a rose for emily(8)

内容摘要

Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps – an eyesore among eyesores.(1.2)

The fact that the house was built in the 1870s tells us that Miss Emily's father must have been doing pretty well for himself after the Civil War. The narrator's description of it as an "eyesore among eyesores" is a double or even triple judgment. The narrator doesn't seem to approve of the urban sprawl. We also speculate that the house is an emblem of money probably earned in large part through the labors of slaves, or emancipated slaves. The final part of this judgment has to do with the fact that the house was allowed to decay and disintegrate.

For an idea of the kind of house Miss Emily lived in, take a look at artist Theora

Hamblett's house in Mississippi, built, like Emily's, in the 1870. Now picture the lawn overgrown, maybe a broken window or two, the paint worn and chipping and you have a the creepy house that Emily lived in, and which the children of the "newer generation" probably ran past in a fright.

The house, as is often the case in scary stories, is also a symbol of the opposite of what it's supposed to be. Like most humans, Emily wanted a house she could love someone in, and a house where she could be free. She thought she might have this with Homer Barron, but something went terribly wrong. This something turned her house into a virtual prison – she had nowhere else to go but home, and this home, with the corpse of Homer Barron rotting in an upstairs room, this home could never be shared with others. The house is a huge symbol of Miss Emily's isolation.

The Pocket Watch, the Stationery, and the Hair

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

These are all symbols of time in the story. What's more, the struggle between the past and the future threatens to rip the present to pieces. When members of the Board of

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