What Is The Theme Of Sacrifice In A Rose For Emily

A rose’s elegance and beauty is a powerful symbol in which the meaning of love is concealed when receiving one. In William Faulkner’s, “A Rose for Emily”, finding love is a problem for Miss Emily due to her father’s resentment of her ever finding a man. My overall response to this narrative consists of pity and understanding to start off, and with an unsurprising reaction at the end. Considering Emily’s role within the short story, the author intended the reader to put themselves in the townspeople’s shoes. By expressing the main character’s life like and open book, the author is giving the reader every reason to feel empathy towards Miss Emily. My hope was that the rose symbolized Emily finally falling in love, not a rose for her what had
For example, the narrator says, “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town” (Faulkner 121). While reading, I felt as though I was one of the townspeople. Every feeling the people had, I had as well. I pitied her as she grew older and older still without a love. I thought of Miss Emily as weak, lost, and in need of help. To further expand on this, “the day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom” (123). Even then, I felt as though Emily had earned that sort of comforting and respect from the people, and that she deserved that attention. As I continued to read, I blatantly expected only bad news to come from Miss Emily. For example, “like when she bought the rat poison, the arsenic. That was over a year after they begun to say ‘poor Emily’” (124). Just as the people, I expected her to plan to kill herself with the poison. I even thought, much like everyone else, that it might be the best thing for her (124). Not because I thought killing herself was her escape from everything, but because I didn’t see any other way for her to leave her life without being unhappy. The author never tells the reader what is done with the poison but readers, including myself, are left to infer on what they believe to have happened. Emily’s death was inevitable
For example, “we remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we know that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will” (123). The keeping of her father’s body foreshadowed what was going to happen next. After finishing the short story is when I noticed the similarity between Emily’s father and Homer’s death. The short story provides the audience with multiple hints inside. The audience thought that love was going to be found by Miss Emily. Much like the brief mentioning of taxes; that and death are impossible to avoid. When Emily’s father died, all that was said was that Miss Emily had kept the body. When Homer’s body is found, the audience starts to believe that maybe Miss Emily was responsible for the two deaths. We are led to this belief due to the mentioning of rat poison. The narrator also mentions earlier in the story that Miss Emily is sick. The audience then assumes that her life won’t go on for too much longer. The mentioning of being crazy is related back to often. The reader wonders if losing her mind was her illness, or if Emily was never really insane, just growing more lonely and old. The audience has to put two and two together because of the connecting ideas the author illustrates. The audience response mirrored the author’s intention for the