A Rose By Emily by Faulkner (Essay Sample)

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A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner
This book was initially published on the 30th of April 1920. It uses an unnamed narrator to describe Emily’s relationships with her lover, father and the dark mysteries that Emily has managed to conceal for a long time. The setting of the story occurs in Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha. This is a very critical in most of the author’s fiction. The man themes of the narration are: resentment, bitterness, generation gap, suppressed forbidden love as well as disillusionment.
This narration helps one to better understand the human psyche. Faulkner manages to brush on several issues that are related to the human life’s dark aspects. The author’s position is that it is impossible for one to find absolute good or evil. These are some of the aspects that form part of the human soul. The story reveals to its audience how a spinster is holding onto her lover’s body and refusing to let it go. The narrative tells a story of a murder that was due to possessive love. It also causes compassion and repulsion at the same time by revealing the face of death. The audience is made to understand that she punished her lover by forcing him to have an eternal life by her side.
Emily also had a husband. The story manages to reveal that she was not afraid of death herself. Death had come to an agreement with her based on the principal of life to life. The cost to Emily was her personality and freedom. Faulkner manages to show how death can bring to light various dark human mysteries and secrets that will have the effect of changing indifference to sympathy. ‘A Rose for Emily’ is centered on a woman who has caused death to her lover but still went ahead and stayed by his decaying body for several years to come.
The story has a psychopathological and a horror sub-story that manages to excite its audience. The horror is key for the story. Emily is a conscious person that has freedom to make her own decisions as well a spirit that is independent. She looks at the world around her through the glass lenses tinted by her own personal rules. Impressive aspects of her personality are shown through her conduct. Many of her actions in the narrative are due to decisions of value. The story manages to cement the concept that if a person is resistant to change, the same person must be prepared to live together with death. Therefore, nobody must fully accept or resist change.
The aspect of death is initially described in the story’s first paragraph. This is then mentioned severally with her father’s death, Colonel Sartoris’ death and finally the death of Homer Barron. Barron is a mostly flat character throughout the story. His role in the story is very crucial since he is the one that provides that cadaver that is very critical to the story’s plot. The collective narrator describes him as a Northerner day laborer, a man who is big, dark and ready who laughs constantly and curses "the niggers" ( Faulkner, 42 ). Emily manages to cut a controversial figure. The narrative manages to make the audience create an aura to of elevated meanings around Emily and see her as being very impressive. The narrator also manages to make the audience feel the pressure due to the several contrasting ways that the main character can be perceived. Nobody in the audience can doubt that Emily committed a despicable murder. The most confusing and in the same time significant part of the story is when she poisoned her lover and later held onto his decomposing body for almost four decades.(Allen, 78)
Emily treats her deceased lover’s decomposing body as if he was still alive for several years after his death. The author managed to create an image of a woman with inadequate perception of reality. Her borderline between fantasy and reality was hugely blurred. She is also portrayed as struggling with her traditions and life in the old south. The author manages to use a language that predicts builds towards the story’s climax. He deliberately uses very descriptive choice of words. The story starts with death then eventually shifts to the near distant past. It eventually leads to the woman’s decease and the past’s traditions that she had personified in the narrative. (Inge, 43)
This story can be described as a multi-layered masterpiece. Faulkner makes use of characterization, the language, chronology, sober commentary and a psychological narrative. Faulkner actually begins her this story at the end of the narrative. This is when the audience eventually discovers that Miss Emily actually passed away. This further reinforced the theme of death in the story and it is used to help the audience understand the boundary between death and life, our lives’ lovers as well as the value of parents in our lives. The audience sees how the passing away of two individuals that were close to her have influenced her character. (Barnes, 55) Both her lover and father passed away. People tried to advice Emily to bury her father and it took her almost three days for it to sink in that it is the appropriate thing to do. She is only left with house where she snow stays alone.
This house stands for "stubborn and coquettish decay" and amongst new traditions and generations, "an eyesore among eyesores" (Faulkner, 64).The house was closed to the general public for one decade. The house was opened after her death. The town’s people manage to see a room that has been elegantly furnished with valance curtains, rose-shaded lights and a toilet that is backed with silver that tarnished to the point of an obscured monogram. All these symbolize a happy life which is in stark contrast to the body that was lying in the bed. At the ending of the story, she is described as female who appeared bloated resembling a bo...