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A Rose for Emily
Although Emily murders Homer Barron in this narrative, the story is less about Emily's act of murder and more about Emily herself and her experiences with death. The murder of Homer is indeed a...
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A Rose for Emily
William Faulkner explores the theme of death throughout his short story "A Rose for Emily," which symbolically represents the decay of the Old South and the fall of the Confederacy following the...
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A Rose for Emily
It is difficult to pinpoint a single audience or purpose for most literary works, and William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is no exception. First, it may be useful to think about the narrative...
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A Rose for Emily
William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” falls very much into the genre of macabre literature. The tale of a woman from a once-prosperous family who was isolated from society by an...
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A Rose for Emily
Throughout the short story, the community's complex relationship with Emily Grierson represents how Southern citizens perceive and interact with their Confederate past and future. The community of...
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A Rose for Emily
A prominent theme in William Faulkner's 1930 story is that the traditions of the South were disappearing as modernity encroached. This is seen in the situation in which the new tax collector...
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A Rose for Emily
This is an opinion-based question, so you can feel free to answer the question either way. The important part will be to support your opinion with evidence from the text. I do believe that Emily...
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A Rose for Emily
William Faulkner's use of foreshadowing in his Gothic tale "A Rose for Emily" is arranged in a non-sequitur manner; this seems to add to the horror of the ending. Here are two examples: 1. After...
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A Rose for Emily
An antagonist can refer to a person, a group of people, an institution, a situation, or any circumstance that opposes the protagonist or lead character in a literary work. In terms of this...
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A Rose for Emily
"A Rose for Emily" is not told in chronological order, so the climax of the story isn't placed on the page where most readers would expect it to be. The climax of the story is the final lines of...
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Eveline
In an interview William Faulkner spoke of "A Rose for Emily" as a tale that had an allegorical title, meaning that in his story ...here was a woman who has experienced... an irrevocable tragedy...
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Hills Like White Elephants
In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," the setting/environment of the South plays an intricate cultural and existential role in the life of the main character, Miss Emily Grierson. But in Ernest...
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A Rose for Emily
First, Miss Emily is a character, not just a representation of something else, as the story is not a fable or an allegory but a piece of realistic fiction. One major theme of the story is the...
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A Rose for Emily
Miss Emily Grierson is in conflict with her family history, her culture, and time. Family history In the exposition of Faulkner's haunting story, Miss Emily is introduced as a "fallen monument"...
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A Rose for Emily
One of the challenges for constructing an outline for Faulkner's story, "A Rose for Emily" is the fact that the plot is not in linear order. Instead, the narrative moves backward and forward in...
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A Rose for Emily
Miss Emily's father's portrait sits on a gilt easel by the fireplace, and it is a crayon portrait. In the story, the text mentions the portrait when a deputation of aldermen call on Miss Emily to...
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A Rose for Emily
When Miss Emily tells her visitors that her father is not dead, she is doing several things. First, she is denying reality. She does this in different ways throughout the story. A related point is...
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A Rose for Emily
Tobe, the manservant in Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," is perhaps the only character in the story who is more mysterious than Emily. Because he has such an intimate relationship with Emily, living...
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A Rose for Emily
By all indications, the story is told from the viewpoint of a third-person narrator; much of the story also highlights the perspectives of the townsfolk regarding Miss Emily. The reason the story...
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A Rose for Emily
It is true, as Faulkner said, that Emily lives a life of unhappiness. Her only apparent lover, Homer Barron, deserts her, and she deserves some compensation for her life of unrequited love....
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A Rose for Emily
The two quotations express pity for Miss Emily, though the first is a little more opaque, and suggest that Faulkner's story was named as a kind of gentlemanly gift honoring the unfortunate...
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A Rose for Emily
If it is your intention to show that Miss Emily, in "A Rose for Emily" (Faulkner), has been futile in her attempts to hold back time, that is, in fact, your thesis. A thesis is simply the main...
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A Rose for Emily
There are several possible strategies you could use to approach this assignment. The first might be to deconstruct the notion of "relevance". This literary technique involves looking at unstated...
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A Rose for Emily
Miss Emily purchases the arsenic to kill Homer Barron, a Yankee working man who has come to town to work on the paving of sidewalks in the town. He is not someone whom Miss Emily's father would...
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A Rose for Emily
The story is about the eccentric Emily Grierson, a reclusive woman in a Southern town who kept an extraordinary secret. She never married. She never had any suitors. Her father drove them away...
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A Rose for Emily
The ladies want to write to Emily’s relatives to intervene for her in the matter of Homer Barron. Emily had a man, Homer Barron, who was not the marrying kind—so he said. The townspeople were...
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A Rose for Emily
In "A Rose for Emily" (Faulker), there is information in the story that allows us to infer that Miss Emily's father was part of the Civil War generation. We also know that the story was written in...
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A Rose for Emily
The townspeople are glad that Emily’s father only left her the house because then they can pity her. Emily is a very unusual woman. She is very reclusive, never coming out of her house. She...
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A Rose for Emily
The protagonist of "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner is Miss Emily Grierson. She is a representative of the upper classes of the Old (antebellum) South who is now living in a rapidly changing...
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A Rose for Emily
Emily Grierson was, in fact, a Caucasian woman from an old, Southern respected family which was once wealthy, but had fallen into anonymity and poverty. The fullest description that we get in the...
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A Rose for Emily
When Miss Emily's father dies, she refuses to let go of his body or even to admit that he has died. When the women of the town visit to offer condolences she has "no trace of grief on her face" and...
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A Rose for Emily
It is, in large part, thanks to Tobe that the character of Miss Emily earns her symbolic "rose." Tobe's loyalty and dedication to Emily until her death infuses in her character a sense of...
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A Rose for Emily
An allusion is a reference, usually subtle and indirect, to a person, place, event, idea, or thing of cultural, historical, or political significance. In literature, an allusion often helps the...
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A Rose for Emily
While the descriptions of the town certainly change throughout the course of the story, even the descriptions of Miss Emily's house reflect the changing economic and social conditions. Her house,...
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A Rose for Emily
In Faulkner's short story, "A Rose for Emily," Miss Emily Grierson represents the fading traditions of the Southern town in which she lives. She is the last of a once great and powerful family,...
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A Rose for Emily
In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," the foul smell creates a sense of mystery, which lends itself to the Southern Gothic tradition throughout the story. The smell acts as a topic of debate...
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A Rose for Emily
In Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," Miss Emily Grierson is portrayed as a reminder of a past era of the town's history. She behaves as she was raised, stern and aristocratic, even though her...
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A Rose for Emily
Emily rarely lets anyone inside because she is reclusive and eccentric, but she has a definite reason to keep them out after she has a body in her house. Emily is not a social butterfly. She very...
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A Rose for Emily
After Emily's father dies, Colonel Sartoris invents a way to help Emily survive financially without embarrassing her by revealing that she's actually accepting charity from the town. Everyone has...
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A Rose for Emily
Emily is so secretive and reclusive that people do not even realize she has killed someone because no one is allowed in the house. Emily considers herself superior to her townspeople. Her attitude...
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A Rose for Emily
These type of descriptions that you are asking about fall under two categories: Direct characterization and Indirect characterization. Faulkner uses both cleverly by juxtaposing the direct...
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A Rose for Emily
William Faulkner's writing often features the Southern Gothic literary tradition. Derived from the Gothic tradition, which became popular in late eighteenth-century Europe, Southern Gothic fosters...
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A Rose for Emily
The theme of change in the South after the Civil War is one of the strongest themes in the story. As such, there are numerous symbols of the old South and its fall from glory. First is Miss Emily...
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A Rose for Emily
The reason people might refer to "A Rose for Emily" as a "ghost story" is that Faulkner himself once called it that. However, there is no appearance of a ghost in the story. Instead, the story is...
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A Rose for Emily
Great topic! I recommend writing your thesis statement first. It will help you plan the rest of your essay. To create your thesis statement, try picking one of the questions below and writing one...
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A Rose for Emily
There can be a very fine, and dangerous line between love and obsession, and the protagonist of William Faulkner’s short story "A Rose for Emily" clearly falls into the latter category. She was...
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A Rose for Emily
Though the townspeople talk a lot about the smell coming from Miss Emily's home, it's not the townspeople that "solve" the problem with the smell. The smell is solved by time...though the...
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A Rose for Emily
Before her death, Miss Emily stopped giving painting lessons at her house, and she essentially closed it off to everyone except for herself and her servant. By the time of her death, Emily's house...
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A Rose for Emily
Technically, there are no detectives in "A Rose for Emily." The town did meet to discuss certain issues with Emily. They meet to discuss how to deal with the smell coming from her house. Since they...
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A Rose for Emily
Obviously the answer to when an individual reader figures out that Emily has murdered Homer Barron years ago will vary greatly. Having taught this story for several years to high school students, I...
