A Rose For Emily By Faulkner: A Literary Analysis

While the story “A Rose for Emily,” was very intriguing, it had also proved itself to be quite confusing. To give a summary that makes sense, the story needs to be reorganized into chronological order.
“A Rose for Emily” is a sad story about a young woman who lived with her father all her life and soon the day had come when her father passed away. Instead of admitting to what had happened, she proceeded to tell people that her father was still alive. Faulkner wrote, “She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body.” When Emily had finally let people dispose of her father’s body, she inherited her father’s house. The mayor felt bad for Emily’s loss so he
The townspeople tried to talk to Emily about the smell but it was a lost cause. Emily eventually passed away and after her death, her cousins came home to plan her funeral. The text indicates this by saying, “They held the funeral on the second day, with the town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers.” As you can imagine, as soon as the funeral was over, the townspeople went to Emily’s house in search of the secret they were so curious about for the last four decades. Inside of her bedroom lay the skeleton of Homer Barron, and right next to him on the pillow, they found a long strand of iron grey hair from Miss Emily.
With a shocking ending like this, it’s no wonder why Faulkner chose this writing style. By writing this story out of order it kept the ending a secret. Faulkner may have also chosen this writing style because he wanted the readers to feel like someone was sitting right next to us and “gossiping” about an old lady named Miss Emily. This way, the readers might not catch what Miss Emily was planning on doing and in doing so the ending really shocked and amazed the