W. Faulkner "A Rose for Emily"

Meižytė, Inga Dr. J.D. Mininger ENG 131 Introduction to Literature 04 February 2008 Essay #1 Why William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” Deserves to be described as Literature Literature is a term which describes written or spoken material. Generally speaking, "literature" is used to describe anything from creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but the term is most commonly used to refer to works of the creative imagination, including works of poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction. William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is one of example of literature. It is the story about an eccentric spinster, Emily Grierson. An unnamed narrator who as we can understand lives in town tells the strange circumstances of Emily’s life. Narrator tells us about her odd relationships with her father, her lover Homer Barron, the town of Jefferson, and the horrible secret she hides. First of all, literature can be described as imaginative writing. Imaginative writing can be difficult because it has thin line between reality and fiction. Story “A Rose for Emily” from the first sight looks like true story with assuredly fact. One of example of fact can be a description of Miss Emily’s house “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street” (468). This detail description look like plain truth because we can imagine that such kind of house really existed or still stands somewhere. Other description which can be named as true fact is about Emily’s semblance: “ a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist ” (468). This description does not create feeling of fiction. It looks like a believable fact and true. The thin line between reality and fiction becomes invisible when narrator starts to tell us about dead man “The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlast love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him”(473). This part of story slowly takes us to dithers because we as readers start to think how it can be that dead man can lie in the bed and still look like he is in love. It looks unusual and not realistic. But in other point of view these details create very explicit, clear picture. Sometimes it doesn’t matter that details can be just a fruit of authors imagination. In some way it helps reader to become a part of story and off course it evokes imagination. Second description of literature is defamiliarized language. It is really difficult to describe what ordinary language is. But when we look to story “A Rose for Emily” we are able to say that language is quite simple but sometimes difficult to non native speaker. One of the reasons why text become a lit of bit unfamiliar to reader is because some words are quite difficult and not known to non native speaker. Other reason why it is difficult to read this story is that there are a lot of long sentences. Some of sentences take few lines. For example: “So next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily’s lawn and slunk about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base of the brickwork and at the cellar openings while one of them performed a regular sowing motion with his hand out of a sack slung from his shoulder” (469). All text is full with such long sentences. Long sentences are filed with lot of information and details. They help easier imagine situation, people, and buildings, but in the same time make us to feel confused and sometimes read sentence few times. What is really interesting in the story “A Rose for Emily” is that narrator is like spectator, witnesses of all events. He is speaking from perspective of observer. Narrator talks using plural objective “we”: “So we were not surprised ” (472), “We did not know ” (473). In the text we are able to find much more such kind of examples. These examples assuredly convince that narrator is someone from the town people who saw all events and observed them. We are able to make assumption that narrator is man. One of the reason why we can make this conclusion is that in a part where is described Miss Emily’s funeral narrator dissociate from women “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of the house” (467). We can state that because when narrator talks about women he calls them opposite than men and not in really good way. He declares that all women went to funeral just from curiosity not like men. They went to show respect for, “a fallen monument” (467). Another interesting fact is that author is using flashbacks. The story is told by the narrator through a series of non-sequential flashbacks. The story begins with the description of Miss Emily's funeral. That kind of beginning actually is a flashback because the story ends with the narrator's memory of the town's discovery of the corpse in the Grierson home after Emily's funeral. Throughout the story, the narrator flashes back and forth through various events in the life of Emily Grierson and the town of Jefferson. These flashbacks make text more difficult and confusing because we need effort not to loose the plot. Story “A Rose for Emily” declares few values. One of them is love. Miss Emily is like a symbol of absolute feeling of love. She is trying to save her love and lover in enormous way. But from other point of view she is trying to do everything to be happy and feel the power of love. Another value is generation. Author mentions about conflict of generations “when the next generation, with its more modern ideas, become mayors and aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction” (468). This conflict is closely related with real life and is relevant. Generations are changing and making differences which can be not accepted of older people. William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” can be declared as literature. As we already see it has features of literature and can be named so.

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