A Rose for Emily (Essay Sample)

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A Rose for Emily
Introduction
‘A Rose for Emily’ by William Faulkner is a short story about the life events of a woman, Emily Grierson, leading to her death. The narrator explains the story in a five part series. The story begins with the funeral of Emily where villagers are to pay their respect, while others want just to satisfy their curiosity. Faulkner explains the situation of Emily’s not paying taxes due to the allowance of the former the mayor Colonel Sartoris (Faulkner 1961). In the second part, the narrator takes readers back to the events that occurred before, during and immediately after Emily’s father death. The narrator creatively begins part three by showing the events that revolved around Emily, her lover and the town. The fourth part of the story shows the events that took place at Emily’s old age. Finally, the fifth part shows the death of Emily and takes readers back to the time of the funeral to conclude the story (Faulkner 1961). In the story, readers clearly see that Faulkner is trying to explain death, change and sympathy in the society. Therefore, this analysis simply evaluates the meaning of death, change and sympathy in the story.
Discussion
In writing fictional stories, authors use literary devices for purposes of creativity to explain the meaning behind their stories. Similarly, Faulkner uses several literary devices such symbols among others to explain death, sympathy and change to his readers. The first literary device that is clear in the story is the use of biography. Kathleen Kuiper describes biography as a recounting of an individual life (Kuiper 172). Faulkner’s story can be viewed by many as a biography because it outlines the chronological account of events of Emily’s life, from death moving backwards to the time they were courting with her lover, Homer Barron. In this case, Faulkner is using biography to explain death, change and sympathy. To explain death through biography, Faulkner shows that it is better to grieve death than deny. In the story Emily denies that her father is dead portraying perverted behaviour.
Secondly, Faulkner uses biography as a literary device to explain the meaning of change in the story. In this case, Faulkner shows his readers that change is inevitable. According to the story, the chronological account of events in Emily’s life shows that change is inevitable. Emily’s house was once beautiful with white painting. Towards the end, the house is old and the paint has faded (Faulkner 1961). This clearly shows that change is inevitable. Additionally, professor Teller Heller tends to agree with this analysis by pointing out how Emily was once a beautiful woman but now she has changed to become an unappealing old woman (Heller 2014). Finally, the story tries to explain sympathy using biography. In Emily’s timeline, when her father was alive the family was highly reputable. However, after his death, Emily was left as a poor woman and the society started to sympathize with her (Faulkner 1961). Therefore, the biography explains that there is a thin line between sympathy and enjoying another person misfortune.
The other literary device that the story uses to explain the theme of death, change and sympathy is symbols. Emily’s house is one of the symbols in the society. When Emily was a young energetic woman, the house was beautiful. However, when Emily dies, the house becomes to be deserted with a lot of dust (Faulkner 1961). The dust and the deserted house show the decaying process of a person when he or she dies. The physical changes of the house manifest that change is inevitable.
Finally, when the house was beautiful people were envying Emily’s family. However, when Emily’s house started to smell during her old age, the villagers sympathizing with her were pouring lime around the wall at night without having to confront her (Faulkner 1961). This is because they sympathized with her. Therefore, the house as a symbol shows that people sympathize with poverty.
Suspense is another literary device in the story that helps in the explanation of the theme of death, change and sym...