A Rose for Emily

Analysis

"A Rose for Emily," by William Faulkner is a story about a woman named Emily. The author explains the story in first person-plural perspective, because he uses we, as in referring to we the people of the town. The author paints a picture in our mind of darkness, loneliness, and eventually death. Everything about the story is sad, and gloomy, even Emily's home which is referred to as, " Coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores." The story is not written in order, as are most, but in a different set of sequences that keeps the readers attention in order to fully grasp what the author is saying. Towards the end, it sort of all comes together and the reader realizes that Emily had murdered her lover with poison, kept his body, and has been sleeping with it. She has been doing this for several years, as we can see by the final sentence, "We saw a long strand of iron-gray hair," which is obviously Emily's.

Response

Although this story was kind of peculiar and interesting to read, it was also really vulgar I thought. Obviously Emily had some sort of mental illness, there's no other way to understand what she did or why she did, even though in her own mind I'm sure it made perfect sense. The story was good, and entertaining, but in a sick sort of way, a way that makes you feel sorry for Emily and all she went through, but also I was kind of grossed out by her and what she did. I had mixed feelings about this story.