Short Story and William Faulkner Essay

Xindong Deng
Professor Ogundipe
English 123
20 May 2014
Different Order Sometimes is Better Attracting readers is always one of the hardest thing for writers to do. We have read countless literatures since childhood. People lose interest easily in a piece of literature if its plot falls in a certain pattern. Then, how can someone create a plot that is able to make readers immerse themselves into this story? In the story A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, the author use his talent to present us a unique way of telling a story. He mainly uses four plotting techniques: inverted timeline, use of symbolism, character description and intentionally leaving hints and clues during story telling. '' 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 her house, which no one save an old man-servant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in at least ten years.'' (Faulkner I) The story starts with the Emily's funeral and ends with Emily's funeral. Protagonist dies in the first place is rarely to be seen among short stories. However, this unusual opening has successfully created plenty of suspense. Who is Emily Grierson? How does she died? What was going on when she was alive? Suddenly, many questions about this Miss Emily Grierson appears in reader's mind, and those questions are the reasons for readers keep reading this story. After the beginning, instead of going through every detail of Miss Emily's life, the author only gives us a few events took place when Miss Emily was alive. One interesting thing is that every event is decades from each other, and those events have no obvious link. If reader don't think deeply, it is quite difficult to find out the relation between each other. What makes this story more special is that, the author place '' bad smell'' event and '' poison'' event before telling the readers how Emily and Homer Barron met each other. With this placement of events, readers can hardly link the smell and poison to Homer Barron's death, thus, Miss Emily's necrophilia can be quite shocking. William Faulkner masterly put together all the events for the readers, including the details that have been ignored by us. From sketching a rough outline to filling all the details, the entire plot seems to be a picture. William Faulkner uses this own technique that not only attract reader's attention, but also impress us with an astonishing ending. Secondly, the use of symbolism also gives this simply story deeper meanings. Basically, the author use symbolism to describe two thing, one is the collapse of tradition of the south, another one is Emily's twisted love to Homer. Since story takes place in the American Civil War, author uses Miss Emily symbolize tradition and the people in the south. However, even all the people around Emily has changed more or less, she still keep his old way. For example, '' When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She would not listen to them.'' In order to keep her old way of life, Miss Emily would accept such small changes in her life. Every time when other people in the town talk about Emily, they always say ''Poor Emily"(Faulkner III). People sympathize Emily because of her life is ruined by her tradition. When the civil war is over, the society around her has changed, she still considered herself as a noble woman. Even though people in the town expect her to change herself in order to adapt the reality after the death of her father. Nevertheless, she refuse to believe that her father is dead until people force her to bury her father's body. Her father can also be considered as a symbol of tradition as well.
The second place that author uses symbolism is the when describe the love between Homer and Emily. Also, author’s characters’

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