Preview

Character Analysis of Emily Rose in " a Rose for Emily"

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
726 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Character Analysis of Emily Rose in " a Rose for Emily"
The character Emily Rose in "A Rose for Emily" is considered a static character because; her traits throughout the story do not change. In the story she is deemed as quiet, inhuman and, even mad. However, through further inspection; there are characteristics displayed throughout the story that can possibly prove that Emily was a dynamic character. Throughout the piece Emily changes both mentally, socially and physically.
Miss Emily, the main character of this story, lives for many years as a recluse; she withdraws from her community to live in seclusion. "No visitor had passed since she ceased giving china-painting lessons eight or ten years earlier."(pg.31) Faulkner characterizes Miss Emily's attempt to remove herself from society through her actions. "After her father's death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all."(pg.31) the death of her father and the shattered relationship with her boyfriend added to her attempt to live in seclusion. Though her father was responsible for her becoming a hermit, her pride also contributed to her seclusion. "None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such."(pg.30) her pride kept her from socializing with other members of the community. Emily's father was solely held responsible for her being a hermit. "We remembered all the young men her father had driven away…" (pg.32) if he had not refused the men who wanted to go out with Miss Emily, she may have not gone crazy.
First of all, Emily Rose changes mentally throughout the story. After Emily father's death, Emily changes, but people in town did not notice it. Emily becomes depressive; which leads her to her own decay. People thought that she had a strong personality because she dominated the neighbors. Moreover, the townspeople saw Emily as a harmless secluded women that could be pitied because, of her lonesomeness. However, toward the end of the story her evil nature is realized. The townspeople

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    In conclusion of William Faulkner's short story "A Rose For Emily," he explains emily as an archaic woman because she does not understand why the new generation begins to take over. William Faulkner also describes Emily as a women of pride given to her by her late father. Lastly Emily portrays bizarre because she killed her husband and kept him all to…

    • 63 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “A rose for Emily” is a short story about the last member of her family, and her very old father. The story was published in 1930, by a very well respected author, William Faulkner. When Emily’s father dies, she is completely heartbroken and denies that he is really dead.…

    • 62 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the narrative A Rose for Emily, the main character’s personality was greatly influenced by individuals in her life. Emily Grierson, whom was the main character, let people such as her father, have an impact on her later in life. Eventually making her, what people had seen as, psychotic. Considering this, the responsibility of Emily’s behavior is pinned upon those who were around her in her life, mainly the townspeople. The townspeople estranged and ignored her. The only reason is to why they knew her is because they judged and talked about her.…

    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the story “A Rose for Emily,” Faulkner uses characterization to portray Emily’s mental decline throughout her life. By being kept away from the real world by her father, to being free to venture out after his death to having to keep a murder a secret. Faulkner best characterized Miss Emily as snobby, crazy and secretive.…

    • 357 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “A Rose for Emily” is a mysterious and unusual short story. William Faulkner creates a character, Miss Emily Grierson, who is so significant to the town that she is referred to as a “fallen monument” after her death. Miss Emily is an eccentric character, and although she physically changes, her character nor her personality do. Miss Emily is a static character, with internal conflicts, and has odd relationships with her boyfriend and husband. For instance, Miss Emily kept her late father's body and refused to give him up, showing an inability to let go. She keeps his body because she also does not want to be isolated, even though she avoids interaction by staying in her home. Miss Emily's isolation is external with society and also resonates…

    • 190 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Miss Emily is first explained as a nice, sweet, and normal woman, though that all changed as her life went on. The death of her father was the flame that ignited all of this weirdness of Emily. After her father died, Miss Emily did not go out much probably because of grief over the loss of her father. “Because her father is the only man with whom she has had a close relationship, she denies his death and keeps his corpse in her house until she breaks down three days later when the doctors insist she let them take the body” (A1). This statement demonstrates her inability to let go of lost ones.…

    • 609 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The people of the town noticed the obvious lack of independence in Miss Emily’s life before her father passed. “We remembered all the young men that her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.” After the death of her father, she was faced with the reality of needing to carry responsibility for her own life. Miss Emily, finally free of her tormentous girlhood, suddenly became able to make choices for herself. Even with questionable acts, this character further demonstrated her independence by taking…

    • 750 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In A Rose for Emily, William Faulkner writes a pathetic woman, Miss Emily, to show the true lives of the rich and his frustration with society. Faulkner’s goal of Miss Emily’s alienation shows wealthy people’s lives aren’t perfect and how grief can impact people. To show this goal, the author uses the theme of truth vs. reality. For example, “Being left alone and a pauper, she had become humanized”(2), shows that the town people initially thinking that she is better than everyone else; however after she loses her dad, she becomes more ordinary. Even though the town people think of Emily as an eccentric and haughty Southern belle, they envy her; she’s wealthy and the town people are not. However, since Emily isolates herself from her peers, the town people never see her.…

    • 505 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the course of this story Emily struggles to accept Mr. Grierson, Colonel Sartoris, and Homer Barron have died. We see this in two different ways. First, her failure to realize years later (days later in her father’s case) that these men have passed away. Secondly, Emily keeps Homer as well as Mr. Grierson bodies even after they died. Exhibiting traits of someone who suffers from necrophilia. Emily also struggles to adapt to the world that is industrializing, and modernizing around her. Instances of this are also through the story. Whether she is unwilling to pay taxes, receive the free new mail delivery, or even her house being the last one standing in the neighborhood. Those are just a few of the instances of how Miss Emily was unable to adapt to a modernizing society. Now, my perspective on “A Rose for Emily” is not the only one that exist. In fact there are numerous others. For example, Thomas Klein, and Aubrey Binder give drastically different perspectives on the story then I did. Whereas, Klein analyzed “voice of gossip” (Klein, 2007), and Binder analyzed the meaning of dust throughout this story. However, both are brilliant in their own…

    • 756 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Her father, her lovers, and the townspeople make her the reclusive, creepy killer that she is. The solution to every problem in her life is death, which is about the only noticeable change in “A Rose for Emily.” Although the townspeople’s biased perspective can affect the reader’s understanding of Emily, they may be correct in their diagnosis of insanity. The setting and time-period she lives in are also very important. Her home reflects her character: aged, faded, and part of history. The time period is an interesting factor, because it requires one to consider the gender roles of the late nineteenth century. Overall, Emily Grierson faces serious conflicts that could have bettered her character, but instead, she morphs into something eerie, unreadable, and dark. Of course, because of the unreliable narration, one can only speculate about her character; one cannot speak with certainty on the matter of Miss…

    • 1207 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    A major theme in “A Rose for Emily” is tradition to change. “After her father's death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all”(Faulkner. 103)When Emily tries to keep everything the same after her fathers death. She had a drastic change to herself and the town around her. Emily in the end is a pure image of someone they never knew. She is not what the town remembers and because of what they did to her, she has…

    • 1361 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Rose for Emily, is a tragic story of a young women who was denied the privilege to love and be loved at young age. The author, William Faulkner, was born and raised in Mississippi at the turn of the century. Faulkner is known as one of the 20th century’s best writers. “The man himself never stood taller than five feet, six inches tall, but in the realm of American literature, William Faulkner is a giant” (“William Faulkner”). In the short story A Rose for Emily, Faulkner ties the story together through setting, foreshadowing, symbolism, and most importantly the characters.…

    • 494 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The narrator provides that Miss Emily is crazy in an obscure way. First the smell in which we can see in page 284, "will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?" Second, when she wanted arsenic in page 286, "I want arsenic." Thirdly, how she never leaves her house in page 288. Lastly, she is crazy because when the townspeople went inside Miss Emily's house they found Homer lying in a bed decaying and found out that Miss Emily was sleeping next it in page 289, "Then we noticed that in the second pillow… leaning forward, that faint… long strand of iron-gray hair." We can infer that the narrators are just telling the story out of their observation from a first person plural point of view. The narrator is however very…

    • 470 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    She never really got over being under her father’s wing. Emily became a woman known throughout town as a mysterious and secretive old woman, who’s later is pity on by the town and others around her. But which before her father death he rejected men in her life that she loved. That drew the conclusion that she would never find a man beside her father .Over the…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The narrator begins introducing the fact that Emily has passed away, but there is still a lot of speculation about her mysterious life "When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant—a combined gardener and cook—had seen in at least ten years"(Faulkner, 1). Faulkner chooses to reveal Emily through the eyes of whom regards her to be the most important character in the story. According to Ruth Sullivan "A Rose for Emily" is first-person narration, hence subject to the questions one usually puts in understanding such a story. For instance, who is the narrator and what is his relationship to the main action? Why did the author choose this particular narrator for this particular story? (Sullivan, 159). From the introduction in the story, it is possible to make the assumption that the narrator might be one of Emily's neighbors who somehow has witnessed every single event as narrated in the story. Despite this assumption it is not clear whether he/she is a close neighbor or a complete outsider as he/she remains in anonymity during the whole…

    • 913 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays