Plot Analysis for “A Rose for Emily”

Plot analysis of A Rose For Emily William Faulkners, A Rose for Emily is a story with a southern gothic style. The tragical story is told to readers through an anonymous narrator that speaks on behalf of the towns people, but is not airless to Emily, the booster shot, personally. This narration helps sustain a level of curiosity intimately Emily since readers cannot gain personal insight into her disembodied spirit and psyche. It is commonly expressed that the two things of certainty in animation are death and taxes, death cosmos one of the main themes that runs throughout the story.There is a measure when Emily seems to be above human certainty in the way of taxes. This aversion to one certainty seems to amplify the otherwise in her life, because the rest of the story contains null but death the death of people, beauty, ideals, everything that once guarded Emily from the rest of the world. Even though it is in vain, the protagonists motivation behind everything she does is to make beat stand still, thus trying to avoid the other human certainty, death.As a result of the story beginning with Emilys funeral, readers are introduced to Miss Emilys clamber with her antagonist, time, through the setting she lives in. Miss Emily represents a bi-gone era, one that she veils her life of retirement in, refusing to face the passage of time around her. Her house is in a state of decay just like her body, both stigma their loss to time. It was a house that, had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconiesset on what had once been our most claim street(91).The houses description seems to mimic Emilys life because at one time she is depict as a, slender figure in white(93) and it is said that None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily(93). Its as if the houses once suitable location imitates Emilys one time desirability among suitors. This symbolic representation is used again when the house is described as, lif ting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps(91). The house is more of an overaged nuisance than an object of admiration, as Emily herself was before her death.Faulkners use of the word coquette, points to his intention for readers to see the symbolism of Emilys and the houses battle with time, because a coquette is a woman who endeavors without sincere partiality to gain the admiration of men. Since Emily at one time had the admiration of men, she continues to behave as if time has not taken a toll on her desirable appearance before men, thus making her number as if she is still above their law. The towns mayor, Colonel Sartoris, promotes this thinking by remitting Emilys taxes after her engenders death.The colonel spins a tale to explain, saying that the tax remittance is to pay back her father for currency he loaned the town. A story no one believes according to the author, except a woman. The author says, When the adjoining generatio n, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction(91). When the new mayor personally writes Emily to inform her she must pay taxes like the rest of the community, the author describes Emilys reply as representing the forgotten past.The story says the mayor, receive in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, silky calligraphy in faded ink, to the effect that she no longer went out at all. The tax watch was also enclosed, without comment(91). Emily does everything as if no time has passed. As a result of Emily realizing she cannot stop time, she chooses to leave out out the passage of time in the world around her, by living a monastic life. The narrator says, After her fathers death she went out very little after her sweetie went away, people hardly saw her at all(92).Its at this time that the narrator informs readers about a strange smell emanating from Emilys house, a smell that the passage of time pr oduces to betray her. Because Emily represents a time where people are limited by the role of class and gender in society, this passing mind-set is what the towns people use as an excuse for the troubling smell. The author says, the only sign of life about the place was the Negro man-a young man then-going in and out with a market basket. but as if a man-any man-could living a kitchen properly, the ladies said so they were not surprised when the smell veritable(92).This same limiting mindset re-emerges when the Aldermen of the town meet to discuss a solution to the rising charge of the gross smell. When the young man in the group of Aldermen, who represents the rising generation, suggests what he believes to be a unanalyzable solution of confronting Emily about the smell, he is quickly rebuked. The judge cuts him off by saying, Dammit sir,will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad (93)? Similar to Emily, the older men restrict their decisions based on tradition, thus d enying the evidence that time produced to bring her to justice.In the end, it is the passage of time that plays the role of Emilys antagonist. Despite her efforts of seclusion and refusal to change, time has its way with Emily and everything she clings to. One passage refers to a gold chain she wears with the end tucked in her waist on the end of the chain is a watch. Emily carries her antagonist with her as if she believes its closeness will keep it from sneaking up on her as if her own stubborn will set beside it, could stop the blasted mechanism from ticking forth its unpleasant reminder.