Essay for A Rose For Emily

In “A Rose for Emily” Faulkner uses the story as an allegory. Now an allegory is a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning. Faulkner also changes the narrative of the story a couple of time. He does this by changing the perspective of the story a couple times. First he narrates Emily when she’s older than he goes back in time to when she’s younger. This adds an interesting perspective because it shows what kind of person Emily is when she’s older, but it goes back in time to show how she came to be like that. The main cause of Emily’s neurosis is essentially her father. He said so himself that he’s never going to let her marry, and he wants her to essentially care for him her whole life. After her father passes away, Emily whose been raised to do nothing but care for her father essentially loses her mind as she cannot take the psychological toll that it causes her. Her father’s selfishness also denied her any kind of love or family that she could’ve otherwise had. Faulkner also uses gothic elements in the story. Some gothic elements are a victim who is helpless against his torturer, there is also a victimizer who is associated with evil and whose powers are immense or supernatural. In this case the roles of the tormentor and tormented are blurred. When you read the story originally you feel that Emily is victimized by her father. When the full story is read and we find out what she did to Homer when he was thinking about leaving her the victim which is Emily becomes the tormentor. Another element of gothic literature is that there is always a haunted house with supernatural qualities. In this case Emily’s home fits perfectly as her house had a unbearable stench. In the end Emily’s greatest flaw was the fact that she was denied love or any kind of life that she might have lived if it wasn’t for who father.