A Rose For Emily Research Paper

A Rose for Emily (Rose for short after) is a short story by the American author William Faulkner first published on April 30, 1930. Faulkner is considered a fine practitioner of the short-story form. His other short story collections are well recognized, such as These Thirteen (1931), Doctor Martino and Other Stories (1934), Go Down, Moses and Other Stories (1942), and Knight's Gambit (1949). The popularity of the story -Rose- is due in no small part to its gruesome ending.
Miss Emily Grierson was a strange and lonely aging spinster in the town of Jefferson. She lived in a dusty and shadowy house which was the only thing left by her father, who controlled and manipulated her and was once the center of her life. After his death, she met the Yankee road worker Homer Barron., and fell in love with him. When Homer threatens to leave her for another man, she is seen buying arsenic, which the townspeople believe she will use to commit suicide. After this, Homer Barron is not heard from again, and is assumed to have returned north. Though Emily does not commit suicide, she is heard from less and less, and rarely ever leaves her home until her death. Homer's corpse is discovered hidden in her upstairs room, which explains the horrid stench that emitted from Miss Emily's house 40 years ago.
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 short story is unique in its writing critique—Southern Gothic genre. Gothic fiction is an important genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. As a genre, it is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto. The effect of Gothic fiction depends on a pleasing sort of
terror.
A Rose for Emily does a great job of demonstrating southern gothic literature by defining a stereotypical gothic character, creating a decaying southern setting, and revealing a looming family secret. There are some examples in the short story, featuring the Gothic genre. At the beginning of the story, Faulkner portrayed a faded house in Jefferson, a typical in the south: “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.” (Rose I.Para.2) The story’s setting is that of typical southern gothic literature.
Miss Emily, who comes from a well-to-do family who once stood among the elite of the South is described in her later years in a very gothic, morbid way, “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.” (Rose I.Para.6) 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.
Faulkner creates empathy for Emily while also hinting at an underlying horror. Gothicism in the short story helps examine the decay of the old south as well as Emily’s tragic life. There are many genres in literature, 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.