William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

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“A Rose for Emily”, a short story written by William Faulkner, provides details about southern life in the early twentieth century through a story of a southern woman, Emily Grierson, who is known in her town as being weird and creepy. Within the story, she kills her lover and spends time with his corpse until she as well dies. Although it is not blatantly said, A Rose for Emily provides an accurate depiction of the south. It may upon the surface seem to be a simple gothic story, but Faulkner through this tale reveals the nature of the contemporary South and its true reality of racism and prejudice through the diction of the narrator, character roles, and symbolism. Before dwelling into the text, one should look upon known history surrounding…show more content…
Emily’s father symbolizes the South’s ancestors who invested into their kin their ideologies. This is because he did the same with his daughter where he was extremely controlling of her and forced her to only being able to listen to him. He did this by secluding her from outsiders. “Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip” (Faulkner). This image illustrated by the narrator briefs the reader into being able to infer that Emily’s father was controlling and strict to his kin just like the South was to theirs. This control issued through fear is what caused Emily to turn out similar to her father as he infused some of himself into her. Being lonely as she was, she found Homer Barron whom she eventually killed. She would sleep next to him and interact with the toilet set she bought for him. It simply points to the same behavior that her father demonstrated which was being controlling. Thus, likewise, Faulkner reveals and allows the reader to infer that the South did this to their kin. This is why many people who were in the South were racist and resistant to change because they wanted to hold on to what their fathers and forefathers taught them, or they felt that they would lose their sense of
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