A Critical Analysis of “A Rose for Emily” PDF

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A Critical Analysis of “A Rose for Emily”...

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McDonald 1 Alyssia McDonald Professor Aby Boumarate 202010 Freshman Comp II 15 September 2019 Reader Response Criticism A Critical Analysis of “A Rose for Emily” William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is a short story that revolves around the life and death of a completely isolated woman from the perspective of her peers. Emily was socially deprived by her father at an early age and she continued to be for the rest of her life. This deprivation caused extreme mental and physical deterioration in her health that was noticeable to her fellow townspeople. These peers in her community continued to watch over her as if she were a sacred tradition that they had to monitor, due to her high social ranking, but in actuality, they felt nothing but scorn and haughtiness from her presence. The story consists of strong recurring themes of isolation, death, and evolution in a non-chronological order that manipulates time in a way that stretches the plot over several decades. This technique ultimately allows for the reader to see each moment of the protagonist’s life in great detail. A Reader-Response critical analysis can surely be conducted on this piece because of the reader’s interaction with the text and the author’s techniques that are revealed in the plot. Faulkner’s work is unique because of the writing style and how he used a series of flashbacks to not only foreshadow the events within the plot, but also to evoke a response from the reader that will allow them to piece together the purpose of the text. Faulkner chose this method to convey the inner lives of each of his characters and to depict their motives in the story. Each flashback in Emily’s life exhibits how her take on reality grows more tenuous over time,

McDonald 2 especially with her refusal of change. The competition between tradition and change is vital to the plot because it portrays Emily’s ongoing internal battle throughout the story, in which she, herself, is a tradition that has remained the same over the years, in contrast to the many changes in her community. Emily models the traditions that her peers want to cherish and respect, however, she also represents the burden of being isolated from the world in ways other people are unable to comprehend. The theme of death also relates to the author’s hopes to evoke an intellectual response out of the reader. Faulkner constantly depicts death throughout Emily’s life experiences, the narration of Emily’s morbid appearance, and most importantly in the dying breed that Emily stands for as an emblem of the Old South. Emily’s character is conveyed as a grand lady who’s charm and overall respectability greatly decline over the years, much like the expired ideals and practices her family represent. The author makes it easy for the reader to understand that the death of the old social statue will prevail, regardless of the townspeople’s attempts to stay true to tradition, because of the series of events that coexist in the time-traveling plot. The readers are also able to respond to the recurring themes of death because it is easy to visualize Emily’s constant denial of death alone. Faulkner deeply depicts the deaths among her relationships with the people she loves and how she is unable to accept them. The way the author described her reaction evidently shows her dismissal of reality, especially with these quotes,“She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body” (Faulkner 27). When Emily kills her partner, Homer, she also denies his death. Her murder symbolizes her disturbing attempt to mend life and death together by keeping Homer near to her, but she fails to realize it made them more distant.

McDonald 3 Faulkner’s work is truly unique because it considers the reader as an essential aspect for the interpretation of the story. The author’s motive is for the reader to use their own knowledge, experiences, and values to examine all the literary techniques he throws at us. The profound themes of isolation, death, and evolution, as well as the non-chronological structure bring an exciting text for the reader to break down in their own way based on how they feel. The reader is constantly viewing descriptive imagery about the life of Emily and how people perceive her, which ironically allows for an overall deeper perception among the reader from their own perspective. There is no right or wrong way to analyze this literary work with the ReaderResponse approach because of the open-ended background that Faulkner created for his audience....