Summary:
"A Rose for Emily" is told by an anonymous narrator, who I find to be a very important character in the story. It makes me wonder why Faulkner didn't go into more detail about who this person was.
One very important elements in fiction is characterization. Characterization makes the plot exciting and come to life. Without characters than "A Rose for Emily" would be nothing more than a story about the history of a town in the South. Characters make the story. In my paper, I hope to help you understand how characters are important to the story, "A Rose for Emily."
"A Rose for Emily" is told by an anonymous narrator, who I find to be a very important character in the story. It makes me wonder why Faulkner didn't go into more detail about who this person was? What was his relation with Mrs. Grierson? The narrator is important because his words foreshadows the irony climax at the end of the story. As I read the story I noticed that the narrator also used the word we in some of his sentences. When he is talking about Mrs. Grierson and Homer he states, "the one we believed she would marry." From these type of statements it helped me gather more about the narrator. It helped me understand that he was one of the town folk and that the town probably gossiped a lot about Mrs. Grierson. They may have even envied Mrs. Grierson.
Emily Grierson was the main character in the story. Faulkner describes her as a wealthy and somewhat crazy women. She was somewhat controlled by her father. Even after his death, he still seemed to maintain control of her. I found Mrs. Grierson to be lonely and was just wanting to be loved. The house that the story mentioned, seems to be a reflection of its owner. How the author describes this house is very interesting. To describe the house he uses statements such as: "its stubborn and coquettish decay" and "an eyesore among eyesores." These statements about the house and Emily is a very important aspect of the story. Throughout the story, the author depicts Emily in ways that would make you imagine a women sitting in her deathbed. I found this to be very ironic in the story. Its like these people knew what was going to become of her. I never could understand why Emily could not control her own mind? Why was everyone else in control of her behavior? What was the point of the author making the character this way? Its all just part of making the reader relate to the characters in the story. I guess Faulkner wanted us to fell sorry for the women and maybe think she may have been a little crazy.
Mrs. Grierson's father was another important character in the story. It was as he controlled Emily's mind. He had such an influence on Emily. The author may have made him this way to show the love he and Emily had for each other. He tried to influence her to do what he thought was the best and she listened because of the love she had for her father.
Homer was a very unique character. He was a northerner in the south part of the country. I believe Homer to be the most important integral part to the plot. Without Homer what would the story have been like? Homer was somewhat the twist to the story. Mrs. Emily finally finds love and the author is foreshadowing death for her! This really makes the story exciting and catches the readers attention. Homers is described as more of a poor man who is not in Emily's social class. This is showing how love is contagious no matter what the world believes to be right or wrong.
The Negro manservant was not a real important character in this story, but without him I believe the plot would have lacked a certain layer of richness. Faulkner does not speak much about the manservant in his story, even though he was there with Mrs. Emily pretty much all the time. Why did the manservant leave? This added a little more mystery to the story. It makes the reader think about what he is reading and kind of wakes him up. I really liked this part of the story, because it keeps the audience on its toes for the conclusion of the story.
The people of the town were also characters in the story, though they weren't mentioned too often. These people brought the story to life. It gave it realness and helped the reader to react with the town. It made me wonder what these people were like and what features they possessed? I understood they didn't really like Mrs. Grierson because of her wealth, but why else would they have not liked her? What did she do to them? Was it something that happened earlier in life or was they just so cold hearted that they just hated her because of he wealth?
Characterization is not the only part of fiction that plays an important role. All parts work together to enhance and make the story exciting. All the parts of fictions has its own importance and reasons for being there. "A Rose for Emily" not only had the development of characters, but it also had a lot of symbolism and irony in it. The author foreshadowed a lot of times of Mrs. Grierson dieing. He also used statements like "her skeleton frame," that also symbolized the death of Emily Grierson. These are also very important parts of this story.
In conclusion, I hope I helped you realize what some of the characters part in the story was and how they developed the story. Without these characters the story would be hard to read and not very entertaining. The reader needs to react and find similarities and differences with the characters. This opens up their minds and makes them think about what they are reading. The characters bring detail and reality to the story. Faulkner did a great job of bringing this story to life and keeping the audience alive and wanting to read more. The ending was a very unsuspecting feature of the story that I loved.
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