A Rose For Emily

 这个故事主要描述开始告诉我们艾米丽小姐’死和镇上的人都参加了她的葬礼的，作者用一种独特的讲述者方式讲述这个故事，通过情节和人物刻画，由于现实主义和细节的手法，读者在完成这个故事的时候会感觉到一种情绪的影响，故事背后的许多想法，作者认为不应被视为一个简单的恐怖故事。

A Rose for Emily, written by William Faulkner, first came out in 1930. It was considered one of Faulkner’s darkest stories he ever wrote as a writer. However, there is a theme to this story. Many ideas underlie this story and should not be taken as a simple horror story. Through the plot and characterization, the reader feels an emotional impact when completing this story due to the realism and details given. Faulkner chose a point of view that contributes to the overall affect of the story. The narrator used a distinctive manner of telling the story, which I will explain in more detail. One of Faulkner’s unique writing talents is his ability to use detailed and creative description. The use of description shaped my views on the characters, Miss Emily’s house as well as the whole town. When writing A rose For Emily, Faulkner used a first person minor point of view. Emily’s story is told after her death; therefore, an outside perspective was necessary. Another reason William Faulkner chose this point of view is that it is a limited point of view.

The result is that readers cannot truly understand what the characters are truly thinking and feeling. The “true story” is not known until the townspeople enter the bedroom where Homer’s corpse is. The point of view keeps readers in a questionable matter of suspense. As of who the narrator is, is never disclosed at all to the readers. The dialogue indicates a town’s person is most likely the narrator. This works for the overall effect because everything comes together at the end of the story. The narrator in this story seemed to have a distinctive manner in telling the story. The sequences of events were not told in chronological order, which at times became confusing. The narrator begins the story by telling us of Miss Emily’s death and how everyone in the town attended her funeral. Then the narrator starts into the story concerning her tax notices. The narrator goes on from there jumping to different points in time. Based on the order of events, it is best to conclude that this story is told in a flashback type of narration. “

They rose when she entered a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another, was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue.” (242) These details led me to believe that Miss Emily was a depressed and disturbed person. Miss Emily was always wearing black clothing, giving a morbid theme. Her tarnished gold head on the cane indicates she did not take proper care of her possessions as well as herself. She was identified as an older person because she had to use a cane, and the obvious use of metaphors when describing her shows how she was near death already. Faulkner refers to Miss Emily’s body as a skeleton. This was a suddle hint of death again, prior to her becoming a part of Homer and her father. The description of her house seemed to correlate with Miss Emily herself. “

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, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps an eyesore among eyesores…” (242) This description gives a glimpse into the life of Miss Emily in what once was the present, and in retrospect. The word “once” was used twice thus implying that life was no longer that way for Miss Emily. Small details describe Miss Emily’s life in the past and her life in death. The house was described as white, which usually represents purity or goodness, and it is also described as decaying. The character of Miss Emily was portrayed as decaying on the physically on the outside as well as her mentality on the inside. “When Miss Emily died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant combined gardener and cook had seen in at east ten years.” (242) This piece shows how small the town must have been if everyone in Jefferson went to Miss Emily’s funeral. In addition, throughout the story, it tells of how old-fashioned and small the town is because gossip of Miss Emily traveled fast, and many towns’ persons did not understand Homers tendency to drink with the other males after work instead of seeking female companionship. Homer Barron’s character is very interesting since he was know as a homosexual “…

Homer himself remarked he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elk’s club that he was not a marrying man.” (245) The fact that Mr. Barron was homosexual added to the overall effect to the story in the respect that the only man that she took a liking to, could not possibly love and change her feelings of unhappiness If Homer Barron was not a homosexual day laborer from the north, there would not have been a story to tell. Miss Emily could have been happy and possibly marry Homer. Homer is used to represent the carefree free north and the changes brought upon Miss Emily, which was everything Miss Emily is not and did not want to be. In this story, there are numerable references to death and change. I feel Mr. Faulkner wanted to stress that life goes through a series of changes and one must accept these changes. It is evident that Miss Emily refused to accept change or the ideal of death. She refused to pay her taxes by retreating to her past when she did not have to. She had not recognized the death of her father and refused to recognize the death of Colonel Sartoris as well. “

When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She would not listen to them.” (246) Her house, from its description, seemed to be unkept as if she wanted to preserve it through time, with no change. Another way in which change is not acceptable in Miss Emily’s life was the painting she made in crayons when she was a child, as well as many other articles throughout her house. The key event showing the refusal of change is the keeping of Homer Barron’s body after he died. Upon completing this story, I felt that Miss Emily was a depressed and mentally ill woman. The reason I say this is due to the fact, that she killed Homer and kept him in a locked room, and lie in bed with him.

This related to her upbringing, primarily her father. Her father drove away many men and then passed away. The second man she loved, her sweetheart, deserted her. She needed to be sure that no one else would leave or abandon her in any way, so she killed him (Homer). In conclusion, the overall impact of the story was of sadness and death. The fact that she never accepted change added to the overall impact of the story in the respect that she wanted change, just not the way it came to her life. Miss Emily as well as the other characters represented different periods of time and the hardships many faced in the South. A Rose for Emily was a depthful and insightful story of the changes brought about in the South. It should be highly recommended to all other students for interpretation and its overall analysis.

51Due网站原创范文除特殊说明外一切图文著作权归51Due所有；未经51Due官方授权谢绝任何用途转载或刊发于媒体。如发生侵犯著作权现象，51Due保留一切法律追诉权。