Discussion Topic

Literary and Physical Descriptions in "A Rose for Emily"

Summary:

In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," figurative language plays a crucial role in enhancing the story's themes. Faulkner uses metaphors, similes, and personification to depict Emily Grierson and her surroundings. Emily is described metaphorically as a "fallen monument," symbolizing her outdated values. Similes compare her to a "body long submerged," highlighting her decay and antiquity. Personification is used to give life to inanimate objects, such as her house "lifting its stubborn decay." These literary devices underscore themes of change, decay, and the clash between old and new Southern values.

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What figurative language is used in "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner?

Just to add to the previous excellent response:

Section I

Another example of Emily Grierson in metaphoric terms,

Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, 

Also in the first section, there is imagery and alliteration (repetition of initial /s/) as the dust "rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sunray. This is followed by a simile as Miss Emily is described as looking bloated, "like a body long submerged in motionless water." 

Section II

Simile: Miss Emily sits in the window with the light behind her and "her upright torso motionless as that of an idol." 

Simile: "We had long thought of them [her father and Emily] as a tableau"

Metaphor : "...and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people...

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will." "that which had robbed her" is a metaphor for the patriarchal system in which Emily grew up as her father dismissed any suitors. She continues to act as she did in her youth.

Section III

Metphor: "noblesse oblige" = the behavior of a Southern lady

Simile: When Emily goes to the druggist, she looks at him, "her face like a strained flag."

Section IV

Alliteration (the repetition of the initial consonant /g/:  As she ages Miss Emily grows heavier and her hair grays, but "During the next few years it grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray...."

Simile: "Up to the day of her death at seventy-four it was still that vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man."

Metaphor: "Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of the town...."

Section V

Metaphor and personification: "...to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead a huge meadow which no [personification] winter ever quite touches 

Personification: "...upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust."

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The first step in discussing Faulkner's use of figurative language is to define it, so, for our purposes we will consider figurative language to be the intentional departure from the literal, denotative (dictionary) meaning of words or the normal order of words in order to suggest additional meanings.  Figurative language relies, for the most part on, on rhetorical devices (known as tropes) like metaphor (comparison of two things) and simile (same comparison of two things, but using the words like or as); metonymy (a figure of speech that replaces the name of one thing with the name of something else closely associated with it); synecdoche (using a part of something to refer to the whole); and personification (animals, abstract ideas, or inanimate things are referred to as if they are human).  There are several other types of figurative language, but these are the most common in fiction.

Faulkner's writing style is rich in figurative language, and one of the most interesting examples occurs in the story's first paragraph:

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. . . .

Faulkner's uses a metaphor when he refers to Miss Emily as a "fallen monument," comparing a (formerly) living being with an inanimate object (the monument).  The value of the metaphor here is that it gives us a clear picture of how the townspeople viewed Emily--not just as a human being, perhaps not even as a human being, but as a symbol of a time that has passed away.  The use of "fallen" creates a clever ambiguity of meaning: is Emily "fallen" because she has died, or is there another reason for being "fallen"?

This paragraph also introduces us to the town-as-narrator of the story and, as the story progresses, the town becomes personified as a character in the story, a character that interacts with Miss Emily and even attempts to alter the path of her life.  For example, the representatives of the town attempt to force Emily to pay taxes, but she believes that her taxes were permanently remitted by Colonel Sartoris decades ago.  When the town fails to convince her, Faulkner tells us that "[s]o she vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers. . . ."  The language here, again, is figurative--using the metaphor of combat--"horse and foot"--to describe how Emily defeats the town's representatives.

Faulkner uses personification, a very common type of figurative language, in such an understated way that the power of his language may remain unnoticed by readers who are not reading for details.  For example, in the second paragraph, Faulkner notes that

. . . Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery. . . . 

With the phrase in the cedar-bemused cemetery Faulkner has skillfully created a cemetery that has the attributes of a human being.  To be bemused is to be bewildered or confused, a human condition not usually applicable to a cemetery, but, in the world of Jefferson where the town is a character and Miss Emily a monument, a bewildered cemetery seems a natural part of this bizarre story.  Although we do not know why a cemetery should be bemused by cedars, we sense, perhaps uneasily, that many things in Jefferson are somehow suspended between life and death.

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In "A Rose for Emily", how does Emily's physical description relate to the theme?

Miss Emily Grierson is not described in anything resembling a remotely flattering fashion. By the time the special deputation from the Board of Alderman come to call on her regarding her taxes in the town of Jefferson, the narrator says that she is

[...] a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their errand.

She is compared, via simile, to a bloated body that has been under water: pale and puffy. It is a gross and cringe-worthy description. The words used to describe her are overwhelmingly negative in connotation: words like bloated, pallid, fatty, lump, dough, and so forth. She is out of fashion, out of touch, and out of shape. Her prime is long gone, as is the era which she represents. Her Old Southern values and ideas are also out of fashion and out of touch, and they demonstrate how quickly attitudes change with the time and that if a person cannot keep up, they will be left out. Emily becomes something grotesque because she cannot let go of her antiquated and outdated values.

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A prominent theme in Faulkner's story is that the South was in a period of social change, and citizens like Miss Emily Grierson were becoming displaced by modernity.

Emily Grierson is described as an old woman wearing nineteenth-century clothing: a black dress with what sounds like a watch on a gold chain at her belt. Her ebony cane is gold-tipped, and the gold is tarnished, suggestive of its age. Her hair is a "vigorous iron-gray," and she looks corpse-like, "bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue."

Emily Grierson appears unhealthy, well past her prime, and she is making no effort to keep up with the changing times, much like the values she embodies. She is a relic of the Old South, an anachronism, with her African American servant and firm belief that her father's gentleman's agreement with the town will be honored, though he is long dead. Her murder of Homer Barron, too, is born of an old chivalric code that leads her to believe that her reputation is more important than his life.

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Where is personification used in "A Rose for Emily"?

Here are two more examples of personification from the story "A Rose for Emily." Personification is a literary device that involves making something inanimate seem human by giving it human qualities and powers. One example is "garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood." In this example, garages and cotton gins seem to have the power to cause the decay of the neighborhood in which Miss Emily lives. They themselves, and not the people who own or run them, make the neighborhood come down in status.

Another example is "the front door closed upon the last one and remained closed for good." In this subtle example, the door seems to close on Miss Emily's guests of its own accord, rather than being operated by Miss Emily or her servant. This example makes the house seem like it has its own personality and a mind of its own, and it makes it seem as if the house can function without any sort of human control.

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Personification is when you give inanimate objects human-like traits.  There is only one obvious sign of personification, which is found in the second paragraph, as the narrator describes Miss Emily's decaying house that was "lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above" the rest of the street.  Houses cannot lift; so, that is an example of the figurative language technique of personfication.  Throughout the rest of the story there are no more indications of personification, so I hope that is the one that your teacher is referring to.  If you meant something else by the question, then submit another query, but be more specific.  I hope that helped a little bit!

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What are some examples of figurative language in "A Rose for Emily"?

After several citizens of the town had come to complain about the terrible smell emanating from Miss Emily's house, the Board of Aldermen met to discuss what could and should be done. The older members could not bring themselves to say anything directly to Miss Emily about the smell, and "So the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily's lawn and slunk about the house like burglars . . . " sprinkling lime around the cellar to kill the stench. This description employs a simile that compares the men who were actually trying to be helpful to burglars in their desire to remain utterly undetected to the occupants of the house.

However, these men failed in their attempt to be secretive.  "As they recrossed the lawn, a window that had been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol." Here, another simile compares Miss Emily's rigid posture and motionlessness to that of a statue.

Later, when Miss Emily goes to buy the rat poison with which she presumably kills Homer Barron, the narrator describes her appearance, with "haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eyesockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper's face ought to look." This simile compares the appearance of Miss Emily's face to the face of a lighthouse-keeper; apparently, she has become quite thin and this gauntness has especially affected her face, making her look like one who lives a difficult and solitary life.

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William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" contains many kinds of figurative language, beginning with the opening sentence:

When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument....

This is an example of metaphor; Faulkner describes the dead Miss Emily to a "fallen monument," a longtime, notable attraction in the town.

Another example of figurative language appears in the second paragraph:

Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps....

Here Faulkner uses personification (giving human qualities or characteristics to non-human or non-living things) to describe Miss Emily's house. Like its owner, the house lifts its "stubborn and coquettish decay" in a display of misplaced pride.

One more example of figurative language can be found in Faulkner's actual description of Miss Emily. We have seen how the town feels about her (she is a "fallen monument") and we have seen that she lives in a house which matches her status of outdated Old Southern charm. Now we meet the Miss Emily for the first time after years of living in virtual isolation:

Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their errand.

Faulkner uses two similes to help us visualize her more clearly. First, Emily is shaped like a body which has been bloated by too much time in water; second, her eyes are tiny and dark, like two pieces of coal pressed into her puffy face.

These are just a few examples of figurative language in this short story, and Faulkner uses them to create a more vivid picture of Miss Emily and her life.

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What figures of speech are used in "A Rose for Emily"?

Let's define the literary term, "figures of speech."  Generally, what is meant is that either the writer has created an unexpected comparison ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?") or when a writer alters the conventional meaning of a word or concept, often by using irony and metaphors. 

In Faulkner's tale, it is irony that prevails as far as use of figures of speech.   When Emily begins dating Homer, the townsfolk are all abuzz, especially the older generation who cannot give Emily any leeway in her romance with a Northerner, "who said that even grief could not cause a real lady to forget noblesse oblige - without calling it noblesse oblige."  (Noblesse oblige means that those who are in the upper classes are to be socially responsible to those less fortunate than themselves.)  The irony here is that the townspeople do not want to extend to Emily the benefits that come with being deemed noblesse oblige but they still expect her to adhere to her social responsibilities. 

Faulkner also makes use of metaphors.  When she purchases poison, she "opened the package at home (and) there was written on the box, under the skull and bones, "For rats."  The poison is not for a literal rat, but a metaphorical rat, Homer.

Another metaphor is "the newer generation became the backbone and spirit of the town."  Obviously, they are not literally the backbone and spirit, but this is a way to express their feelings. 

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In "A Rose for Emily," how does the ending relate to the story's theme?

This is a great question! Of course, one of the the most striking descriptions of Miss Emily comes in Part I of the story, when she is described as a drowned corpse that had inhabited the sea for a long time and thus was bloated and swollen:

She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their errand.

This description highlights the depiction of Miss Emily as a character, who, in some senses, is already dead - she is isolated and trapped in a different time period whilst everything is changing around her, which symbolically ties in with the theme. It is interesting to note that she at first does not accept the fact that her father has died. Note the madness in the family that is referred to. Lastly, the grey strand of hair that lies on the pillow next to the corpse of her "lover" suggests that she is one who is in love with the dead, and that having killed him, she herself has "died" metaphorically to be with him forever, again symbolically relating to the theme. She has created her own happy ending, and thus remains an enigmatic, isolated figure until her own death, symbolically representing the theme of the enigmatic, isolated, lost and dead South.

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How is the rose physically described in "A Rose for Emily"?

The meaning of the title "A Rose for Emily" is figurative; there isn't a literal rose anywhere in the story. William Faulkner utilized symbolism and figurative language extensively in his stories, and a rose has some symbolic implications when applied to a Southern lady such as Miss Emily.

If the rose were to physically exist within the story, Faulkner could have gone one of two ways with its description:

1. A perfect rose. Faulkner was a Southern gentlemen. Were he to give a nod to Emily through the gift of the story, he might also give her an absolutely perfect rose. Deep red, full petals, and a perfect stem with leaves and no thorns. It would be a rose suitable for a Southern lady. 

2. A dead, dried rose. Miss Emily would, given her personality, likely have preferred this type of rose. Certainly she would have kept a rose given to her by a man until it had long aged, dried, and nearly turned to dust. We see this is a part of her character through her inability to let go when confronted by loss. 

Either description of a rose given, literally, to Emily would have made sense in the story. Faulkner's use of abstract, figurative concepts, though, made a literal rose unnecessary. The story itself is Faulkner's rose to her, and, as it is a beautifully written story, suggests that he would likely have given her a perfect rose. 

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