After reading A Rose for Emily, I can’t help but realize that Faulkner is an incredibly descriptive writer and A Rose for Emily was quite the literary work of art. It didn’t make sense to me at first, but after thinking about it and rereading the story a few times I gained some insight into my confusion: A Rose For Emily is supposed to be confusing and leave you wondering how everything ties together in the end – which it does do very well.
The story itself is certainly not meant to be read at face value; you find yourself trying to come up with different explanations as to what could have happened throughout the course of this short story. A Rose for Emily is a story that has a lot of symbolism and allegory, which I will touch on later in this A Rose for Emily character analysis. A Rose for Emily starts with the unnamed narrator describing the Grierson house – namely the exterior.
The description of this house makes it very easy to see that something is different about it compared to other houses in the town at this time period where A Rose for Emily is set, most notably because A Rose for Emily takes place after the civil war. This part of A Rose for Emily describes how Mr Grierson had been shot from behind as he looked out from his rose garden towards Yankee soldiers (Faulkner tells us that he was “watching through his field glasses… “). A Rose for Emily tells us A Rose For Emily is written in an omniscient third person point of view A Rose For Emily.
The story itself is not narrated by a character, so A Rose For Emily there isn’t any one perspective from which the story A Rose For Emily AroseforEmily. com is told. A Rose for Emily is told through a series of flashbacks; the story starts with the narrator telling us that Miss Emily Grierson died shortly after her father, and then there’s a big time jump between this first line and the next, where we find out that she lived in her house alone (save for a servant) until very recently (she had been discovered dead).
The whole story leads up to the funeral of Colonel Sartoris, who refuses to allow Miss Emily’s body in the town square to be buried next to her deceased husband because she had killed Homer Barron with arsenic. A second line opens up so that she can join him in “eternal sleep. ” This causes them both to die alone and be forgotten by the town they once lived around. In this A Rose for Emily character analysis, we will explore how William Faulkner depicted Miss Emily as an individual, and we will conclude whether or not these depictions were in creating a tone and setting in A Rose for Emily.
A character analysis is written to inform the reader of William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily and its main character, Miss Emily. A character analysis explains what we know about a character at the beginning of the story and then explores changes that they go through as well as how those changes affect them. A character analysis is used to give readers information such as whether or not they should like this character (in A Rose for Emily, we do not always like Miss Emily) or if there are reasons why the reader might want to develop an interest in exploring more into the reason why she acted that way (she was lonely).
A character can be analyzed within the text by looking at their appearance, the way the character speaks, the actions they take, values and beliefs, relationships with other characters, motivations/goals, and how others perceive this character. A Rose for Emily’s Miss Emily has all of these characteristics that make up her personality despite the short length of A Rose for Emily. A Rose for Emily is narrated by an unknown person; it is unknown why the narrator wants to tell this story or what his relationship is to Miss Emily (if he has any).
The tone of A Rose for Emily is very humorous at times because of its satirical style. It may not be immediately clear that A Rose for Emily is humorous because Faulkner’s tone seems more serious than your usual witty writing; you will notice throughout A Rose for Emily that William Faulkner repeatedly makes fun of Miss Emily and how she is acting. A Rose for Emily can be assumed to be told in the third person, omniscient point of view because it details all thoughts about what other characters are thinking or feeling during A Rose for Emily.
A character analysis follows all rules listed above to analyze a character including appearance, speaking style, actions taken, values/beliefs, relationships with others, motivations/goals, and perceptions by others. A character’s appearance will provide readers with information such as gender (male or female), age (usually given in numbers), height/weight (not usually given in A Rose for Emily ), race (this may not always be clear if A Rose for Emily is in the distant past), and any other information that may be relevant to A Rose for Emily .
Miss Emily is described with respect to her appearance in A Rose for Emily through describing her house rather than herself. She lives in rooms “foul with mildewed upholstery” (Faulkner 2) with “dust dulling the mirror” (Faulkner 3). A character’s appearance may also suggest larger issues such as when it can be assumed that Miss Emily has not had a positive relationship with anyone since she was young because of how old and abandoned-looking her home looks despite being alive.
A character’s speaking style provides readers with information about their education, socioeconomic status, social class, and their values/morals. A character’s speaking style includes the character’s choice of words, dialogue, tone, volume, and pitch. A Rose for Emily has an extensive vocabulary which means that Miss Emily went to school longer than most women in that time would have gone to school (she also lived in a town where there were many men with “old coats” despite her living in poverty; Faulkner 7).
A character’s socioeconomic status is another important aspect of A Rose for Emily because it reflects who Miss Emily was before she died. A Rose for Emily ‘s narrator expresses his surprise when he finds out that Miss Emily is still alive after Homer Barron dies; “It was when rumor whispered that Miss Emily’s suitor wore a mustache that I feared we would never be invited to tea” (Faulkner 8).
A character’s social class can also provide hints about what A Rose for Emily is trying to say. A Rose for Emily may be saying that Miss Emily was not treated fairly because she wasn’t given the opportunity to live happily ever after with her love interest despite being able to afford servants. A character’s values/morals are important in A Rose for Emily because they reflect how A Rose for Emily’s narrator feels about Miss Emily at the end of A Rose for Emily.
