“A Rose For Emily” is a short story written by William Faulkner. The most effective literary element in this short story was the symbolism that Faulkner used. The symbols that Faulkner used made it very clear that time has a major impact on life in many different ways. These symbols and how clearly they represented time’s effects on life were what made “A Rose For Emily” such an effective short story. The first effective symbol is Emily’s house. In most fiction, old family houses are typically symbolic of something. In “A Rose For Emily” her house is symbolic of how much time affected Emily. The house wasn’t cared for at all, which shows time’s effect on Emily. She is aging, but she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want time to move forward and
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Emily wanted to share that home with somebody that she loved which would be Homer Barron. However; something went horribly wrong and that didn’t happen. After his body had started to rot in the upstairs bedroom, the house was contaminated and she couldn’t ever share that with somebody. This symbol is effective because it shows how much the time after Homer Barron’s death has affected Emily. It is like time has stopped for her and she doesn’t care what is going on around her. She refuses to move with time and move into the future. She is still remaining in the past and ignoring time …show more content…
She can always hear the pocket watch, and she always keeps it somewhere on her person. As the clock keeps ticking, her happiness and her chance of regaining it are slipping away from her. Everything around her is decaying and so is her chance of finding happiness in her life after her lover has passed away. These symbols convey that time has a very different meaning to Emily than it does to others around her. To Emily, time is this negative force that is trying to make her move forward in her life. She obviously does not want to move forward into the future. Her necrophiliac behaviors simply prove this because she refuses to let go of the past. The way that this symbol conveyed that time is a huge factor in people’s lives was what made it effective. It showed this through Emily’s negative attitude towards time and her refusal to move forward with
Emily wanted to share that home with somebody that she loved which would be Homer Barron. However; something went horribly wrong and that didn’t happen. After his body had started to rot in the upstairs bedroom, the house was contaminated and she couldn’t ever share that with somebody. This symbol is effective because it shows how much the time after Homer Barron’s death has affected Emily. It is like time has stopped for her and she doesn’t care what is going on around her. She refuses to move with time and move into the future. She is still remaining in the past and ignoring time …show more content…
She can always hear the pocket watch, and she always keeps it somewhere on her person. As the clock keeps ticking, her happiness and her chance of regaining it are slipping away from her. Everything around her is decaying and so is her chance of finding happiness in her life after her lover has passed away. These symbols convey that time has a very different meaning to Emily than it does to others around her. To Emily, time is this negative force that is trying to make her move forward in her life. She obviously does not want to move forward into the future. Her necrophiliac behaviors simply prove this because she refuses to let go of the past. The way that this symbol conveyed that time is a huge factor in people’s lives was what made it effective. It showed this through Emily’s negative attitude towards time and her refusal to move forward with