A Rose for Emily Time and Setting
In "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, the author uses the element of time to enhance details of the setting and vice versa.By avoiding the chronological order of events of Miss Emily's life, Faulkner first gives the reader a finished puzzle, and then allows the reader to examine this puzzle piece by piece, step by step. By doing so, he enhances the plot and presents two different perspectives of time held by the characters. The first perspective (the world of the present) views time as a "mechanical progression" in which the past is a "diminishing road." The second perspective (the world of tradition and the past) views the past as "a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottleneck of the most recent decade of years." The first perspective is that of Homer and the modern generation. The second is that of the older members of the Board of Aldermen and of the confederate soldiers. Emily holds the second view as well, except that for her there is no bottleneck dividing her from the meadow of the past. Faulkner begins the story with Miss Emily's funeral, where the men see her as a "fallen monument" and the women are anxious to see the inside of her house. He gives us a picture
The house in which she lives remains static and unchanged as the town progresses. The picture of her father is just another symbol of immobility and no sense of time. There were too many expectations of women in those days and Faulkner demonstrates the consequences of such a life through Miss Emily. On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss Emily's father. When she is threatened with desertion and disgrace, she not only takes refuge in that world but also takes Homer with her in the only manner possible - death. They hallucinate and imagine things that never occurred; there is no sense of time in their minds. This town's people are intimidated by Miss Emily, and have to squeeze lime juice on her lawn in secrecy. The scrambling of time throughout the story is a great demonstration of the scrambling of time in Miss Emily's mind and in her house. They are afraid to confront her, just as the next generation is afraid to confront her about the taxes. of a woman who is frail because she has "fallen," yet as important and symbolic as a "monument. Perhaps if the story of Miss Emily had been set in a different place, her life would have turned out differently. There is no life or motion in this house.
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