Literary Analysis

ENC 1102

February 4, 2012

Literary Analysis/ “A Rose for Emily”

In “A Rose for Emily”, William Faulkner writes a story about a mysterious women named Emily, who has always been looking for love, ever since her dad died, and she would go through great lengths to accomplish what she desired. Faulkner expresses that Miss Emily’s dad had a certain affect on her, which interested the townspeople, and made them obsessively curious. Also Faulkner uses imagery to show what happened in the past before Miss Emily died.

Right in the beginning, Faulkner mentions that the “whole town” went to her funeral; this already lets the readers know that Miss Emily was he “talk” of the town. In the story, the author expresses that when her dad was alive the house was well maintained and he had been known to be a noble man around town, which gained respect from the townspeople. So when Emily’s dad death occurred, the house started to look old and faded, and unmaintained, so the respect died along with him too. All of her dad’s doings were known and that’s why when Emily started to act so standoffish, the townspeople noticed and started to become obsessed with her. The people started to question what was going on in her house, and why Emily kept herself isolated from the townspeople?

In the story, Faulkner writes how the townspeople take action on trying to find out the mystery of Miss Emily. For example, the people noticed a certain smell diffusing from Emily’s house ever since she met Homer Baron and fell in love with him. Some of the people mention it smelled like something died. But they never questioned that it may be something serious, that it was just either dead rats lying in her house. They really didn’t look into it except put a lemon smelling odor to cover the smell. Readers can tell the townspeople lack of knowledge towards what’s going on in Emily’s house (Binder). For example, they think Homer abandoned Miss Emily so that’s why they didn’t see him around; Faulkner...