`A rose for Emily` Faulkner

`A Rose for Emily`

Faulkner 's story A Rose for Emily ' contains a variety of themes . The most important of them is perhaps the theme of decay in the life of aristocratic families of the South , caused by the ruination of their usual lifestyle and dissipation of their riches . Emily Grierson , from the once powerful Grierson family , is losing all claims to life in her tragic destiny to which her supernatural arrogance , imperial rule of her father and male treacherousness bring her . The once glamorous life of local nobility dissolves and turns

into stagnation and decay , dragging helpless Emily along

The evidence of decay is found both on a physical and spiritual level The of Emily 's abode is punctuated with the word once this is a house that had once been white , set on what had once been our most select street . Now , sadly , the street is non-existent and only Miss Emily 's house stands out as a lonesome sight . Her house remains an `eyesore ' among cotton gins and wagons , an oddity in what has now turned into an industrial neighbourhood . The view of the house that opens to the chance visitors is telltale of the former grandeur contrasting with the gloomy present . The room has leather-covered furniture , but the leather is cracked . The feeling of disuse is prevalent in the house , enveloped into a thick layer of dust . The servant , the Negro man , is getting older and older with years , acting as a reminder that time passes by without showing any improvement for the house or its dwellers

The sense of decay is underscored by the mention of the nasty smell coming from Emily 's house . The smell is indeed a real sign of devastation of Miss Emily 's personal life . Although the inhabitants of the place are not aware of it , it is the corpse of the man this aristocratic offspring once loved , the man on whom she pinned all her hopes for a woman 's happiness . Her hopes never materialised . Nobody will ever uncover what happened in that remote room where the dead man was found lying after Emily 's death , but perhaps she killed him after he refused to fulfil her feminine hopes and marry her . There he was found lying , a rotten corpse in her house instead of a loving husband that could have nurtured a handful of children together with Emily . Now the man of her hope and longing has turned into a horrifying rotten body covered with even coating of the patient and biding dust . This visual depiction is amazing in its strength of impression and immediately brings to mind the notion of shattered youthful expectations

Miss Emily herself has done nothing but deteriorate after the presumable departure of her beloved . She never managed to break free from her father 's influence and had to see all the young men who sought her attention driven vehemently from their house . After her father mercilessly deprived her of her chance of happiness through...