A rose for emily

             The short story, "A Rose for Emily," written by William Faulkner, had by far one of the most shocking and unexpected endings I have ever stumbled upon. Who would have expected to find out that Miss Emily had been sleeping with her lover post-mortem? Although Faulkner dropped hints though out the entire story, such as Miss Emily buying poison, none of the hints prepared the reader for the scandalous finale. I was asked to write about the elements that Faulkner could have used to make the ending less shocking. After reading this story numerous times I came up with a handful of ideas. But before I go over those let me recap the short story briefly.
             In "A Rose for Emily", Faulkner contrasted the past with the present era. The past was represented in Emily herself, in Colonel Sartoris, in the old Negro servant, and in the Board of Alderman who accepted the Colonel's attitude toward Emily and rescinded her taxes.
             The present was expressed chiefly through the words of the unnamed narrator. The new Board of Aldermen, Homer Barron (the representative of Yankee attitudes toward the Griersons and thus toward the entire South), and in what is called "the next generation with its more modern ideas" all represented the present time period. Miss Emily was referred to as a "fallen monument" in the story. She was a "monument" of Southern gentility, an ideal of past values but fallen because she had shown herself susceptible to death (and decay). The description of her house "lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps--an eyesore among eyesores" represented a juxtaposition of the past and present and was an emblematic presentation of Emily herself.
             Homer Barron, the Yankee, lived in the present, ready to take his pleasure and depart, apparently unwilling to consider the possibility of defeat neither by tradition (the Griersons) nor by time itself (death). In a sense, Emily conquered time, ...

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A rose for emily . (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 14:16, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/68914.html