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Analysisof
“
”
(by WilliamFaulkner)

Key Elements
 Information about the Author.
 Plot of the story.
 Themes.
 Context.
 Characters.
 Setting.
 Imagery.
 Simbolism.
 “Bonus Track”: a song played by the British band ‘The
Zombies’, which is included at the end of this
presentation.

Information about the Author
 William Faulkner was an American poet
and narrator. He was born in 1897 in New
Albany, Mississippi.
 The past of several of his ancestors
inspired him, in somehow, to write their
stories (they were involved in the
Mexican-American War, the Civil War, and
in the Reconstruction).

•Faulkner took Oxford and their surrounding
area as a huge inspiration and thus, he
created the fictional Yoknapatawpha
County and the Jefferson's town.
•Faulkner was specially interested in the
decay of the South after the Civil War.

•Faulkner accomplished a wide
recognition as a novelist in the twentieth
century because of his experimental style
(he was a real pioneer in regards to the
literary modernism).
•Faulkner won the Nobel Prize in
Literature in 1949. Thirteen years later, in
1962, he died in Mississippi due to a
myocardial heart attack.

Plot of the story
•The story is split into five sections. In the
first part, the narrator reminds the period of
Emily Grierson's death and the different
attitudes that showed the people of the town
towards her funeral and in regards to her
home, to which anybody had accessed for
more than ten years (except for her servant,
Tobe).
•The house depicts a kind of pattern of a
glorious age that had been lost and
completely changed.

Plot of the story
•In the second section, the narrator refers to a
series of events that happened in Emily's life
thirty years earlier. Here are mentioned the
decease of her father and the influence that he
had above her, the supposed abandonment that
she suffered for a man that she thought that
was going to marry her and their unceasing
denial to pay the taxes (supported by Colonel
Sartoris).
•Others relevant features are the complaints by
the strong smell that comes from the house and
the untrue compassion that the people of the
town pretend to show the same people who
hate Emily's lifestyle.

Plot of the story
•In the third section, the narrator portraits how
begins the relationship between Emily and
Homer Barron, a northerner who is the
director of a construction company that was
contracted by the town to pave the sidewalks.
Barron turns popular in town and his meetings
with Emily are more frequently and, in sight of
locals.
•Despite her incipient courtship, Emily could
never overcome the death of her father and
begins to suffer a sickness that makes her
behave strangely and feel strongly the
inquisitive look of the people about their
reputation. Therefore, she decides to buy a
powerful poison without almost giving no
explanation for what purpose she is going to
use it.

Plot of the story
•In the fourth section, Homer Barron
is away from the town for a while, but
people think he is with the wedding
organization or avoiding Emily's
relatives. When her cousins leave,
Homer returns one night and he was
never seen again.
•Emily gets older fat and gray and
clings to the loneliness of her home.
Only her servant is seen entering and
leaving the house.

Plot of the story
•In the last section, the narrator tells
what happened after Emily's death.
The people of the town and her
cousins attend to their last goodbye.
Some time later, the townspeople
broke down a door of a bedroom's
upstairs that had been closed over
forty years.
•In that room, they discovered the
body of Homer Barron in a
progressive state of decadence.
Next to him, in the pillow, there was
a clear mark of a head and a gray
long strand of Emily's hair.

Themes
 Control
• Emily’s father with so much power over the life of his
daughter.
• A description of the narrator proves this domination:
"Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the
background...her father...in the foreground, his back
to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them
framed by the back flung front door“.

Themes
 Community Vs Isolation
• The odd relationship between the town of Jefferson and
Emily.
• Her father prevents her from dating anyone because he
doesn’t believe any of the men in Jefferson are good
enough for her and, after his death, Emily continues to
isolate herself from the rest of the community for the
better part of her life.

Themes
 Constant struggle between the
Past and the Present
• Emily cannot let go of the past.
• She believes in the importance of heritage and
aristocracy and is holding on to the antebellum
beliefs of the past.

Themes
 Death
• It is prevalent.
• There are obvious references to death
throughout the story.

Context
As the poem was written during one of the
harshest times in the world, it provides
great analogies that may be transferred into
the historical events of the1929 Great
Depression and the changes that the South
adopted after the Civil War. William
Faulkner wrote a fictional story, but he
introduced parallel topics of reality into his
works, such as Yoknapatawpha County,
colonel Sartoris and the decay of the
Griersons during tough and changing times.

Context
William Faulkner describes the
Grierson house as a prominent
structure “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.”
This is a representation of what the
house and the south were prior to the
end of the Civil War, and gradual
decay of the house and Emily
Grierson represent the changes that
came after the Civil War ended.

Context
The end of the civil war brought about
changes for the south that not all southern
population was content with. However, they
all had to live with the regulations brought up
on them on order to stay within the law. The
negligence of Emily to pay taxes may refer to
the south unwillingness to pay for the
financial crisis that the Yankees had put in
the nation.
“I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel
Sartoris explained it to me. Perhaps one of
you can gain access to the city records and
satisfy yourselves.” This quote is with high
probability to the southern people feeling
cheated into paying for a crisis such as the
1929 stock market crash.

Characters
 Emily Grierson
• Main character of the story.
• Shadowy and mysterious in the minds of the
citizens in her town.
• Her father controlled her social life.

Characters
 Mr. Grierson
• Central figure in Emily's life.
• He had made Emily into a hermit.

Characters
 Homer Barron
• Central figure in Emily's life.
• He is the Yankee foreman of the construction
company hired to pave the town's sidewalks.
• He is interested in Emily. He falls in love with
her.
• He is killed by Emily.

Characters
 Tobe
• The servant in the Grierson house.
• The only person who stays in contact with Emily.
• The man who keeps Emily's secrets.

Characters
 Judge Stevens
• The Mayor of Jefferson.

Characters
 Colonel Sartoris
• A former Mayor of Jefferson.
• He absolved Emily of any tax burden after the
death of her father.

Setting
•It's a place that displays decay and
death.
•All of the incidents happens inside the
house.
•A large house with old fashion details.
•Faulkner describes masterfully the
characteristics of the House. “It was
big, squarish frame house that hade
once been white, decorated with
cupolas and spires and scrolled
balconies in the heavily lightsome style
of seventies, set on what had once
been our most select street.”

Imagery
Dust
The layers of dust also suggest the cloud of
darkness that hides Emily’s true nature and
the secrets that her house contains. In the
final scene, the dust is an oppressive
presence that seems to emanate from
Homer’s dead body. The dust, which is
everywhere, looks even more horrible there.
Smells
When the aldermen arrive to try and secure
Emily’s annual tax payment, the house smells
of “dust and disuse”.

Symbolism
The House
• It's an emblem, an allegory of a golden period
for the aristocracy but it also reflects decadence
and the loss of wealth that experienced the
richer people.
• It's mysterious, intriguing and means a sort of
monument of the ‘old good times for the
wealthy’.
• Faulkner highlights this meaning with this
description:”Only Miss Emily’s house was left,
lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above
the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps- an
eyesore among eyesores”.

Symbolism
The Strand of Hair
• It's like a souvenir of the lost love for
Emily, it functions as a sort of a nice
memory for her.
• The colour of the strand of hair, that
strong and deep gray, stresses the
process of transformation that Emily
made across the years, a complete
change that modified her physically
and mentally.

Bonus Track
The following song has the same name of this story and the lyrics show the
huge impact that the Faulkner's narration had in the members of the group.
The song was released in 1968 in the album 'Odessey and Oracle' of the
british rock band The Zombies.

Lyrics
• "A Rose For Emily"
The summer is here at last
The sky is overcast
And no one brings a rose for Emily.
She watches her flowers grow
While lovers come and go
To give each other roses from her tree
But not a rose for Emily...
Emily, can't you see (how the sun is shining again)
There's nothing you can do?
There's loving everywhere
But none for you...
Her roses are fading now
She keeps her pride somehow
That's all she has protecting her from pain.
And as the years go by
She will grow old and die
The roses in her garden fade away
Not one left for her grave
Not a rose for Emily...

Group Members
María Cecilia Vasirani.
Gastón Asconiga.

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