that are equally telling. When Miss Emily goes to the pharmacy to buy poison, she is described as lacking in affect and appears to be paranoid, withholding information from the pharmacist about the reason for her request.
Once again, the pharmacist, representing the town as a whole, finds this request odd, but
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does not challenge it. After all, Miss Emily is a special woman, ―the last of a proud line,‖
(Stone 88), and as such, she is unassailable. The other important episode, besides the obvious psychotic act of sleeping with a corpse, involves Miss Emily‘s purchases of items for the man that the town believes is her betrothed, but who is already presumably dead and decaying in Miss Emily‘s bed. Indeed, when the townspeople kick down the bedroom door years later, the narrator describes a tableau that is ―decked and furnished as for a bridal‖ but frozen in time and covered with dust and tarnish (Faulkner 2165).
Clearly, Miss Emily‘s grasp on reality had slipped completely.
If one agrees that Miss Emily was schizophrenic, then naturally one might want to understand the influences that precipitated her illness. Kinney has argued that Miss Emily‘s delusions, especially about her father‘s death, develop as a defense mechanism, for the death of her father represents ―the death of the old order and of herself as well‖
(94). Staton adds that ―Having been consumed by her father [figuratively], Emily in turn feeds off Homer….She has taken into herself the violence in him which thwarted her and has reenacted it….‖ (275). Some feminist critics interpret Miss Emily‘s illness differently. Appleton Aguilar, for instance, contends that Miss Emily ―insists on maintaining her own existence, which the townspeople continually refuse to allow as they wish her to sustain her position as icon and memorial to the antebellum South‖ (30).
While Miss Emily‘s gender and her place, both literally and figuratively, certainly exacerbate and may have even caused her condition, there is far too much textual evidence to support the counterargument. Miss Emily is not merely trying to assert an independent existence; rather, she has never been able to do so and for that reason she has developed symptoms of schizophrenia as a maladaptive coping mechanism. Faulkner‘s
―A Rose for Emily‖ is a short story that is, at its heart, a tale about the pressures of society and the ways in which they can wear people down. Miss Emily lacked adaptive coping skills to help her manage substantial stressors, and for this reason, she was vulnerable to the onset of mental illness.
Use of Symbolism in A Rose for Emily
Authors traditionally use symbolism as a way to represent the sometimes intangible qualities of the characters, places, and events in their works. In his short story "A Rose for Emily," William Faulkner uses symbolism to compare the Grierson house with Emily Grierson's physical deterioration, her shift in social standing, and her reluctance to accept change.
When compared chronologically, the Grierson house is used to symbolize Miss Emily's physical attributes. In its prime, the Grierson house is described as "white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies" (Faulkner 69). This description suggests that the house was built not only for function, but also to impress and engage the attention of the other townspeople. Similarly, the wealthy women of the era, Emily Grierson not withstanding, were dressed in a conspicuous manner. This, for the most part, is because their appearance was perceived as a direct reflection on their husbands and/or fathers. This display of extravagance was egotistically designed by men to give an impression of wealth to onlookers. Emily was regarded by her father as property. Her significance to him was strongly ornamental, just as their overly lavish home was.
As the plot progresses, the reader is clearly made aware of the physical decline of both
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the house and Miss Emily. Just as the house is described as "smelling of dust and disuse," evidence of Emily's own aging is given when her voice in similarly said to be
"harsh, and rusty, as if from disuse" (70-74). Ultimately, at the time of Emily's death, the house is seen by the townspeople as "an eyesore among eyesores," and Miss Emily is regarded as a "fallen monument" (69). Both are empty, and lifeless. Neither are even
remotely representative of their former splendor.
Just as their physical characteristics, Faulkner uses the Grierson house as a symbol for Miss Emily's change in social status. In its prime, the house was "big," and "squarish,"
and located on Jefferson's "most select street" (69). This description gives the reader the impression that the residence was not only extremely solid, but also larger than life, almost gothic in nature, and seemingly impervious to the petty problems of the common people. The members of the Grierson family, especially Emily, were also considered to be strong and powerful. The townspeople regarded them as regal. And Emily, as the last living Grierson, came to symbolize her family's, and possibly the entire south's, rich past. The townspeople's reveration of Emily soon decayed, however, once it was rumored that she was left no money, only the house, in her father's will. Also, her scandalous appearances with Homer Barron further lessened her reputation in the public eye. And, perhaps inevitably, the prestige and desirability of the Grierson house fell right
along side Miss Emily's diminishing name.
Perhaps the most significant comparison occurs when the Grierson house is used to symbolize Emily Grierson's unwillingness to accept change. Emily Grierson held tightly to her family's affluent past. A good example of this occurred when representatives were sent to her home to collect her delinquent taxes. She completely rejected her responsibility to the town by referring the men to a time when the since departed mayor, Colonel Sartoris, "remitted her taxes" (70). Miss Emily and the house show further examples of their disregard for progress when Emily denies the Grierson house a number, and a mailbox, just as Emily herself refused to be labeled or to be associated with anything as modernistic and common as a mailbox. Even when she was left "alone, a pauper," and "humanized," she absolutely refused to be viewed with pity (72). In fact she
"demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson"
(73). Likewise, just as Emily held herself "a little too high" for what she was, the house is presented as "Lifting its stubborn and Coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and gasoline pumps" (69). The cotton wagons and gasoline pumps in this description are undoubtedly used to symbolize what Emily must surely see as the mostly unimportant and purposeless townspeople. This single comparison by itself provides indisputable evidence that Emily Grierson and her family's house are strongly related with one another.
So, it should now be obvious to the analytical reader that the relationship between the Grierson house's and Miss Emily Grierson's, physical deterioration, shift in social standing, and reluctancy to accept change, is too precise to be construed coincidental. It is precisely this open usage of symbolism, and expert utilization of foreshadowing that earned both William Faulkner and "A Rose for Emily" their places among the classics.
Works Cited
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." The Norton Introduction to Literature. By Carl E. Bain, Jerome Beaty, and J. Paul Hunter. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1991: 69-76.
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A Rose for Emily Symbolism, Imagery, and Allegory The House
Miss Emily's house is an important symbol in this story. (In general, old family homes are often significant symbols in Gothic literature.) For most of the story, we, like the townspeople, only see Miss Emily's house from the outside looking in. Let's look at the some of the descriptions we get of the house:
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
pumps – an eyesore among eyesores. (1.2)
The fact that the house was built in the 1870s tells us that Miss Emily's father must have been doing pretty well for himself after the Civil War. The narrator's description of it as an "eyesore among eyesores" is a double or even triple judgment. The narrator doesn't seem to approve of the urban sprawl. We also speculate that the house is an emblem of money probably earned in large part through the labors of slaves, or emancipated slaves.
The final part of this judgment has to do with the fact that the house was allowed to decay and disintegrate.
For an idea of the kind of house Miss Emily lived in, take a look at artist Theora Hamblett's house in Mississippi, built, like Emily's, in the 1870. Now picture the lawn overgrown, maybe a broken window or two, the paint worn and chipping and you have the creepy house that Emily lived in, and which the children of the "newer generation"
probably ran past in a fright.
The house, as is often the case in scary stories, is also a symbol of the opposite of what it's supposed to be. Like most humans, Emily wanted a house she could love someone in, and a house where she could be free. She thought she might have this with Homer Barron, but something went terribly wrong. This something turned her house into a virtual prison – she had nowhere else to go but home, and this home, with the corpse of Homer Barron rotting in an upstairs room, this home could never be shared with others.
The house is a huge symbol of Miss Emily's isolation.
The Pocket Watch, the Stationery, and the Hair
These are all symbols of time in the story. What's more, the struggle between the past and the future threatens to rip the present to pieces. When members of the Board of Aldermen visit Emily to see about the taxes a decade before her death, they hear her pocket watch ticking, hidden somewhere in the folds of her clothing and her body. This is a signal to us that for Miss Emily time is both a mysterious "invisible" force, and one of which she has always been acutely aware. With each tick of the clock, her chance for happiness dwindles.
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Another symbol of time is Emily's hair. The town tells time first by Emily's hair, and then when she disappears into her house after her hair has turned "a vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man" (4.6). When Emily no longer leaves the house, the town uses Tobe's hair to tell time, watching as it too turns gray. The strand of Emily's hair found on the pillow next to Homer, is a time-teller too, though precisely what time it tells is hard to say. The narrator tells us that Homer's final resting place hadn't been opened in 40 years, which is exactly how long Homer Barron has been missing. But, Emily's hair didn't turn
"iron-gray" until approximately 1898, several years after Homer's death.
In "What's up With the Ending?" we suggest that the town knew they would find Homer Barron's dead body in the room. But maybe what they didn't know was that she had lain next to the body at least several years after its owner had departed it, but perhaps much more recently. Still, the townspeople did have to break into the room. When and why it was locked up is probably only known by Emily (who is dead, and wouldn't talk anyway) and Tobe (who has disappeared, and wouldn't talk anyway).
The stationery is also a symbol of time, but in a different way. The letter the town gets from Emily is written "on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink" (1.4). Emily probably doesn't write too many letters, so it's normal that she would be using stationery that's probably at least 40 years old. The stationery is a symbol, and one that points back to the tensions between the past, the present, and the future, which this story explores.
Lime and Arsenic
Lime and arsenic are some of the story's creepiest symbols. Lime is a white powder that's good at covering the smell of decomposing bodies. Ironically, it seems that the lime was sprinkled in vain. The smell of the rotting corpse of Homer Barron stopped wafting into the neighborhood of its own accord. Or maybe the town just got used to the smell. The lime is a symbol of a fruitless attempt to hide something embarrassing, and creepy. It's also a symbol of the way the town, in that generation, did things.
We lump it together with arsenic because they are both symbols of getting rid of something that smells, and in the case of "A Rose for Emily," it happens to be the very same thing. Remember what the druggist writes on Emily's packet of arsenic, under the poison sign? "For rats." Faulkner himself claims that Homer was probably not a nice guy.
If Homer is planning to break a promise to marry Emily, she, in the southern tradition,
would most probably have considered him a rat.
The arsenic used to kill a stinky rat creates a foul stench, which the townspeople want to get rid of with lime. (If you want to read more about arsenic, click here). We should also note that arsenic is a favorite fictional murder weapon, due to its reputation for being odorless, colorless, and virtually undetectable by the victim. Director Franz Capra's 1944 film Arsenic and Old Lace is good example of this.
Death and Taxes
Notice how the first section of the story involves what Benjamin Franklin said were the only two certain things in the world: death and taxes. Franklin was talking about the fact that even the U.S. Constitution would be subject to future change.
Miss Emily's death at the beginning of the story, and the narrator's memory of the history of her tax situation in Jefferson might be what Alfred Hitchcock called "macguffins." A
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macguffin is "an object, event, or character in a film or story that serves to set and keep the plot in motion despite usually lacking intrinsic importance" (source). Neither the funeral nor the tax issue seem to be about are all that important to the tale of murder and
insanity that follows.
Still, we should question whether or not they actually are macguffins.
The taxes are can be seen as symbols of death. The initial remission of Miss Emily taxes is a symbol of the death of her father. It's also a symbol of the financial decline the proud man must have experienced, but kept hidden from Emily and the town, until his death.
Since the story isn't clear on why Emily only got the house in the will, the taxes could also be a symbol of his continued control over Emily from the grave. If he had money when he died, but left it to some mysterious entity, (the story is unclear on this point), he
would have denied Emily her independence.
Over 30 years after the initial remission of Miss Emily's taxes when the "newer generation" tries to revoke the ancient deal they inherited, taxes are still a symbol of death, though this time; they symbolize the death of Homer Barron.
As we argue in "What's Up With the Ending?", the town is probably already aware that she has a rotting corpse upstairs. Maybe the taxes were just an excuse to definitively see what was going on at the house. The next phase of their plan might well have been foreclosure. They could have used the tax situation to remove Emily from the neighborhood, and to condemn her house. Perhaps they wanted to remove the "eyesore,"
and to cover up everything Miss Emily says about the past and present of the South.
The fact that they didn't do this might just turn the taxes into a symbol of compassion.
Wasn't it out of compassion that her taxes were initially remitted? That the "newer generation" decides to continue the tradition also shows that some of the older ways might well have merit.
A Rose for Emily Setting Where It All Goes Down
A creepy old house in Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, 1861-1933 (approximately)
Setting is usually pretty rich in Faulkner. SimCity-style, William Faulkner created his own Mississippi County, Yoknapatawpha, as the setting for much of his fiction. This county comes complete with several different families including the Grierson family. "A Rose for Emily" is set in the county seat of Yoknapatawpha, Jefferson and as you know, focuses on Emily Grierson, the last living Grierson. For a map and a detailed description of Yoknapatawpha,
OK, so the where is pretty easy. Though Jefferson and its inhabitants are unique, we can see their town as any southern town during that period. The situations that arise in the story develop in large part because many southerners who lived during the slavery era didn't know what to do when that whole way of life ended. Imagine if suddenly you are told and shown that your whole way of life is a sham, an atrocity, an evil. Then heap on a generous helping of southern pride, and you have tragedies like this one. This story also explores how future generations deal with this legacy. To really feel the movement of
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history in the story, and to understand the movements of Emily's life, it important to pin down the chronology of events.
What’s Up With the Title?
You probably noticed that there is no rose in the story, though we do find the word "rose"
four times. Check out the first two times the word is used:
When the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning
with slow motes in the single sun-ray. (1.5)
They rose when she entered – a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. (1.6)
These first two times "rose" (as you can see) is used as a verb, which is why we barely notice the subtle echo of the "rose" in the title when we read. We are concentrating on the image, first, of the inside of Miss Emily's lonely parlor, and then of Miss Emily herself.
In both cases, the word "rose" is working on us, maybe even subconsciously, to contribute to the image.
We have to look at a few more things before we can get at why these passages are significant.
First, let's consider the next two mentions of "rose," which occur at the very end of the story:
A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose- shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man's toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured. (5.4)
Things are starting to make sense – here we are talking about the color "rose" – from the curtains to the lampshades, rose was the dominant color of Miss Emily's bridal chamber.
We've all heard about the dangers of seeing through 'rose colored' glasses. This was a particular problem for people of Miss Emily's generation in the South.
As we discuss in "Setting," Emily was born in the early 1860s, probably near the beginning of the Civil War. Emily's father basically raised her to believe that nothing had really changed after the war. He instilled in her that being part of the southern aristocracy
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(those who made money on backs of slaves) was still something to be proud of, and that people like them were above the law.
But, in this moment, we realize just how rosy Miss Emily's glasses were, and that death trumps glasses, rose colored or otherwise. The reality of death cannot be avoided. Now that the bridal chamber has turned into a death chamber, the rose color is bathed in the hues of decay and death, shaded by the "acrid pall as of the tomb." Which might make you wonder just what an "acrid pall" is.
"Acrid" is easy, it's used to refer to something that's nasty smelling. "Pall" is actually a pretty interesting word, and one that isn't normally thrown around in conversation. It usually refers to some kind of covering, like a cloak or a blanket draped over a coffin. We can see how the word works literally and figuratively to thicken the atmosphere of death and decomposition. It works because even if we don't know precisely what a "pall" is, we can hear the deathly, pale tones it holds.
Well, we're not quite done yet. Lucky for us, William Faulkner told an interviewer (read
it here) what he meant by the title:
[The title] was an allegorical title; the meaning was, here was a woman who had had a tragedy, an irrevocable tragedy and nothing could be done about it, and I pitied her and this was a salute…to a woman you would hand a rose.
We think this perspective is very important, not just because it provides a straightforward explanation, but also because it persuades us to indulge in a more compassionate reading.
It's easy to judge Miss Emily, and maybe to forget she's a human being who has had a tragic life. For a look at how this explanation exposes the story's irony, check out our discussion of "Writing Style." Needless to say, there are many possible interpretations of the title, "A Rose for Emily," and you can feel free to think creatively when trying to figure out what this title means.
What’s Up With the Ending?
It's funny that a story as out of sequence as "A Rose for Emily" ends at the end – with the discovery of the forty-year-old corpse of Homer Barron. Readers and critics often feel that if the story were told linearly, in sequence, it wouldn't be much of a story. Some people feel that all the power lies in the discovery of the rotting corpse of this fellow.
We disagree with this opinion. For example, if we already knew that the corpse of Homer Barron was up in the bedroom, we would have been creeped out to read that Emily was giving painting lessons to kids in the parlor (or wherever such lessons are given). The
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story could have been just as creepy, and just as tragic, if told linearly.
So maybe "A Rose for Emily" had to be told this way to mirror the experience of the town, to mirror their surprise at finding the corpse. Obviously, the town didn't know about Homer Barron until Emily died, otherwise, they sure as heck wouldn't have let their kids go to her house for painting lessons, and they would arrested her for murder.
Or maybe not. Check out this moment from the ending:
Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced. They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it. (5.3) The town must have known all along. Maybe this is the real surprise of the ending, the realization that the town has long ago pieced together the puzzle. While we can be fairly sure that most townspeople had talked the matter to death and figured out what went on before the end of the story, we can't be sure precisely when it became the consensus.
Probably the night the lime was sprinkled (we're talking about the white powder here, and not the citrus fruit!).
Thirty years later, those people's children had heard the story in bits and pieces (the way it's told to us), all the while seeing her house grow more and more decayed, seeing her in the window, almost a ghost already, wandering the halls of her haunted house. The town knew her story by heart, because it was also their story, down to the last detail.
A Rose for Emily Themes
Isolation
There's no getting around the fact that "A Rose for Emily" is a story about the extremes of isolation – by physical and emotional. This Faulkner classic shows us the process by which human beings become isolated by their families, by their community, by tradition, by law, by the past, and by their own actions and choices. In effect, this story takes a stand against such isolation, and against all those who isolate others. When you get through with this story, you might feel the urge to take a nice stroll in the county, or at least take a spin around the park. Go! Breathe the air; feel the sunshine; visit a friend.
Memory and the Past
Gavin Stevens (a William Faulkner character) famously says, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." This idea is highly visible in all Faulkner's work, and we definitely see it
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here, in "A Rose for Emily." Spanning approximately 74 years, this short story spins backwards and forwards in time like memory, and shows a southern town torn between the present and the past. Post-Civil War and Pre-Civil Rights, "A Rose for Emily" shows us an American South in limbo, trying desperately, with each generation, to find a better way, a way which honors the good of the past, while coming to terms with its evils.
Visions of America
"A Rose for Emily" doesn't look at America through rose-colored glasses, even though many of its characters do. In the aftermath of slavery, the American South shown in the novel is in bad shape. The novel deals with the stubborn refusal of some southerners to see that the America they believed in – an America based on slavery – was no more. The story covers about 74 years, beginning sometime just before the Civil War. The focus, however, is on the periods from about 1894 to 1935. Because the dates are all jumbled together, we have to work to untangle the stories present vision of America from the vision of the past.
Versions of Reality
By showing people with skewed versions of reality, "A Rose for Emily" asks us to take off our "rose-colored" glasses and look reality in the face. What we confront is the reality of America in the story, and the reality of the main character's complete isolation.
Faulkner reveals how difficult it can be to see the past and the present clearly and honestly by depicting memory as flawed and subjective. This "difficulty" is part of why the main characters goes insane, or so it certainly appears. Luckily, there are healthy doses of compassion and forgiveness in the novel. When we start to feel that, we start to see things more clearly.
Compassion and Forgiveness
"Compassion and Forgiveness" is another major theme that we can find in almost any Faulkner story. At first, it might not be apparent in this case. We almost have to be told that these sentiments are behind "A Rose for Emily" before we can see them. The story can seem downright cruel, the characters wholly unsympathetic, and the plot gross. When we begin to see the magnitude of the tragedy, and its impact on multiple generations, we understand the story is a call for understanding. The story seems to argue that forgiveness, compassion, and understanding can only come by facing the facts of the past and the present, which are tangled up together in an tight knot. Faulkner is both mercilessly subtle, and painfully blunt in this story, but we can feel the spirit of compassion rushing through.
Gothicism and “A Rose for Emily”
Southern Gothic literature is a sub-genre of the Gothic writing style. This style of writing usually centers on grotesque, mysterious, and desolate characters and settings. Writers of Southern Gothicism examine the decay of the old south and the families that went along with it. Usually, the main character has some kind of deep dark family secret, and has become reclusive. Writers of this genre create empathy for its characters while also hinting at an underlying horror. Therefore, there is no distinction between who is good and who is bad. William Faulkner‘s ―A Rose for Emily‖ does a great job of
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demonstrating southern gothic literature by defining a stereotypical gothic character, creating a decaying southern setting, and revealing a looming family secret.
Miss Emily Greirson, in Faulkner‘s ―A Rose for Emily‖ is a stereotypical Southern Gothic character. She comes from a well-to-do family who once stood among the elite of the South. This ―old south‖ is now decaying, as is Miss Emily. Although times are changing, Miss Emily will not. She still insists on being held at a higher rank than everyone else. When presented with the idea of paying her taxes, Miss Emily says ―See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson‖ (131, paragraph 12). She believes that she is above the law just because of who she is or was. Miss Emily is described in her later years in a very gothic, morbid way, ―a small, fat woman in black…leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold heart‖ (131, paragraph 6). Also, it is important to note that after her father passed away and her lover ―left‖, Miss Emily slipped into a life of seclusion and never left her home. She became the decaying, morbid character of a Southern Gothic story.
Furthermore, the story‘s setting is that of typical southern gothic literature. The story takes place in Jefferson, a town somewhere in the south, which was the site of a civil war battle. This goes along with the Southern Gothic theme of waning societies in the aftermath of the civil war. Also, Miss Emily‘s house is a symbol of the decline of the wealthy in Jefferson. Her home, which was once among the other elite homes in Jefferson, is now the only one left standing and it is decaying and falling apart. ―Only Miss Emily‘s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eye sore among eyesores‖ (130, paragraph 2). The interior of Miss Emily‘s house is also bordering the eerie. When the city authorities, and after her death, all the funeral attendees enter her home, they are taken aback by the lack of cleanliness. The home is described as dim and ―It smelled of dust and disuse-a close, dank smell…It was furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture…they could see that the leather was cracked; and when whey sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray‖ (131, paragraph 5). There is also mention of dust and a ―thin acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room‖ (135, paragraph 57) when the proprietors enter the room upstairs in which no one had entered in forty years. These observations of Miss Emily‘s home help to create a morbid setting which supports the gothic themed story.
In addition, at various points in ―A Rose for Emily‖ there are connotations that a looming family secret will be coming out. There are some suggestions that her father was a very condescending man who was very controlling over her life, resulting in Miss Emily never marrying. Also, she buys arsenic, a very foreshadowing event that tells that something bad may happen. Faulkner delivers the goods at the end of his story by letting out a whopper of a family secret. First, that the long lost Mr. Barron has been dead and decaying in Miss Emily‘s upstairs room, which has been kept like a bridal suite for all these years. Second, they find even more disturbing clues as to what exactly had been going on. ―Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair‖ (135, paragraph 60). At this time the story has revealed, in a truly gothic fashion, a very disturbing picture of Miss
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Emily sleeping next to the deceased Homer Barron, whom she was likely to have murdered herself.
And so, in literature there are many genres, but none which have captured the ideals and overall feelings of despondence better than the Southern Gothic. Faulkner has truly embodied the gothic nature in ―A Rose for Emily‖. He provided a setting, a character, and the darkness that comes with that character, all of which made ―A Rose for Emily‖ a perfect example of Southern Gothic literature.