"A Rose for Emily"

“The structure of the story is subtle and complex, and it is not easy to keep track of the time and chronology.”

1) Make a short chronological summary of the story.

The story told chronological

“A Rose for Emily” was written by William Faulkner and was published in 1930. It is the story of an eccentric woman, Emily Grierson and the story is told by an unnamed narrator who reviles the strange circumstances of Emily’s life and the horrible secret she hides.

The story begins with Emily’s father’s death. Everyone in the town feels sorry for Emily when her father dies. He left her with the house, but with no money. Emily also refuses to admit that he died for three whole days. People in the town thought that she had trouble letting go of her dad. Not too long after her father’s death, she starts to date a guy named Homer Barron. The people in the town do not really like the relationship between Emily and Homer and brings in Emily’s cousins to stop them.

One day Emily is seen buying some arsenic and the people in town thinks that Emily is going to kill herself. After this, Homer Barron is assumed to have returned north, since he is not heard from again. But soon after, Homer comes back and he is last seen entering Emily’s house.

The tax collecting people had a strange meet with Emily because of a really bad smell that came from her house. The stink got worse and people complained a lot about it. Emily is heard from less and less and hardly ever leaves her home. The next thing that happens is Emily’s funeral. Nobody has been at her house for ten years and Emily eventually dies in a bedroom that, old and grey. After Emily’s huge funeral, the people in the town breaks into Emily’s house and the room they know have been locked for forty years. Inside the room, they find the corpse of Homer Barron and next to him a shape of another person’s head and a long grey hair.

2) Why are some of the story elements repeated such as the smell and the question of Emily's taxes?

Some of the elements in the story are repeated such as the question of Emily’s taxes. This might be a symbol of death. Since there are a lot of deaths in the story, the question of Emily’s taxes is repeated. For instance when Emily’s father dies and also 30 years after when Homer Barron dies, the same question is repeated. The repeating of the smell in the story can be used to foreshadow Homer Barron’s fate.

3) Right from the start there is an atmosphere of mystery and unreality in the story. Find examples in the text that show how this is achieved. You may work together with a fellow student on this, but both have to post on their blogs, and hand in individual links to their blogs.

Right from the start there is an atmosphere of mystery and unreality and I think that’s partly because of the narrative point of view of the townspeople. Emily is also kept on a certain distance, which means that we do not exactly get to know her and that creates a very mysterious feeling. An example here, is for instance when the townspeople sprinkle lime around her house (to get rid of the horrible smell), and she just views them at a distance from her bedroom.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rose_for_Emily

http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=3217

http://www.enotes.com/rose-emily

http://www.shmoop.com/a-rose-for-emily/summary.html

http://www.shmoop.com/a-rose-for-emily/death-taxes-symbol.html