A ROSE FOR EMILY.

A Rose for Emily, originally published on April 30, 1930, was William Faulkners first short story to be published in a major magazine, Forum. It is the story of an eccentric spinster, Emily Grierson. An unnamed narrator details the strange circumstances of Emilys life and her odd relationships with her father, her lover, and the town of Jefferson, and the horrible secret she hides. In his own style, Faulkner was able to derive from a plural third persons point of view a vague but almost elusive need for the reader to have compassion and understanding towards the static figure of the dynamic town.

A Rose for Emily: A prcis The story starts with the funeral of the main character, Emily Grierson, who the town considers as an object of obligation and responsibility passed down from generation to generation. For almost a decade no one, except for Tobe, the man-sevant, has seen the insides of the house that serves as Emilys personal prison that walls her off the town outside her walls. The town had a special relationship with Miss Emily ever since it decided to stop billing her for taxes in 1894. But, the "newer generation" wasn't happy with this arrangement, and so they paid a visit to Miss Emily and tried to get her to pay the debt. She refused to acknowledge that the old arrangement might not work anymore, and flatly refused to pay. Thirty years before, the tax collecting townspeople had a strange encounter with Miss Emily about a bad smell at her place. This was about two years after her father died, and a short time after her lover disappeared from her life. Anyhow, the stink got stronger and complaints were made, but the authorities didn't want to confront Emily about the problem. So, they sprinkled lime around the house and the smell was eventually gone. Everybody felt sorry for Emily when her father died. He left her with the house, but no money. When he died, Emily refused to admit it for three whole days. The town didn't think she was "crazy then," but assumed that she just didn't want to let go of her dad, (even though you could argue that he had stolen her youth from her). Next, the story doubles back and tells us that not too long after her father died Emily begins dating Homer Barron, who is in town on a sidewalk-building project. The town heavily disapproves of the affair and brings Emily's cousins to town to stop the relationship. One day, Emily is seen buying arsenic at the drugstore, and the town thinks that Homer is giving her the shaft, and that she plans to kill herself. When she buys a bunch of men's items, they think that she and Homer are going to get married. Homer leaves town, then the cousins leave town, and then Homer comes back. He is last seen entering Miss Emily's house. Emily herself rarely leaves the home after that, except for

a period of half a dozen years when she gives painting lessons. Her hair turns gray, she gains weight, and she eventually dies in a downstairs bedroom that hasn't seen light in many years. The story cycles back to where it began, at her funeral. Tobe, miss Emily's servant, lets in the town women and then leaves by the backdoor forever. After the funeral, and after Emily is buried, the townspeople go upstairs to break into the room that they know has been closed for forty years. Inside, they find the corpse of Homer Barron, rotting in the bed. On the dust of the pillow next to Homer they find an indentation of a head, and there, in the indentation, a long, gray hair.

A Rose for Emily: Personal Insight There is difficulty experienced when trying to summarize the piece for it is an article written in jumbled time lacking chronological arrangement, like a memory being jarred and tossed every now and then, a memory of the narrator who referred to himself as we; but nonetheless, it is intricately written and every clause and paragraph are hauntingly worded. It is a bit of odd and strange that no sign of other immediate family member was cited except for the crazy Lady Wyatt, the three cousins and, of course, the controlling, domineering father who chained Emily even after death. Unquestionably, there are no siblings and more importantly, even an image depicting that Emily had a mother have been left out. Emily, going through all that she had been through, from the deaths of those close to her ultimately, to her withdrawal from reality has led her closer to a genetic, familial illness of insanity. I wonder why not even one concerned citizen noticed that Homer Barron have gone missing for more than a decade, he must have had a family, right? or at least relate his disappearance to the stench that has developed sometime after Emily bought the Arsenic poison. We should also note that arsenic is a favorite fictional murder weapon, due to its reputation for being odorless, colorless, and virtually undetectable by the victim And its a shame how the Board of Alderman sided with Emily when they sneaked to her house after midnight to scatter lime when they should have approached if not Ms. Emily personally, at least the Negro, Tobe about the stench that circulates the house, reaping complaints from the nearby households. Note that lime is a white powder that is good at covering the smell of decomposing bodies. It is peculiar how we can be compassionate about an insane murderer on the loose such as Emily. Though, Faulkner stated that Homer Barron isnt a very sympathetic man. Some source say: Jeffersonians don't like him because he's a rough-talking, charismatic northerner and an overseer in town working on a sidewalk-paving project. And why he went back to Emilys

house for the last time was not at all clear, but it was during some time this time that Emily found an opportunity to kill him.

Themes. Death Death is a prominent subject of the piece, from the first part to part five. Almost everything that is discussed, centers in death. Emily was even presented from the beginning as dead. Emily had a more close connection to the dead than to living. She exerts effort to deny death by keeping the corpse for herself, sleeping with his deceased fianc from time to time. Her necrophilia was first revealed when her father died, refusing to give him up for burial for 3 days, until she had a break down. The corpse as a symbolization of Emily herself, existing but non-living, a decomposing matter among the living, buried in her humongous tomb that stands erect in the town, her house which is an eyesore among eyesore. Fixation I have read once, stagnant water fosters malady. True enough, Emily as a fixture in a dynamic town, retreated in a make-believe self-made timeless vacuum, a world alienated by her, a world safe and free. In her mind, everyone is stagnant, like when in one conversation she referred to colonel Sartoris, who is dead for more than decades, as alive and still in service. Just like a child with no concept of change and death. She is as motionless as that of an idol, highly resistant to change. The past is not a faint glimmer but an ever-present, idealized realm. Emilys macabre bridal chamber is an extreme attempt to stop time and prevent change, although doing so comes at the expense of human life. Isolation The Greirson family held themselves a little too high for what they really were, was what old lady Wyatt believed when she was alive, which was also passed to Emily, consequently in the future led to none of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. That when her father died, the house was all that was left to her. Miss Emily, suffers extreme isolation both emotional and physical.

And it came to t point when she has completely lost touch with reality and the people around her as she refused to have her front door pinned of metallic numbers and she also refused to have mailboxes. There are many citations in the piece that suggests her withdrawal from the society, and life altogether, for almost six months, she did not appear on the streets, from that time on her front door remained closed, save for a period of six or seven years But it must also be noted that Emily was not the only character isolated in the selection, hand-in-hand with seclusion and solitary confinement in an even broader scheme was the man-servant the combined gardener and cook, Tobe. The argument in who is more isolated is still not completely discussed and won.

A Rose for Emily: The verdict Rose in the story was used numerous times, whether as a verb or as a noun. William Faulkner says that to be given for someone, the rose is like a symbol of respect. It can also be a verb, a past tense of rise, to rise for someone. Rose is one of the symbols of the heart, and it is the heart which is the Christians emblematic symbols of virtue and compassion. But unknown to many, a rose is a symbol for secrecy. I have read many books that associate rose with secrets (sub rosa). Even Horus, an Egyptian god of the sky, and was later known as god of silence has had the rose as his emblem.

In my honest opinion, Faulkner might have jumbled and warped up the time on purpose to make an illusion, to somehow make us believe love can be an excuse, a sugar-coat to hide the murder that was committed. Maybe in his thinking in that little universe that he has laid for us, in his own twisted way, we can have a warm place for the mentally-impaired whose only joy and comfort is to be free from the bars his father has built around her, through non-specifically being with someone bounded whether by love or not, through life or death; taking all kinds, forms and extremes of self-preservation in somehow desperate pursuit of happiness and freedom. And my god, he through his work, had won and somehow corrupted me; for I, being an entity who advocate Civil rights, an individual enjoying the pleasure of my civil liberties, ME, wholly, for all the wrong reasons, under the eyes of scrutiny, will most willingly offer a rose to Emily.

References: http://www.enotes.com/rose-emily

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