FREE ESSAY ON SYMBOLISM IN "A ROSE FOR EMILY"

SYMBOLISM IN "A ROSE FOR EMILY"

William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is a story that addresses the symbolic changes in
the South after the civil war. Miss Emily's house symbolizes neglect and poverty of the
new times in the town of Jefferson. The rampant symbolism and Faulkner's descriptions of
the decaying house, coincide with Miss Emily's physical and emotional decay, and also
emphasize her mental degeneration, and further illustrate the outcome of Faulkner's
story. Miss Emily's decaying house, not only lacks genuine love and care, but so does she
in her adult life, but more so during her childhood. The pertinence of Miss Emily's house
in relation to her physical appearance is brought on by constant neglect and
under-appreciation. The house is situated in what was once a prominent neighborhood that
has now deteriorated. The house 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 of an earlier time, now many of the towns people see that the house has
become an eyesore among eyesores. Through lack of attention, the house has deteriorated
from a beautiful estate, to an ugly desolate shack. Similarly, Miss Emily has also become
an eyesore in the following various ways. She is first described as a fallen monument to
suggest her former grandeur and her later ugliness. This story by Faulkner contains a
high rate of symbolism thoroughly distributed and revealed by shady foreshadowing. Just
as the house has, Miss Emily has lost her beauty. Once she had been a beautiful woman,
who later becomes obese and bloated. In this post civil war town, the great estate and
Miss Emily has suffered the toll of time and neglect. As the exterior, the interior of
the house as well resembles Miss Emily's increasing decent and the growing sense of
sadness that accompanies such a downfall. All that is told of the inside of Miss Emily's
house is a dim hall, where a staircase is mounted into descending darkness, with the
house smelling of foul odors. The combined darkness and odor of the house relate with
Miss Emily with her dry and cold voice as if it were scrappy and dry from disuse just
like her house. The similarity between the inside of the house and Miss Emily extends to
the mantel, where there is a portrait of her father and Miss Emily sitting there.
Internally and externally, both Miss Emily's building and her body are in a state of
deterioration and are tarnished like a metallic material. The setting of Faulkner's story
is highly essential because it defines Miss Emily's tight grasp of ante-bellum ways and
unchanging demeanor. Just as the house seems to reject progress and updating, so does
Miss Emily, until both of them become decaying symbols of their dying generation. Though
descriptions of the house resemble descriptions of Miss Emily Grierson, A Rose for Emily
emphasizes that beauty and elegance can become distorted through neglect and lack of love
and affection. As the house deteriorates for forty years until it becomes ugly and
unappealing, Miss Emily's physical appearance and emotional well-being decay in the same
way.