Setting in A Rose for Emily, The Yellow Wallpaper and Araby

Essay by sLvRk155es March 2005

download word file, 5 pages 5.0

Downloaded 139 times

Whether it is a novel, short story or a story told out loud, they all contain a setting. In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily", Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" and James Joyce's "Araby", setting is an important factor and it helps tie in the characters and the plot of the story. In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," Faulkner's details about setting and atmosphere give the reader background as to the values and beliefs of the characters, helping the reader to understand the motivations, actions and reactions of Miss Emily and the rest of the town, and changing the mood or tone in the story.

The setting in "A Rose for Emily" is a small town in the deep south. Faulkner's use of this particular time period or genre is successful in giving the reader an understanding or background to the values and beliefs of the characters in the story.

The town of Jefferson is a fallen legacy. The town looked upon Miss Emily as the only trace of that greater time. This fact gives the reader an understanding of the mindset of the "town", who is narrating Miss Emily's story to us in a form resembling a gossip circle, where stories of various townspeople are pieced together and of Miss Emily, the protagonist who lived alone except for her lone servant.

Faulkner's setting helps the reader understand the mentality and actions of the town. The townspeople seem oddly fascinated with Miss Emily as a relic of an older time. They have put her in a special position among the others and while they have not maintained any direct contact with her, they are still curious even after her death about her mystery. This could be attributed to the fact that...