A Rose for Emily

The story is told out of chronological order, and this can make it difficult to put the pieces together as we read. In part 2, we learn that thirty years ago, Miss Emily Grierson "vanquished" town...

For decades, Miss Emily Grierson finds herself in conflict with her society. She is from a highly respected Southern family and tries to continue living in the manner and with the same attitudes...

Emily Grierson's house is an outward representation of its mistress. Emily is described early in the story as being almost like a "monument" to a time which is now in the past. Her house is one of...

The events in "A Rose for Emily" are not in the customary course of chronological order because the author aims to instill in the reader a sense of belonging to the setting. This being said, as the...

The relationship between Miss Emily and her father, though rather unhealthy to modern eyes, was all too common at that time. Mr. Grierson is a domestic tyrant; what he says, goes. And woe betide...

After her father dies, Emily wants to have total control over her environment. She asserts this control by insisting on stasis: she wants nothing around her to change once she has her life...

In general, without an explicit explanation from an author of his or her purpose in writing a particular piece of literature, it is very difficult to understand with certainty the purpose or...

There is irony in the way the citizens of Jefferson criticize Miss Emily Grierson for being a Southern aristocratic and acting too far above their social class while they proceed to give her...

This is a common question, and readers of this gothic short story have speculated on Emily Grierson's mental illness since the story was written. Since her symptoms are only hinted about in the...

In "A Rose For Emily," the exact nature of Emily and Homer's relationship is not made explicitly clear. Certainly, Emily and Homer appear to like each other very much and they spend a lot of time...

If Miss Emily is a monument, it's only because the townsfolk have turned her into one. They're the ones who've put her on a pedestal, venerating her as the last living connection with a supposedly...

The community seems to be reluctant to confront her or force her to do anything largely because of the role her lineage has played in the town’s history and her defiant nature. One of the most...

The list of major events in Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” includes several deaths, and tense interactions between an isolated but acknowledged community member and the rest of the...

The story is not told in a chronological order. It does not begin with Miss Emily as a young woman and follow her as she grows old. Instead, the story begins with her funeral and works backward....

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...

Emily's relationship with her father is characterized by control and dependence. The narrator clues us in to the father's control over Emily through discussion of male suitors. The townspeople see...

Initially, some of the townspeople are happy for Miss Emily when they see her with Homer Barron, who is a foreman from the North. They sympathize with Emily's difficult past and do not believe that...

"A Rose for Miss Emily" by William Faulkner is set in the post-Civil War South and features one primary character, Miss Emily Grierson. Despite the fact that the war is over, Miss Emily is an...

Miss Emily represents the American South as it was before the Civil War. She comes from wealth that was built on the backs of slaves, and that wealth is now gone. She is the last of the...

When Homer Barron and Miss Emily begin to date, the community of Jefferson disapproves of their relationship because Homer is a laborer from the North who is not of the same social status as Emily...

After Miss Emily's funeral, the people of Jefferson discover an old, rotted corpse in a closed room in Emily's house. This corpse belonged to Homer Barron, a character who died almost forty years...

Emily's reaction to the death of her father is one of denial and clinging to unrealistic expectations; it is also very telling of her state of mind and serves as a foreshadowing of what is to come...

In A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, the ending holds a surprise twist. In the bed in Miss Emily’s room is the skeleton of her long dead boyfriend. The impression of Miss Emily’s head and a...

In the opening paragraph of his rather macabre short story "A Rose for Emily," William Faulkner employs the metaphor of "a fallen monument" to describe his protagonist, who has lived out her entire...

The other educators raise very good points about the possible lessons of Faulkner's story "A Rose for Emily." Emily Grierson is the last member of a once-eminent local family. Since the death of...

Concerning Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," a consensus exists among critics, teachers, etc., about Emily's motivation for killing Homer. Emily is obsessed with holding on to the past and avoiding...

Your question suggests William Faulkner's story, "A Rose for Emily." After Emily Grierson's death, some of the men of Jefferson open an upstairs bedroom that no one had seen for many years. (In...

Tone refers to the way the author feels about the subject of the text. It is often confused with mood, which refers to the feeling created within the reader by the text. A easy way to keep them...

"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner takes place in Jefferson, Mississippi. The story spans the life [74 years] of the protagonist Miss Emily Grierson, a daughter of the "Old South." Told in...

In the Old South, women were thought to be like angels, first virginal and then maternal—innocent, self-effacing, and hospitable. They were set apart, revered, and put on pedestals, but what can...

"A Rose for Emily" is a short story by William Faulkner. It is narrated by a third person narrator who is not named and is assumed to speak as the voice of the Mississippi town in which the story...

The effect of the final paragraph is to create shock and horror. Throughout the entire piece, Faulkner does give clues that Miss Emily could have inherited some of her family's insanity, but...

The plot structure of William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" definitely helps in creating an ending with impact. Since it deals with the mystery of the stench, and further, the mystery of Miss Emily...

Tension between the modern and the old, specifically, the Old South, pervades "A Rose for Emily" from beginning to end. From the very first scene in the story, Miss Emily's house, which once was on...

Miss Emily Grierson is a symbol of the old South in many ways. She lives in an old house “decorated with cupolas and spires” but now surrounded and threatened by the symbols of modernity, industry,...

William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” takes place in the fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi after the Civil War. The postbellum South saw changes in their economics as they...

I agree that the climax--the point of highest interest and suspense--is the moment the townspeople herd into Miss Emily's house after years of only her manservant having access. They finally open...

Initially she was seen as a southern lady, which is one reason her taxes were initially waved. However, as time passes and a new generation of townspeople grow up, they regard Emily as a bit of an...

At the beginning of the novel, the citizens of Jefferson mention that the mayor of the town, Colonel Sartoris, remitted Miss Emily Grierson's taxes. In the middle of the sentence. Faulkner uses an...

That may be. HOWEVER, let's not look at the story through the lens of the modern world. The story takes place in the South in the 1930s. Open homosexuality in the context of the story's setting...

The question of diction is a subtle one. It refers to style, but also to vocabulary and cadence. That means you could take the question in several different directions. Here are a few examples of...

Emily Grierson’s physical description changes over the course of the story. That is because the story itself narrates events that happen over the course of more than three decades. When readers...

At the end of the short story, the town attends Emily Grierson's funeral. Afterward, some members of the town enter her home, which no one except her black servant has entered in many years....

The collective narrator has already taken pains to describe, in detail, Miss Emily Grierson's hair to us: When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray. During the...

Roses need not be literally spoken of to have power. Think of roses and their various roles in human life. Roses are often present at weddings, a promise of love despite hardship, the combination...

Patriarchy is a first social element in isolating Emily: her father has enough control over her that he can keep her apart from other people. The townspeople do nothing to stop the isolation...