"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner

[Mrs. Terenzi]

Looking forward to our PLOT week of bootcamp, I'd like you to pay special attention to the structure of this short story.  The story is not told in chronological order, yet is organized (or sequenced) in a very deliberate way.  What, in your view, is the structure of the story?  i.e. How is it organized?  What effects does the structure have on your reading?  Why might Faulkner have chosen to tell his story this way?

 

Please post by Sunday 9/16 by midnight.

[dmvargas1995]

The structure of the story is a bit confusing. In the beginning of the story it starts off by talking about Miss Emily's funeral and then it refers back to the past when Miss Emily was alive. The story continues on in the past all the way up to the present when they then broke into a room in Miss Emily's house after her death. Faulkner describes several events from Miss Emily's past that jump around from past to not present, but before present. The events that are described are events that happened in order throughout her life to show how away from society Emily has always been. The text of the story is not in chronological order, but they do lead up to her death and the discovery of the killing of her soon to be husband. The structure caused there to be a little bit of a mystery going on throughout the story and it kept me wondering and asking myself questions. Faulkner may have chose to write his story this way because he wanted to do exactly what he did at the end. He wanted to conceal the whole point of the story by throwing the reader off with a few past events. He wanted to keep the reader interested in the story he was telling by rising the tension in each event as the story went on.

[kev55guevara]

The structure of the story is set up in a unique way. The story starts with Miss. Emily’s funeral, and the whole town went to her funeral, so she was obviously loved by her town. Then the story cuts to when Miss Emily was alive, and how the mayor had remitted her taxes. Faulkner is establishing how important Miss Emily was to the town because she was the only one who did not have to pay taxes. The story then talks about how after her father died and her “sweetheart” abandoned her, she isolated herself from the town.  The story then talks about how she got sick for a long time, and then she bought a very powerful poison. During all of this the townspeople all feel sorry for her and assume that she is going to kill herself. Sometime after that Miss Emily died, and the story cuts back to the present. By organizing the story like this, Faulkner created a flashback like effect that made the reader a part of the town. He forced the reader to learn about Miss Emily as if the reader was actually there listening to the townspeople talk about Miss Emily. 

[Walid_94]

Both Desiree and Kevin G. make a valid point about how the beginning is really unique. The whole structure of the short story keeps us readers more interested in the story because in the beginning, we find out she dies, then he starts to talk about her life right before her death , which makes us want to find out what the cause of death was. Faulkner's "Love and Relationships" is set up just like a movie, more specifically a horror movie. In most horror movies, the movie always starts off by someone getting murdered and they don't show the murderer; this short story is no different, it begins by talking about the death of a woman and then shares with us her final days. Personally, I really like the structure of the story; it always keeps me wanting to find out more. From each transition, Faulkner only speaks about the important things that were occurring in Miss Emily's life--he gets straight to the point and doesn't really add fluff. If he didn't make transitions or have this story written in many chapters, he wouldn't be able to talk about Miss Emily's life like he does with the transitions he has. The story would be third person, not first person since it would only take a short amount of time to write it in third person. 

[Walid_94]

Faulkner's "Rose for Emily," not Love and Relationship ****

[Nghi Ta]

The structure of this story is indeed very different. Faulkner starts off the story by stating that Miss Emily was a fallen monument, and that no one has seen her or the inside of her house for at least a decade. This is where we start pondering why she was isolated from society. Did she hate everyone? What happened to her? Faulkner then talks about how the mayor kept remitting her taxes, then how a bad odor surfaced from her house, and then jumps to her father’s death. In part III, he mentions that she was sick for a long time, but in IV, he says, “We did not even know she was sick” (662). In part III, they assumed that 1) everyone felt bad for her and 2) she wanted to kill herself, both because she was sick. Both rumors developed after Homer Baron was first seen with her, and we didn’t really know what was going on between them. We didn’t know what happened to the arsenic because the rumors started after she bought it, so it was as if maybe she didn’t want to kill herself now that she was persuaded by Homer. We also didn’t know Homer was the “sweetheart that deserted her” (659) until we never heard of him again. Nor did we know that the odor was due to his death. Because this story wasn’t in chronological order, we were never sure of why something was happening. It was all very confusing and I had to second guess everything. Faulkner wrote it this way for suspense; he always wanted to keep his readers on their toes. He also wrote it in first-person plural because he wanted us to understand what was happening to Miss Emily in the eyes of the townspeople. The townspeople were never positive what was going on with Emily either, and everything they said were assumptions. If it third-person, everything would be fact. 

[BadrKis]

The structure of the story is bizarre as it is all over the place, but the way the story is set up plays a big role in bringing in and attaching the reader to the story. At first the narrator starts off at Emily’s funeral with all the townspeople talking about her importance and place in the town. Miss Emily is the towns’ idol even though she is dead the towns’ people look upon her as some sort of leader. The second part of the story has Emily at her house and her fathers’ death occurring, she is trying to dodge tax payments as well after this encounter. Something weird also happens to Emily as she doesn’t give up her father’s body of a few days, believing is his still alive and well. The third part brings us to Emily’s illness after her father’s death and her affair with Homer the constructor from the North. The relationship between Homer and Emily is not really heated as they only go out on Sundays, but the townspeople still look down upon Emily because she has an affair. The fourth part shows a minister going to Emily’s house to see how she is doing, the Minister is shaken for going over her house, and two of Emily’s cousins come over. Homer is gone and he is nowhere to be seen, after Emily’s cousins come. The final part of the story has the townspeople breaking open Emily’s top floor of her house, and they find Homer’s body as well as a long grey strand of hair and an indent in the pillow next to Homer’s. The structure of the story plays a big role in the reader’s following of the story, from a standard chronological story the reader can almost infer what is going to happen next, but with this story the complexity of the structure gives the reader a challenge.

[kevins19957]

I agree a little with Desiree because the strucutre did seem to be confusing. I think the reason for which Faulkner decided to introduce the audience to such a compelling statement was because he wanted to quickly catch the reader's attention. By stating' : When Miss Emily Gierson died, our whole town went to her funeral."

This immediately made me want to know who she was and how exactly she had died. In my opinion the structure is no organized in chronological order, but rather on the transition from which the new more modern ideas came into the setting. When the “next generation” of townspeople had become to be relevant in the beginning of the story Miss Emily’s interaction with the people increased. They wanted her to resume paying her taxes, but she refused stating that they should “see Colonel Sartoris.” This new generation made Miss Emily become more relevant to her near exclusion from society. As the story progresses so does the interaction of the new generation with Miss Emily. They go as far as to sneak into her house to get rid of an awful smell. Other examples of society attempting to interact with Miss Emily include her exempting herself from having number placed upon her home after the mail service demands it. But the most obvious example of this increased interaction with the new more modern residents is Miss Emily’s relationship with Homer. Homer, unlike Miss Emily was very upbeat with “eyes lighter than his face” and was constantly laughing. He was also from the North. Although it made it somewhat confusing for me to read at first since I do not have much experience with these kind of texts, I feel as though Faulkner organized it this was to demonstrate the struggle of transition from a more traditional view (Miss Emily) to that of the new generation in her town. Although she attempted to live in the past by acknowledging her father, the townspeople constantly and effectively managed to break her traditions and staying hidden from society, but also managed to contribute to her death.

[maggylovesjellyfish]

In "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, the story is not told chronologically from beginning to end. The end replaces the beginning and then the story backtracks up until where the end would typically be placed. The story is however organized into five divisions. The first division, the beginning of the story, centers on Miss Emily Grierson's (the main character) death and her position in the community. When she died the "whole town went to her funeral" (657). Emily is like a myth that belongs to their town and everybody crowded around her at death, yet she lived a very shut-in and lonesome life for most of her years. To begin a story with the main character's death suggests that her death is not the resolution to the story and it is important to notice what led up to her death. Her real life will unravel and reveal why her death is notable. In addition to Emily's mysteriousness and hermit lifestyle, the first division mentions that Emily is the only person in the community who does not pay taxes. Colonel Sartoris remitted her taxes after her father had died, perhaps as an act of sympathy and pity, and now the new sheriff does not uphold the same word. Though the Board of Alderman attempt to get her to pay taxes Emily dismisses them and tells them several times to refer to Sartoris (who has been ded for over ten years). Emily is established as a stubborn and prominent woman, always referred to as Miss Emily, never just Emily. The second division focuses on Emily's father's death. Emily's father played a significant role in her life and she became very attached to him. They were the only two people living in their house and her father largely influenced why Emily was still single at thirty years of age. Her father died and there was a complaint about the smell, as she kept his body in the house. Three days of people pressing her and her denying his death passed and she finally broke down but the town "did not say she was crazy then" (660). She obsessed over his body and that was somehow understandable because she was so alone. The third division toys with disease and suicide/ murder. Emily had gotten sick, but it is unclear with what. She comes to the druggist and asks for poison. Emily does not accept a simple rat poison, but asks for arsenic by name. The druggist is required to ask her why she needs it and she makes no reply. Instead of pressing her, the bottle marks "`For rats`" (661). Her lack of reply suggests that the poison may be for a suicide or for a homicide. The fourth division reveals Emily's reason to live and maybe why she dies. Emily finally meets her unexpected sweetheart. Homer Barron was a day laborer from the North, definitely not the kind of man welcomed by a prestigious southern family. He becomes the only person Emily has a relationship with and they even are suspected as soon to be wed. The fifth and last division shockingly reveals Homer's death. When Emily's home is inspected after her death one room is the focus. The room embodies Emily and Homer's love. It was "furnished as for a bridal" (663): there were rose colored curtains, rose shaded lights, Homer's suit and shoes, and his toilet things. Most unexpectadly, Homer's corpse lied in the bed. The body had "apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace" (663) and in the second pillow "was an indentation of a head" (663) and "a long strand of iron-gray hair" (663). The room speaks to the traditional wedding vow of "'til death do us part". Homer's death does not stop Emily from living Homer and she keeps a second body. Referring to the comment made after her father's death, it seems that the town  now thinks Emily was crazy. Emily's cause of death is never revealed, but perhaps it is from her broken heart. The story comes full circle, from death to death, and on the way reveals Emily's secret, concealed life. Emily's death attracts the whole town because of her character and Emily is unravelled through the divisions.

[samanthaleecoleman]

It’s clearly established that “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner is not in chronological order. In the beginning, it is stated that Miss Emily is dead. It provides information on who went to her funeral and why. It quickly jumps back to her being alive and summarizes the things she did prior to her death (obviously). The story mentions death a lot. It starts with Miss Emily’s death (ironically, she is the last to die), her father’s death, and Homer’s death. The audience doesn’t know Miss Emily in the beginning of the story and for Faulkner to mention her death first is a bit odd. Maybe he does this because the entire plot of the story reverts back to her death? I find the structure of the story to be interesting, actually. I think the way Faulkner transitions into different things in a “non-chronological” way makes for a better plot. It can be challenging at first, but once you read the story in its entirety, it leads to better questions.