A Rose for Emily PDF Analysis

Introduction to Literary Texts William Faulkner A Rose for Emily Symbols Emily’s House o The house is an extension of Emily. It bares its “stubborn and coquettish decay” to the town’s residents. It is a testament to the...

Introduction to Literary Texts William Faulkner A Rose for Emily Symbols Emily’s House o The house is an extension of Emily. It bares its “stubborn and coquettish decay” to the town’s residents. It is a testament to the endurance and preservation of tradition but now seems out of place among the cotton wagons, gasoline pumps, and other industrial trappings that surround it, just as the South’s old values are out of place in a changing society.  Symbols Emily’s House o The house is an extension of Emily in the eyes of society. It is an object of fascination for them. They project their own lurid fantasies and interpretations onto the crumbling “decaying” edifice and mysterious figure inside. Emily’s death is a chance for them to gain access to this forbidden realm and confirm their wildest notions and most sensationalistic suppositions (speculations) about what had occurred on the inside. Symbols Emily’s House Emily’s house also represents alienation, mental illness, and death. It is a shrine to the living past, and the sealed upstairs bedroom is her macabre room where she preserves the man she would not allow to leave her.  Symbols The Strand of Hair The strand of hair is a reminder of lost love and the often perverse things people do in their pursuit of happiness. It also reveals the inner life of a woman who, despite her eccentricities, was committed to living life on her own terms and not submitting her behaviour to the approval of others. Emily subscribes to her own moral code and occupies a world of her own invention, where even murder is permissible. Symbols The Strand of Hair The physical transformation that Emily undergoes as she ages foreshadows the discovery of the long strand of hair on the pillow. Her hair grows more and more grizzled until it becomes a “vigorous iron-gray”. The strand of hair ultimately stands as the last sign of a life left to languish and decay, much like the body of Emily’s former lover.  Motifs A recurring element throughout the story that points toward that theme. Watching Emily is the subject of the intense, controlling gaze of the narrator and residents of Jefferson. Instead of having an actual connection to Emily, the townspeople create subjective and distorted interpretations of the woman they know little about. They attend her funeral under the guise of respect and honour, but they really want to satisfy their lurid curiosity about the town’s most notable eccentric. Despite all the gossip and theorizing, no one guesses the perverse extent of Emily’s true nature which creates an ironic dimension to the story. Motifs Watching For most of the story, Emily is seen only from a distance, by people who watch her through the windows or who glimpse her in her doorway. The narrator refers to her as an object; an ‘idol’. This pattern changes briefly during her courtship with Homer Barron, where she becomes ‘a fallen monument’. In this sense, the act of watching is powerful. It replaces an actual human presence with a made-up narrative that changes depending on who is doing the watching. No one knows the Emily that exists beyond what they can see, and her true self is visible to them only after she dies and her secrets are revealed.  Important Quotations “When Miss Emily Grierson 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… “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town…” Where does the quotation occur? To which theme does it correspond? Explain in details. Explain the illustrated motifs/ symbols.