A Rose for Emily

Alex Dunn

Galbraith

English 102

October 5,2017

“A Rose for Emily”

        “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner is about a lady who lives in a small town in the south. The period was back in the slave days, beginning in the late 1800s and ending in the early 1900s. There are a few racial slurs mentioned due to the fact she had an African American butler. The majority of this story takes place in her house and others in parts of her town. As a child, Emily’s father was very strict. She was held back from most things normal girls do. Three devices used to tell this story are symbolism, imagery, and conflict.

        The first device Faulkner uses is symbolism. Emily was not the average girl by any means. She grew up with a strict father who did not approve of a boyfriend for her, “he was always running all the young men away”. (Faulkner 98) The symbol her father gave her is what made her never get married. He was so cruel and made her have trust issues towards men. She never got opportunities like everyone else did. Her father dying really upset her but she did not understand the freedom she was getting. They only had each other and it was hard for her to accept the fact that he was gone. She kept telling everyone “my father is not dead” (Faulkner 98), until she finally accepted the fact he was not coming back. She had been keeping his body until the local ministers and doctors tried were about to get the law involved to get his body. He robbed her of a good childhood and now without him, what did she have left? The house was a shield from the real world. (Ferguson) Miss Emily still felt as it was thirty years before.         

The second device used is imagery which plays a very big part in this story. The description of the “mysterious” order gives you a picture in your mind of the green fog you see in the movies. The description of how the house was set up like a house back fifty years ago. The author does a great job in being descriptive. He even describes how her depression grew the older she got. Her father’s death took a good toll on her body. She was unsure how to live on her own. She rarely came out because she was use to staying under her father. She did not know how to act around men so dating seemed out of the picture until one day. Homer Barron, a foreman from up North (Faulkner 97), came along to sweep her off her feet. They were getting married, or at least that’s what everyone thought. No one knew that she would take out her anger of men on poor Homer. The whole town watched them fall in love and disappear. The way her father raised her really hurt her now Homer would have to pay.

        The final device used by Faulkner is conflict. The conflict between herself took a giant toll on her physically and mentally. She wanted to be happy and live a normal life but she just could not do it. The perception used is that she tried to be normal by getting a boyfriend but it back fired. (Berne) She heard her father’s voice in her head saying not to do that. She even could have just imagined him as her father, there to hold her back from life.

        Emily lived a very miserable life. She never just went out to do anything for herself. She always sent the maid to get her groceries, it was rare to see her. “Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows” said some of the women in the town. (Faulkner 97) When her father was alive it was normal for them to always be home but as she got older things never changed. Emily’s social life never amounted to anything. She seemed to be attached to her home by never leaving. Little did anyone know what was in her upstairs bedroom, a cold man’s body lying in the bed. The guilt started setting in to her for killing Homer. The effects of her guilt was shutting off the upstairs to not have to face Homer’s body. Emily also never left because she did not want to have to face the town about him. She always did not want anyone to find his body. People in the town always wondered about the stench but no one knew what their neighbor was really hiding until her death.

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