A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner
1. What I’ve learned about Faulkner’s writing style after reading a rose for Emily is that he likes writing long sentences and they are complicated to understand. He uses diction in his short story. I noticed that he likes to incorporate and talk about situations that others might not want to talk or think about. Such as, people dying, and the bad situations that might happen in life. He is extremely descriptive and wants the reader to know exactly what he is trying to say. Many times, when he describes an object he incorporates a character to go along with it. I must say, his style of writing is different from others and I had to read it a couple of times in order to understand what he is saying. I try to see the connection he is making and the emotions that he shows.
2. The ways Faulkner uses Emily’s house is an appropriate setting because in this story, Emily is the only living Grierson and she lives in Mississippi. Faulkner has made up his old city in this short story, called Yoknapatawpha. In Emily’s house many situations has happened. I feel like Emily is inseparable when it comes to her house. Her house is important because it shows what Emily has gone through living in that house. Faulkner’s use of Emily’s house is an appropriate metaphor because Emily grew up in that house and she “grew” with the house as the years go by. When she ages, so does the house she lives in. She’s had good and bad memories living in that house. Themes established in the short story are Emily is the type of person who separates herself from her peers and she’s in her own world, this short story talks about the past and current happenings, you must face the truth and accept flaws and mistakes, and you must learn to forgive and forget. Death can also be a theme in the short story.
3. The point of view in this short story is distinctive and unlike others. You can tell that Emily is isolated from people around her. The narrator of the story is unknown but when as you read on you get little details and hints of what the narrator is like. It seems like the narrator knows a lot about Emily but not quite every little detail of her. Of all the happenings in the story, the unknown narrator is at hand even though it doesn’t play a major role in the short story. How I would characterize the narrator and the voice is that the narrator doesn’t play a major role but he speaks for the people in the town and what he believes they think about Emily. You notice that the narrator knows more than you think. One of the biggest things about the narrator is when he actually speaks for himself and not what the town feels, you can tell he cares for Emily unlike her neighbors. The effects of this type of narration on this short story might make the reader think that the narrator speaks for everyone because it uses “we”, “they”, “them”, “there”, etc. You don’t know who the narrator is but you get clues such