Preview

Conservative Personality In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
249 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Conservative Personality In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily
William Faulkner, in “A Rose for Emily”, describes Emily’s house in order to imply that Miss Emily has a conservative personality. First of all, Faulkner shows Emily’s conservative personality by comparing the vicissitudes of the neighbourhood, which involves her residence and the buildings surround it. For example, despite the fact that the “eyesores” such as “garages and cotton gins” have completely occupied the neighborhood, “Miss Emily’s house was left” with its unique styles (2). “Garages and cotton gins” symbolize the new technology and thinking generated with the passage of time, and the considerable changes in the neighbourhood. Nevertheless, compare to the disappeared constructions, Miss Emily’s house looks “stubborn and coquettish”

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner skillfully depicts the changes of Emily, who becomes a victim of the transitional period from the old pre-war society to the new post-war society. The author depicts the process of how an aristocratic lady becomes a killer. The story revolves around the life of a troubled and stubborn woman named Emily. After the death of her father and the disappearance of her lover, Emily becomes increasingly isolated from the society. She persistently lives in her self-made shell so that she can preserve her past and protect herself from the changes of society. By using peculiar factors, overcast atmosphere, and the contrast of desolate and modern life, Faulkner exposes the isolation of a woman trapped in the past, her desire for a happy life, and the degradation of the South after the Civil War.…

    • 1072 Words
    • 5 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
  • Satisfactory Essays

    William Faulkner's Southern Gothic short story, “A Rose For Emily” uses a slow cadenced, formal writing style to mirror the old fashioned values of the old south. The tale about holding onto old values mirrors in its own cadence and diction the qualities it attempts to undercut. This conflict between old and new is not unique to the tone of the work. The narrator’s use of the first person plural places the reader in a unique perspective through which we can voyeuristically gaze at the title character. The narrator's diction expresses both reverence and pity for “Emily.”…

    • 150 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Protect the freed slaves, put south under martial law to enforce reconstruction and new amendments…

    • 1865 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The characteristics of Miss Emily’s house symbolize her appearance as she becomes decrepit with time and neglect. The house was a beautiful white decorated with gorgeous cupolas, set on what was the best street. Then it became a monstrous monstrosity. Miss Emily changed the same ways as her house did and she too became an eyesore. She had once been a slender figure and later she becomes fat and motionless. During Miss Emily’s death she had been referred to as a fallen monument, which could mean she was once something beautiful and…

    • 594 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

    understand this theme . A Rose for Emily 's key theme is the quest for…

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" you are captivated by a journey through the old south. Faulkner paints a vivid image through his deceptive writing skills and his gift of captivating his audience by leading them through a roller coaster of emotion and horror as Faulkner narrates a gripping tale through the eyes of the southern towns people of Jefferson, Mississippi. The story "A Rose for Emily" starts off with the demise of Miss Emily's home that at one point in its life was believed to be one of the finest homes in Jefferson, Mississippi and now it lay as an eye sore upon the passing gazes of the towns people who walk the streets. Faulkner's uses the home as one of his many metaphors as to how the old south turned to the new south through the decaying house that Miss Emily lived in, because at one time the old south was the place to be and a beautiful yet redefined place to live. As Faulkner unravels his tale "A Rose for Emily" he uses the unmistakable dark feeling of figurative language, theme, and the towns setting to engulf his readers in what was once believed to be the way America was shaping up to be, but is now just a faint glow in the rear view mirror of a nation progressing forward.…

    • 1096 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Griersons have prospered and built a fine home on the most select street in Jefferson, Mississippi”.In the short story “A Rose for Emily” William Faulkner tells a story of a tragedy about a lady who grows up in a rich and powerful family, and then ends up poor and trapped in her old ways There is more than one cause for Miss Emily’s tragedy.…

    • 624 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Analysis Paper

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Emily’s house that is very similar to her is a structure of a memorial, the only remaining of a symbolic representation of the past. 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 (pg204). The house is an extension of Emily. It is a tradition but now it’s out of place because of the society that has changed around her. The house, like its owner, is an object of interest for them. They create their own interpretations of the inside of Emily’s torn down house.…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Emily Grierson Influence

    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages

    To support the insight of Faulkner’s use of Southern setting and Emily’s social struggles, the following quotes are given: “…Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps, an eyesore among eyesores.”(Faulkner, 1) This clearly shows the decline of the home, which is part of the setting that represents her social and personal decline. Miss Emily becomes reclusive and introverted after the death of her father and the estrangement from the Yankee, Homer Barron. “…after her father’s death and a short time her sweetheart, the one we believed would marry her, had deserted her. After her father’s death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all.”(Faulkner,…

    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Emily Grierson Past

    • 1008 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, a care, a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town…” A Rose for Emily, written by William Faulkner, is set in the South, following the Civil War. Slavery had been abolished, the economy was straining, and society was grieving. In the novel the American South is shown to be in distress, southerners were in denial of any change, and were trying to hold on too any dignity they had left. By allowing the reader to reconstruct the dates chronologically and untangle the characters experiences on their own, Faulkner provides a complex transition from one section to another. In, “A Rose for Emily,” the concept of time present and time past is explored. By making a parallel between the main character,…

    • 1008 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rose For Emily Symbolism

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages

    At the very beginning of the story, when the narrator is describing the house in which Ms Emily lived, we get our first glimpse of symbolism. The way Faulkner describes the house, then and now, actually represents Ms Emily's life. The paint and color of the house represents Ms Emily's conscience. Earlier, the house is clean and white, pure. As time goes on the house becomes decrepit, and sullied, much like Ms Emily's conscience. The "select street" that she lives on in the earlier years, which later becomes infected and surrounded by cotton gins and garages, represents her place in society. While her father was alive, and sometime after he had passed, Ms Emily was considered high class. Suitors were deemed unworthy to claim her. As more and more tragedy strikes her life, people no longer envy, but pity Ms Emily. When Faulkner describes her house as "lifting…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    William Faulkner was not only one of the greatest Southern writers of all time but one of the great American authors of all time. His works have long been criticized and analyzed for their deeper meanings and themes. One of his most analyzed works is his short story "A Rose for Emily". While Faulkner uses numerous techniques and strategies which include the chronology of the story, his strongest weapon is his usage of the narrator as an omniscient gossip. Thomas Dilworth says that "the narrator is as important to the plot as Emily Grierson.(Dilworth). Whether this is true or not, the narrator is an important part that helps makes the story what it is, a great Southern short story.…

    • 591 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A Rose for Emily

    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In “A Rose for Emily”, the narrator begins the story by letting us know that Miss Emily Grierson has died and that she had not been seen in at least ten years. As the narrator continues to describe the house and it’s location as being located on, “which had once been our most select street,” is now encroached and obliterated by garages and cotton gins, it is undoubtedly obvious that the narrator’s goal was to depict Miss Emily Grierson as one who has been living in seclusion in avoidance of a seemingly changing world. The narrator later goes on to say, “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.” I felt that this description of Miss Emily’s house as being one of stubborn decay was more so a description of Miss Emily herself than the house.…

    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays