A Rose For Emily

Daniel Milligan

English 1102- David Bell

9/10/14

"A Bouquet for Emily"

In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily", the subject work is exceedingly vital to the short story and how the peruse sees the script. Throughout Faulkner's work there is not one sole theme, but multiple themes disbursed in the text. These themes include decay, control, Emily's resistance to change, and also the theme of death. During this essay I intend to inform the reader on the themes of decay, Emily's resistance to change, and also death.

Miss Emily's resistance to change is absolutely untenable, yet the importance of the story must be extended to incorporate man's connection to time: Emily gets to be enormous (like her home) when she opposes the progression of time; she strays away from a normal time-world to a world in which she denies time, even to the point of disregarding death (Homer's).

Blei Emily Rose CRP

Film poster for The Exorcism of Emily Rose - Copyr...

English: Emily Rose

Faulkner exhibits two clashing perspectives of time: time as an immense meadow, which no winter touches, time as a mechanical movement in which the past is a diminishing road. Both perspectives suggest social feedback: the first recommends the South (Emily, the Griersons, the old Confederate troopers), the second the North (Homer, and the "advanced" more youthful era). Death is the last indication of the progression of time, and Emily imagines that it (like the sheriff's expense bill) does not exist.

The theme of decay presents itself numerous times in "A Rose for Emily". In my opinion, the principal component of decay found in "A Rose for Emily" is the rotting of Emily's mental state. Emily quite possibly felt trapped in the fact of her father intermitted any male suitors to visit her, as her father died Emily ensnared his body. Merely because Miss Emily trusted that...