A Rose for Emily

A Rose for Emily

Introduction

William Faulkner is one of the most famous writers of America who has major contribution in the American literature. He also received noble prize for his extraordinary work. He has written various novels, short stories and criticism. One of his best short stories is “A Rose for Emily”, it was his first short story and it contains all the elements of a perfect short story that contains perfect combination of themes, characters, setting and plot, all organized in a perfect form, with perfect expression of all the literary devices as perfect combination of all the ingredients. The story has very intense and deep plot which reveals the unusual behavior of humans, Faulkner has an excellent command on revealing such interesting and unusual aspects of society through his writings. This story is about the woman whose father was dead and she lived alone in her cottage isolated from the society (Faulkner, 2007). There were rumors and dislikes of community people about her. The unbearable smell from her cottage and her mysterious behaviors created curiosity in town about her. Faulkner presented such a simple mystery with the perfect representation of characters and settings and themes that it spells bounds the readers and reveals the shocking mystery at the end of the story with a number of more mysteries and puzzles about Emily's character.

Thesis Statement

Themes, setting and characters in William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily” presents perfect combination of all the elements to reflect the unusual mysteries in society.

Discussion

Brief Overview and Plot Summary

This story is the about a woman Emily Grierson, who lived with her father and when she was thirty, her father died and she left alone with one of her Black servants. In her father's life, they were rich and even helped others and community. After death of Emily's father she faced financial problems and became lonelier and began to live solitary life with no interaction with the people. This also resulted in the negative approach of people towards her and her lifestyle and lack of paying taxes made her an unbearable obligation for the society. One there were some labors arrived for the construction in the town and Emily became involved in one of the construction foreman Homer Barron(Faulkner, 2007). This also resulted in rumors and controversies about Emily and her marriage with Homer.

Emily became completely isolated with the society and even never came out of her house, except that she bought arsenic from the shop. Most of the people considered that maybe she had decided to poison herself, but she remained alive for many years until next generation took the charge for community work and responsibilities (Faulkner, 2007). After many years she died of illness, and after her burial people entered her house to search for her possessions and her unusual behaviors, they found decomposed corpse of Homer in Emily's upstairs bedroom, he was wearing a wedding suit and with that dead body there was a long grey hair ...