Literature Online--English 112

Understanding Fiction:The Short Story

Unlocking the Meaning of
"A Rose for Emily"

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The following excerpt from "A Rose for Emily" by Faulkner has been annotated to show how locating and analyzing the conventions of the short story help readers to understand the meaning:

Excerpts from "A Rose for Emily"


***

They rose when she entered--a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their errand. She did not ask them to sit. She just stood in the door and listened quietly until the spokesman came to a stumbling halt. Then they could hear the invisible watch ticking at the end of the gold chain. Her voice was dry and cold. "I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me. Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy yourselves." "But we have. We are the city authorities, Miss Emily. Didn't you get a notice from the sheriff, signed by him?"

"I received a paper, yes," Miss Emily said. "Perhaps he considers himself the
sheriff. . . I have no taxes in Jefferson."

"But there is nothing on the books to show that, you see. We must go by them"

"See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson."

"But, Miss Emily"

"See Colonel Sartoris." (Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years.) "I have no taxes in Jefferson. Tobe!" The Negro appeared. "Show these gentlemen out."

The story opens by exposing the major character, Emily. The reader immediately can visualize the main character. The narrator's voice is heard, too. A conflict is established. The past with its traditions is linked to the present. By now several questions may have come to mind, such as who is telling the story and how much does he or she know? Do you think the narrator is reliable? What do you learn about Emily from her interactions with other characters? How has the author caused you to sympathize--or not--with this character?

***

The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom. Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly. We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.

As the story continues, several themes or issues begin to surface while Emily's character is evolving. A conflict between Emily achieving her dreams and meeting her father's needs and expectations surfaces. Also the concerns of the community seem to clash with the concerns of the individual. Can you identify another major theme or motif of the story? Does anything remain confusing or out of order?

***

The man himself lay in bed. For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and binding dust. Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.

The story ends abruptly as the reader discovers a murder has taken place. Emily has murdered her lover, whom her father said was not worthy of her, to capture a piece of the present and drag it into the past. We are left with the symbol of the strand of iron-gray hair. What does the iron-grey hair symbolize? We are left to ponder the significance of this event and its impact on the main character. Does this ending surprise you? Why or why not?


As we can see, carefully rereading certain passages, looking for how the conventions of story telling surface, can shed light on the meaning of the story.


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