“A Rose for Emily”: A Review”A Rose for Emily”: A ReviewIn “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, we see how past events effectthe main character Miss Emily, especially her mental state. She seems to livein a sort of fantasy world where death has no real meaning. Miss Emily refusesto accept or even recognize, the death of her father or that of Colonel Satoris. She does not want to acknowledge the fact that the world around her was changingtherefore Miss Emily surrounds herself with death.
What Faulkner tries to statein this story is that you should not let death overpower your life. A personshould try and let go of their beloved ones after they have passed away. Healso tries to state is to always expect the unexpected, like when Miss Emilykilled Homer. Faulkner chooses to use third person narration in this particular storyfor a couple of reasons. He tries to show Emily’s world to us as seen throughthe eyes of a respectable resident, so we can understand the town life as if welived there. This way we were able to understand how the people of Jeffersonthought of her.
If the story would have been told in first person we would nothave been able to relate to Miss Emily. The reason for that would be, if shewould have been the narrator we would have understood the story in a holedifferent manner. Faulkner used third person narration and from that we wereable to find out many things about Miss Emily’s past. For instance the deathof her father, the love she had for Homer, and how she felt the need foraffection.
Those ideas she would have kept to herself, if she were to have toldthe story. The language and dialogue that Faulkner provides Miss Emily with enablesthe readers to understand how she feels about the town. She is not very pleasedwith the changes that have occurred therefore she lets everyone that she comesin contact with know how she views those specific changes. For example when thenew Mayor tells her that she owes taxes in Jefferson, she just keeps oninsisting that she does not owe any money. She also keeps repeating that ifthey had any to just ask Colonel Satoris about her taxes, while everyone knewgood and well he had passed away. This in turn supports the theme of the story,because we see that Miss Emily does not like the idea of change at all.
Faulkner uses many symbols throughout the story, one of them being thecrayon portrait of Miss Emily’s father. The picture symbolizes many things’ oneof them being that it shows how she thinks of things in the distant past. Another symbol is the poison that she uses to kill Homer Barron. When thepeople in Jefferson found out that she had purchased the poison they surely allthought that she was going to kill herself. What she really used it for wasnever expected from quiet, old Miss Emily. This lead up to the climax of thestory.
After Miss Emily died they had to go to remove her body. Theunsuspecting thing that happened in her house was that she had been sleepingwith Homer’s old decayed body for many years. Faulkner did a great job in creating the setting, characters anddialogue in this story. Everything is so well written and understood. We canunderstand many things about small town life in the south in the early 1900’s. It is a wonderful story, even though irony surrounds the ending.
That isanother reason why this story is so memorable. If you read it once you cannever truly forget it, because I know I never will.
