Rhetorical Essay: Arose for Emily
Introduction
William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is a rich setting of sim City style where he used his own style to create MissEmily’shouse, which is an important symbol in the story. It is easy to get lost in the enchanted land of William Faulkner’s genre because the tone adopted by the author reflects two sides of Jeffersonian nature. Faulkner is famous for not holding back his style; he is popular for his descriptive wordiness, as reflected in A Rose for Emily. There is no rose in the story of Faulkner, but we find the rose word in the story title and passages multiple times. The ending of the story includes finding the dead corpse of Homer Barron, which is nasty and surprising.
Rhetorical Analysis
While reading the story A Rose for Emily by Faulkner, one can get a feeling that it is an allegory which contains hidden meanings. There is something very wrong mentioned by the author in the story regarding the main protagonist, Miss Emily; Jefferson people are unwilling to face the facts and come up with excuses. Right after the Civil War ended, the old Southern practices enabled the Confederate states to perform racism, which Emily represents in Jefferson town. As she belonged to a prominent mother and father in town, she fell from grace due to the death of her father and psychological illness. She was a person who refused to change her ways and thinking with time.
Emily’s attempt to rebel against society and social norms reflects that she was mentally unsound and wanted independence in an unnatural way by dating a young working-class Yankee who was considerably below her standards. She tried to force him to love her, which shows an attempt to build a loving relationship with someone sexually, but she failed again.
Faulkner conveys the message of struggle that comes from trying to maintain tradition in the face of widespread, radical change in the mysterious figure of Miss Emily. In the story, Emily herself represents a tradition that has remained the same for many years despite the fact that the community has faced many changes. She also represents the traditions of the past that individuals used to honour and respect. Emily was completely cut off from the outside world; she had also become a burden others find hard to understand.
Emily’s life was in a vacuum, and she was out of touch with the modern reality of her town. Emily’s bridal chamber also represents her desire to stop change at the expense of human lives. Faulkner is a persuader who convinces the audience that ethics and traditions are something worth caring for in society. Emily did not respect the ethics and traditions and paid the price by giving her life and loved ones.
The author appeals to the emotions of readers with his convincing arguments; Emily’s plea for indolence reveals that her unreal behaviour would bring out the best results for her life. Nobody recommended her to love a person below her standards of life who gave her nothing but heartache in the end. The author uses pathos as an emotion; in the case of Emily, the emotions of love for Brown and her father were intensely reflecting her sad feelings. The age of brown over forty represents a number that is considered a logo in the rhetorical triangle.
The element of sentimentality is present intensely in the story, which is a representation of pathos; the town’s people offered Emily their help, which she refused to take; it reflects a logical decision on their part to help the ill girl, reflecting logos. The various elements of human interaction in the story cover the rhetorical triangle of Aristotle, which helps the audience to understand human beings like Emily and Jefferson people. Emily’s intellect displayed weak logic with her naïve behaviour; the author is creating emotions in the story through her enchanted, dark, twisted character who knows how to express her anger strongly. Emily is a perfect example of pathos.
Being a rhetorical critic, the author Faulkner demonstrates how Emily is resisting change in her life with complete evidence in the story. It is the best example of using logos. Emily had no idea how to react to the tragic death of her father and went insane; the language she used contributed towards the pathos in the story. There are more emotions in the story when the people of town feel sorry for Emily. The power of death is a logical concept in the story, while Emily denied that her father was dead and could not handle any change in her life.
Emily confined herself to her house and refused to go out in society from the day her father died; her house also symbolizes solitude and psychological illness, which brought the death of more people. For the pursuit of happiness, the character of Emily does things that are unusual in the story. No wonder Emily had a hard time, but her refusal to accept and adapt to change is something others cannot do anything. From the perspective of Miss Emily, the language of the story gives the worldview of Emily to the reader; Emily creates confusion in the reader’s mind to understand the reality of death. It was almost as if Emily did not know she was alive or dead or if her life was ending or beginning.
References
Analysis, " A. “A Rose For Emily” Rhetorical Analysis | Academic About William Faulkner.” Teenink.com. N.p., 2018. Web. 8 Mar. 2018.
Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily and Other Stories. [S.I.]: Random House Publishing Group, 2012. Print.
“Sparknotes: A Rose For Emily: Themes.” Sparknotes.com. N.p., 2018. Web. 8 Mar. 2018.
