1
A Rose for Emily

• By William Faulkner

Written and developed by Mrs. Carol Hanes, Howard
College, Big Springs, TX http//www.howardcollege.
edu/homepages/chanes/engl_1302_tth.htm
2
PLOT
Climax
Conflict
Resolution
Exposition

• Exposition
• Initial equilibrium
• complication (Homer)
• Setting

-Small town -South -late 1800s, early 1900s -Miss
Emilys house

3
3. Characterization

• (What are the characters like?
  Protagonist/Antagonist? Flat/Round?
  Static/Dynamic? Stock?)
• -Miss Emily Grierson
• -Miss Emilys father
• -Homer Barron
• -townspeople
• -the Negro
• -the cousins

4
Conflict

• ( Man vs. Man Man vs. Himself
• Man vs. Nature Man vs. Society
• Man vs. Supernatural )

-Miss Emily vs. her father -Miss Emily vs.
herself -Miss Emily vs. Homer -Miss Emily vs.
townspeople/cousins
5
Climax

• (The point of the story where the main conflict
  is resolved.)

-Miss Emily dies.
6
Resolution

• (What does the reader learn after the climax?)
• The room is opened.
• Homers body is discovered.
• The townspeople put all the clues together.
• What is the rose for Emily?

7
POINT OF VIEW
1) 1st person Character (major/minor?
participant? reliable?) 2) 3rd person Narrator
(omniscient/limited/objective)

• When Miss Emily died, our whole town went to her
  funeral. . . . -First person minor character,
  participant, unreliable

8
TONE

• Conversational, gossipy.
• Mysterious
• Bizarre, strange
• Grotesque
• Southern Gothic

9
STYLE
(The way the author tells the story.)

• Long, complicated sentences. (See 1)
• -interruptions
• -big, bookish words (coquettish, 2)
• Lots of description. (See 6)
• Flashbacks. (See 3)
• Not much dialog.

10
THEME

• (What general idea or insight does the entire
  story reveal? Must be stated in general words
  must apply to society in general and not just
  this story. May not state what the story is
  about.)
• People may resort to desperate
• measures to prevent being alone
• in life.
• Things, people, and events are not
• always what they appear to be.
• Others?

11
SYMBOL

• (An object that suggests more than its literal
  meaning. An object that points or hints at
  deeper meaning. Always look at titles, inanimate
  objects, names, colors, and locales.)

• The rose color?
• The title?
• The toiletry items?
• The pocket watch?
• The dust?

12
CRITIQUES

• The plots order and time frame
• Southern Gothic genre
• Her fathers influence his repression leads her
  to date a man he would not approve of and then
  take control in the only manner possible
• Necrophilia she loved and slept with the dead.
  In what ways?
• Passage of time Emilys denial of it

13
WILLIAM FAULKNER

• William Faulkner(1897-1962)was born in New
  Albany,Mississippi. He attended the University of
  Mississippi in Oxford before and after his
  service in the Royal Canadian Air Force in World
  I. His literary career began in New Orleans where
  he met Sherwood Anderson, who helped him get his
  first novel Soldiers Pay published in 1926. The
  work which won Faulkner a Nobel Prize in 1950 is
  often a depiction of life in his fictional
  Yoknapatawpha County, an imaginative
  reconstruction of the area adjacent to Oxford.

14
Major Works

• His major novels
• The Sound and the Fury(1929)
• As I Lay Dying(1930)
• Sanctuary(1931)
• Light in August(1932)
• Absalom , Absalom !(1936)
• The Hamlet(1940)
• His books of short stories
• These Thirteen (1931)
• Go down, Moses(1942)
• The Collected Stories of William Fanlkner(1950)

15
A ROSE FOR EMILY

• A Rose for Emily is one of Faulkners most
  widely read in the American classroom. Many
  students may find Faulkners story difficult to
  understand and appreciate because the story is
  not told in chronological order. Some readers may
  think it is a bizarre story about an old
  eccentric lady in an American Southern town. It
  is true that the setting of the story is the
  American South. Yet, the theme of the story is
  universal, transcending the boundaries of time
  and space. Like many other works of great
  literature, this short story tells about love,
  death, honor, pride, change, and loss.

16
A ROSE FOR EMILY

• The story is set in the southern town of
  Jefferson in Yoknapatawpha County (Mississippi)
• Emily Grierson is the protagonist. Dominated by
  her aristocratic father, she has been prevented
  from marrying and after his death she is left
  alone and penniless.
• One of the themes of this story is the relation
  of the individual and his/her actions to the
  past, present and future.
• In addition, Faulkner uses stream of
  consciousness.

17
Meaning of the Title

• The meaning of the title is ambiguous, capable
  of various interpretations.
• A rose is a cliché, symbolizing love and a pledge
  of faithfulness. From the story we can see Miss
  Emily was denied love. So, in this sense, the
  title has an ironic meaning.
• A rose for somebody can also mean a kind of
  memorial, an offering, in memory of somebody.
• Also, make note of the name and depiction of Miss
  Emily. Does Faulkners Miss Emily remind you of
  another famous EMILY?

18
Emily Dickinson

• Faulkner picked the name Emily on purpose.

19
Emily Dickenson
Because I could not stop for Death,He kindly stopped for meThe carriage held but just ourselvesAnd Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put awayMy labor, and my leisure too,For his civility. We passed the school, where children stroveAt recess, in the ringWe passed the fields of gazing grain,We passed the setting sun. Or rather, he passed usThe dews grew quivering and chill,For only gossamer my gown,My tippet only tulle. We paused before a house that seemedA swelling of the groundThe roof was scarcely visible,The cornice but a mound. Since then 'tis centuries, and yet eachFeels shorter than the dayI first surmised the horses' headsWere toward eternity.
20
Literary Devices

• Flashback and foreshadowing are two often used
  literary devices that utilize time in order to
  produce a desired effect. Flashbacks are used to
  present action that occurs before the beginning
  of a story foreshadowing creates expectation for
  action that has not yet happened. Faulkner uses
  both devices in A Rose for Emily.
• Irony
• Symbolism

21
Meaning of Tale

• The plot of the story evolves around many
  conflicts
• 1. the conflicts between Mr. Grierson and his
  daughter,
• 2. the conflict between Miss Emily and Homer
  Barron,
• 3. the conflict between Miss Emily and the
  community,
• 4. the conflict between the South and the
  North,
• 5. the conflict between Miss Emily and the
  established codes of conduct,
• 6. and the conflict between the past and the
  present.

22
Lets read!!