A Rose For Emily Analysis

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The author, William Faulkner, is a Nobel Prize winner born in 1897, in his writing the main theme is about the American South. The American life during this time, was post-civil war life, so everyone was recreating a united North and South America after the war. An analysis of “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner will symbolize change and decay through, Emily’s house, Emily, and Homer Barron. The first symbol that portrays change and decay in William Faulkner’s short story is Emily Grierson’s house. One way William Faulkner symbolizes change and decay in his story is how he describes Emily’s house. He starts off by describing the house as, “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” (451). In this case the narrator was not only describing how the house presently looks but giving a vivid description of how the house once was during its golden days. Furthermore, contrasting how the house was in the new south versus the old south, at last saying the house has not transitioned from the old to the new. Another way Faulkner represents the house as decay and change, is through the piteous shape the house is in after the civil war. The narrator goes on to symbolize the house’s decay by including, “…Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the…show more content…
Despite this fact, the internal struggles of Miss Emily Grierson are rooted deeper than the surface. Throughout this story the symbols of Emily’s house, Emily herself, and Homer Barron portray the change and decay happening in Emily’s life. Ultimately, illustrating the sinister nature of humans and the death of the old south becoming the new

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