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Discussing the Elements of Fiction through Faulkner 's A Rose for Emily

and Gail Godwin 's A Sorrowful Woman

In studying a piece of short fiction , it is important to discuss it in terms of the elements which make the story . This will discuss the similarities and differences in character , setting , plot and point of view between William Faulkner 's A Rose for Emily ' and Gail Godwin 's A Sorrowful Woman

Both stories have , for their main character , a woman who has chosen to

br withdraw her physical and emotional connections with those whom she has been interacting with . In Emily Grieson 's case , it is a retreat from society while for the unnamed wife in Godwin 's story it is a withdrawal from her family . Their past connections define for them their respective roles and gave them a sense of belonging to an institution : Jefferson town for Miss Grieson and the family for Godwin 's character . Their reasons for withdrawing are different , however . For Emily , it is the inability to adapt to a changing world . In life , she is described as a tradition , a duty , and a care (Faulkner ' Even while the people were secretly thrilled and pitiful when her father died and left her poor she has retained her sense of haughty pride : she carried her head high enough - even when we (the townspeople ) believed she had fallen (Faulkner ' The ultimate effect of her self-delusion is shown when she kills her lover , keeps his dead body and shares the bed with him . The act is symbolic of her stubbornness to give up the possessions that once made her a member of a well-respected and influential family in Jefferson even when all have long left her . In the case of the sorrowful woman , her retreat begins when one winter evening , she looked at (her husband and son (and ) the sight of them made her so sad and sick she did not want to see them ever again (Godwin ' This repulsion is symbolic of her dissatisfaction with the roles she play in relation to these two persons in her life . While Emily detaches only the present world but remains living in the old , the sorrowful woman refuses to be a part of the world altogether . One by one , she wrings herself from the responsibilities that define her being a wife and mother . She tries on other roles and pretends to be other people , but she merely tries these personalities like costumes , then discarded them (Godwin However , while she shuns the regularity of her life she could not live without any form of routine or pattern . She brushes her hair every afternoon , write sonnets following the rules of the form , and later on she would steal to the kitchen and cook for her family . Eventually unable to find satisfaction with either a structured life or one without structure , she commits suicide . Like Emily , the sorrowful woman dies without ever finding or getting what she longs for

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