Writing Essays - The Monster in Faulkner's Story, A Rose for Emily

To help you write essays about literature, here's a little analysis I've worked up on William Faulkner's highly acclaimed short story, "A Rose for Emily" (NOTE: You may want to read and study the story online as you follow my reasoning, here, so create another tab in your browser, then go to Google Search and type in "A Rose for Emily" and be sure to type the quote marks; you can use ALT-TAB to move between the story and this article):

As I've pointed out in other articles, every story - whether a short story or a novel - has to have some major change by the end. This change is the most important factor to keep in mind when you analyze and then write essays about any story, whether short or long.

Short Stories

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What is that change? Why, a new view reverse, of course - always!

Writing Essays - The Monster in Faulkner's Story, A Rose for Emily

I'll show you how to use the following three-step new view analysis process on Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," which you can then use on any short story -

#1 - At the beginning of a short story, a strong value statement, an old view, is given by or about the main character, asserting an evaluation or describing some characteristic, goal, or desire.

As we start this masterful short story, the old view pops right out at us - it's the very first sentence:

When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant-a combined gardener and cook-had seen in at least ten years.

Note that I've bolded respectful affection. That sounds like a pretty strong value statement, doesn't it, especially since the "whole town went to her funeral." Question is, how will that strong positive value about Emily change by the end of the story?

#2 - In the middle of a short story, the old view is supported or undercut with descriptions, conflicts, and resolutions to conflicts that set up the new view at the end.

Now, I'm not going to comment on everything in the story. But did you notice that every section of the story has something to do with the townspeople's respect for Emily? Sometimes there was even affection along with the respect.

DESCRIPTION: Several descriptions occur in this short story, but one stands out from the rest. In the first section, after the brief introduction, the board of alderman from the town (city councilmen) have come to her mansion to meet with Miss Emily to convince her to pay her taxes, and - They rose when she entered - a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare, bloated....

Note that Miss Emily is dressed in black, with a contrasting thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt. At the end of that chain, no doubt, is a watch, which makes a figure eight of the chain with the out-of-sight watch at the end, over her abdomen. Her body is covered in black clothing and she is bloated, both face and abdomen, while her arms and legs are small and spare or thin, like the cane she carries.

We cannot grasp the significance of this description until the new view in the final scene of the story, which I'll comment on then, of course. Just keep this description in mind, okay? We'll bring it up again at the end of this discussion.

CONFLICT: In the second section, neighbors complain that bad smells from Emily's house are contaminating the neighborhood. But the town's aldermen respectfully refuse to talk to Emily about it, refuse to accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad.

RESOLUTION: To avoid a conflict with Emily about the smell, the aldermen respectfully took it upon themselves to go out at night and sprinkled lime about the grounds and in the cellar of Emily's house to get rid of the smell. The smell disappears in two weeks.

CONFLICT: Also in the second section, Emily refused for three days to admit that her father had died and wouldn't let anyone in to take his body to get it ready for burial.

RESOLUTION: The townspeople show respectful pity for Emily by not forcefully entering and taking the body to get it ready for funeral and burying. After three days, their respectful pity finally influences Emily, who literally broke down emotionally and let them in.

CONFLICT: The third section ends in a conflict that Emily has with the town druggist. She asks the druggist for some poison. But because he is required by law to record what the poison will be used for, the druggist keeps trying to get Emily to say what she'll do with the poison. But Miss Emily just stared at him. No matter what the druggist said, she wouldn't respond to the question.

RESOLUTION: The druggist gave Emily the poison anyway, in spite of the law. He merely filled in the information himself, For rats, without any input from her. He gave in to Emily out of respect for her social position, no doubt, as we have seen so often.

CONFLICT & RESOLUTION: Toward the end of the fourth section, a minor conflict and resolution occurred and passed quickly on, with Emily winning yet another conflict because of the town's respectful affection for her: When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She would not listen to them.

In every case of conflict in the story, respectful affection for Emily and respect for her social position is what resolves the conflict that the townspeople have with Emily's conduct.

#3. At the end of a short story, a new view reverse of the old view is usually revealed.

In section five of the story, at Emily's funeral, the townspeople wait respectfully until Emily is buried before they break into (which can be viewed as a kind of conflict/resolution, too) the upper room of her mansion, which has been locked for years, probably decades. The room is covered with very fine dust, and they find there a decaying skeleton in the bed, obviously belonging to Homer, Emily's boyfriend of decades ago.

In the pillow right next to the skeleton is the surprise - they find a deep indentation where someone must have laid their head repeatedly and somewhat recently, because they find there a long strand of iron-grey hair in the indentation - Emily's hair, without a doubt, since Faulkner has described Emily's hair as iron grey.

Here's the new view-the respectful affection of the townspeople at the start of the story must turn around, must reverse to a strong revulsion after they learn that Emily killed her lover and slept with his decaying body through many years, even decades. It takes some kind of a repulsive monster to do something like that!

With that thought in mind, recall the description of Emily in the first section: a small, fat woman in black. While not a perfect match, that description is fairly close to that of a black widow spider. Remember the figure eight - the thin gold chain - ending out of sight on the bloated abdomen? And the spare or thin limbs, with the cane adding a fifth sort of limb, which is one more than half of the eight limbs of a spider? Remember the fat, bloated body? So this view of Emily killing her lover is very like a black widow spider killing her male partner.

Why did the townspeople break into that locked room in the first place? They weren't sure what was in there, but they expected to find something important there, obviously. And that something provided a new view reverse of respectful affection for Miss Emily, at the very least for the reader, if not for the townspeople, as well.

Now, these sample thesis statements can help give you a some ideas for writing a strong essay on William Faulkner's superbly crafted short story, "A Rose for Emily:"

Faulkner uses his short story,A Rose for Emily, to illustrate the theme that, 'Human nature can be corrupted when an individual is given too many unearned privileges and too much undeserved respectful affection.' In a surprise ending, William Faulkner's short story, A Rose for Emily, reveals how a society steeped in a tradition of respect for social position can be so tragically, so ironically wrong. In A Rose for Emily, Faulkner repeatedly uses conflict and resolution to hammer home the respectful affection the townspeople have for Emily-until the end. Descriptive imagery about the mansion in A Rose for Emily adds to the revelation about Miss Emily's true character at the end, which has been hidden by the house for decades. In A Rose for Emily, the single long strand of iron-grey hair at the end becomes a symbol suggesting Emily killed her boyfriend, which clears up the incidents of the smell, the rat poison, and the disappearance of Homer-not to mention reversing the townspeople's ever-present respectful affection for Emily.

Writing Essays - The Monster in Faulkner's Story, A Rose for Emily

Next, you'll want to read author Bill Drew's e-book, The Secret DNA of Analyzing Short Stories, which analyzes ten famous short stories using the NewView Analysis method that he demonstrated with Faulkner's short story, "A Rose for Emily."

To help you come up with new ideas and effective ways to support them in whatever writing you do, especially in writing essays, Drew has also authored and published these additional e-books, which are available at his website and at Amazon.com: The Secret DNA of Writing Essays - And Everything Else, The Secret DNA of Writing Thesis Statements, The Secret DNA of Topic Sentences That Entice Readers, and The Secret DNA of Analyzing Published Essays.

Drew's unique and effective NewView methods of writing, reading, analyzing, and communicating came out of his work on his Master's degree in English. His NewView principles and methods are currently being successfully taught in elementary, middle school, and high school classes, as well as by businessmen and marketers.

Upcoming books planned by Drew include NewView: THE Key Insight into Writing & Communicating, The Secret DNA of Analyzing Novels with NewView, The Secret DNA of Introductions and Conclusions, The Secret DNA of School Writing w/ Lesson Plans, The Secret DNA of Shakespeare's Plays, The Secret DNA of Communication, and many more to come in the Secret DNA series.

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Report Writing - How to Format a Business Report

Introduction

Report writing is a time consuming business so it is a great shame if, having devoted all that time to writing your report, the quality is such that hardly anyone can be bothered to read it. Quite frankly, most report readers do not actually read all the report; they are too short of time. You might as well know it and accept it -- that is normal. They only read the parts that interest them. Frequently these are the summary, the conclusions and recommendations.

Short Stories

Of course, some readers do need all the details you so carefully included, they are specialists, but most do not. Most readers just need two things: that the information they want is where they expect it to be so they can find it, and that it is written clearly so that they can understand it.

Report Writing - How to Format a Business Report

It is similar to reading a newspaper. You expect the news headlines to be on the front page; the sports coverage to be at the back; the TV listings on page whatever and the editorial comment in the middle. If what you want is not in its usual place then you have to hunt for it and you may get irritated. So it is with a report.

There is a convention as to what goes where. Stick with the convention and please your readers. Break the convention and people may get slightly irritated - and bin your report.

So what is that convention, the standard format?

Standard Sections

Title Section. In a short report this may simply be the front cover. In a long one it could also include Terms of Reference, Table of Contents and so on.

Summary. Give a clear and very concise account of the main points, main conclusions and main recommendations. Keep it very short, a few percent of the total length. Some people, especially senior managers, may not read anything else so write as if it were a stand-alone document. It isn't but for some people it might as well be. Keep it brief and free from jargon so that anyone can understand it and get the main points. Write it last, but do not copy and paste from the report itself; that rarely works well.

Introduction. This is the first part of the report proper. Use it to paint the background to 'the problem' and to show the reader why the report is important to them. Give your terms of reference (if not in the Title Section) and explain how the details that follow are arranged. Write it in plain English.

Main Body. This is the heart of your report, the facts. It will probably have several sections or sub-sections each with its own subtitle. It is unique to your report and will describe what you discovered about 'the problem'.

These sections are most likely to be read by experts so you can use some appropriate jargon but explain it as you introduce it. Arrange the information logically, normally putting things in order of priority -- most important first. In fact, follow that advice in every section of your report.

You may choose to include a Discussion in which you explain the significance of your findings.

Conclusions. Present the logical conclusions of your investigation of 'the problem'. Bring it all together and maybe offer options for the way forward. Many people will read this section. Write it in plain English. If you have included a discussion then this section may be quite short.

Recommendations. What do you suggest should be done? Don't be shy; you did the work so state your recommendations in order of priority, and in plain English.

Appendices. Put the heavy details here, the information that only specialists are likely to want to see. As a guide, if some detail is essential to your argument then include it in the main body, if it merely supports the argument then it could go in an appendix.

Conclusions and Recommendations

In conclusion, remember that readers expect certain information to be in certain places. They do not expect to hunt for what they want and the harder you make it for them the more likely they are to toss you report to one side and ignore it. So what should you do?

1. Follow the generally accepted format for a report: Summary, Introduction, Main Body, Conclusions, Recommendations and Appendices.
2. Organise your information in each section in a logical fashion with the reader in mind, usually putting things in order of priority - most important first.

Good luck with your report writing!

Author: Tony Atherton
© Tony Atherton 2005)

Report Writing - How to Format a Business Report

Tony Atherton is a freelance trainer and writer based in England. He has had four books published and about 90 of his articles have appeared in various magazines and journals. After an earlier career in industry he now runs in-company training courses in business writing, report writing (including technical reports) and taking minutes, as well as negotiation skills and time management. Over 6000 delegates have attended his courses. See http://www.tony-atherton.co.uk/reportwriting.htm for details of report writing courses, or see http://www.tony-atherton.co.uk for general information.

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