The Gothic Elements In A Rose For Emily

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The Gothic Elements in A Rose For Emily A Rose For Emily is split into five sections without following an order of chronological time. Faulkner uses first person narration to brilng the readers into the town, into Miss Emily. The first sentence of the story shows how the citizens of Jefferson felt about Emily: ”When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to the 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.” Then the narration goes on with the description of the Grierson house in Jefferson that Miss Emily Grierson's home has become "an eyesore among eyesores." After a clear description of the history behind the town's relations to Miss Emily, there happens an event “when the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen”---- Miss Emily refuses to pay any tax as if it is justified. The second section describes Emily’s life after her father’s death. She actually tried to deny her father’s death by keeping her father's dead body unburied. However the terrible smell make the town people crazy: “Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly.” The third section begins with Emily’s sicking. The narrator notes that a foreman named Homer who comes from North with a crew of men to build sidewalks in Jefferson. After Emily and Homer are seen driving out on Sunday afternoons, Emily visits a druggist. There, she asks for arsenic. Town people believe that Miss Emily is going to commit suicide since “Homer himself had remarked--he liked men” in the beginning of section four. After Homer’s leaving and then returning, he is last seen entering Emily's home and then never seen again.

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