Literary Essay Sample on A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

The story "A Rose for Emily" was full of symbols and each of them had a meaning that could be easily depicted from the incidences that were taking place. The fact that the story was revolving around Miss Emily Grierson made it clear that roses are loved by many just like Emily has a large number of people behind her back. In the story, Emily is shown as one who is on a pedestal motive, and in that case, she has been portrayed to be one who is full of traditions. I second the change of events where Emily was still portiere to be the bad one in the community as she went ahead to kill her lover, Homer Barron. She still managed to keep the corpse for many years without even caring about the smell or anything evil that came from it.

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The first question that I would ask is that how Emily could sleep with her lover's corpse for all those years without even being affected by the foul smell that comes from the dead. Was sleeping with the corpse a symbol of anything that was not clarified in the first place? The other question is, why was Emily portrayed to be the rose whereas she had done a lot of vices in the society and everyone knew it?

The primary objective of the story was to show the way secrets can be kept for so long. In that case, the antagonist in the story is still Emily as she was the one who made sure that everything was taking place as per her plans. The protagonist in the story is the lover who did not want to fulfill Emily's desire, and therefore she had to be killed in that aspect. The significant events that take place in the story revolve around the killing of Homer and the conflict that arises are based on the way Emily managed to keep the secret for so long had in mind that she was desperate of human love at that time.

Some interesting things are portrayed in the story, and most of them revolve around Emily and her lover, Homer. The two of them had been in love for a while and the kind of conflict that they had led to death and misery out of desperation and the desire to fulfil the missions that were at hand. It was interesting to understand that Emily was the one who killed her lover and at the same time went ahead to cling on his ahead. This is seen in the wrangles that were taking place between them before everything broke apart. The other interesting thing from the story is based on the fact that Emily punished herself after murdering her husband. This was not normal as it was expected that she could find a way of burying the body so that no one could be able to identify anything that took place.

The other interesting thing is still on the killing of Homer. Emily was so courageous that she had to cover the entire incident and also the necrophilia and as a result, she decided to find the kind of solace that she wanted from the dead. She was always embracing all the changes that came her way when looked from the perspective of the dead lover. There is still another interesting part of the story that is based on the horror and disgust especially when the author makes use of symbols to make the story to be too intriguing. This is something that can make one stop reading the story because it is dreadful having in mind that the chronology of events is jumbled in some ways.