Rose For Emily Essay, Research Paper

Erick C.

11/14/99

Eng. 102

Deterioration

A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner is a remarkable tale of Emily Grierson, whose funeral drew the attention of the entire population of Jefferson a

small southern town. Emily was raised in the ante-bellum period before the Civil War in the south. An unnamed narrator, who is consider to be “the town” or at least the collaborative voice of it, aligns key moments in Emily’s life, including the death of her father and her brief relationship with a man form the north named Homer Barron. In short this story explains Emily’s strict and repetitive ways and the sullen curiosity that the towns people have shown toward her. Rising above the literal level of Emily’s narrative, the story basically addressesthe symbolic changes in the South after the civil war. Emily’s house symbolizes neglect, and improvishment in the new times in the town of Jefferson.

Beginning with Emily Grierson’s funeral, the story foreshadows the ending and suspenseful events in Emily’s life, and her other impending circumstances.

A Rose for Emily tells the tale of a young woman who lives and abides by her father’s strict sensibilities. The rampant symbolism and Falkner’s descriptions of the decaying house, coincide with Miss Emily’s physical and emotional decay,also emphasize her mental degeneration, and further illustrate the outcome of Falkner’s story. Miss Emily’s decaying house, not only lacks genuine love and care, but so douse she in her adult life, but more so during her childhood. The pertinence of Miss Emily’s house in relation to her physical appearance is brought on by constant neglect and unappreciatation. As an example, the house is situated in what was once a prominent neighborhood that has now deteriorated. Originally the house was described as, ?It was a big, squarish

frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies” of an earlier

time, now many of the towns people see that the house has become “an eyesore among eyesores”. Through lack of attention, the house has deteriorated from a

beautiful estate, to an ugly desolate shack. Similarly, Emily has also become an eyesore in the following various ways. For instance, she is first described as a “fallen monument” to suggest her former grandeur and her later ugliness. She might have stayed out of the public eye after these two deaths which left her finally alone, something she was not used to. When Emily died Jefferson lost a prominent monument of the Old South.

This story contains a high rate of symbolism thoroughly distributed and revealed by shady foreshadowing. Just as the house has, Emily has lost her beauty. Once she had been a beautiful woman, who later becomes obese and bloated. In this post civil war town, the great estate and Emily had suffered the

toll of time and neglect. As the exterior, the interior of the house as well resembles Emily’s increasing decent and the growing sense of sadness that

accompanies such a downfall. All that is told of the inside of Emily’s house is a dim hall, where a staircase is mounted into descending darkness, with the house smelling of foul odors. The combined darkness and odor of the house relate with Emily in some of the following ways, with her dry and cold voice as if it were scrappy and dry from disuse just like her house. The similarity between the

inside of the house and Emily extends to the mantel, where there is a portrait of her father and Emily sitting there. Internally and externally, both Emily’s building and her body are in a state of deterioration and tarnishment like a metallic

material. An example of Emily?s unwillingness to change is when she refused to let the “new guard” attach metal numbers above her door and fasten a mailbox when the town received free mail service. This reflected Emily’s unyielding and stubborn persona caused by and related to her father’s strict treatment of her when she was young.

Throughout the story, the town’s illustrations of both house and its