张晓瑾

The Symbol of Rose in A Rose for Emily

Zhang Xiaojin

【Abstract】

This paper explores the symbol of rose in A Rose for Emily by tracking the provenance of the word “rose”in the story. The author first attempts to reveal Emily's eager for love both mentally and physically as one symbol of “rose”. The concealed intention of William Faulkner behind the title is then presented as another symbol of “rose”.

【Key words】symbol; love; Eros; south complex

A Rose for Emily is told in third person. This gives the story sort of mysterious view. An unnamed narrator details Emily's life and her odd relationships with her father and her lover, Homer Barron. She is seen buying arsenic, which the townspeople believe she will use to commit suicide. After this, Homer Barron is not heard from again, and is assumed to have returned north. Though she does not commit suicide, the townspeople of Jefferson continue to gossip about her and her eccentricities, citing her family's history. She is heard from less and less, and rarely ever leaves her home. Until her death, she is found to hide in her upstairs and in the bed is Homer's corpse. This explains the horrid stench that emitted from Miss Emily's house forty years previously. By finding a single gray hair in the bed, the townspeople discover that Emily had been sleeping with the corpse. It is the masterpiece of William Faulkner's short fiction, appearing mysterious and fascinating with nontraditional writing techniques among which symbolism is fully adopted by Faulkner to express many ideas. This paper chooses to analyze the symbol of rose in this story. Titles are usually viewed as the theme or the generalized ideas that the authors tend to express in literary works. It's a common practice for the readers to focus on two key words: rose and Emily the first time they read a story entitled A Rose for Emily. Surprisingly, the word "rose" cannot be found as a noun in the story. "Rose" only appears twice as an adjective in the last section as in "upon the valance curtains of faded rose color" and "upon the rose-shaded lights." The failure to find roses and roses sent for Emily urges us to explore the symbolic meaning of rose for whose symbol is crucial to the understanding of this story. Symbols are not simple and easy to interpret sometimes. They are not made to stand for one idea, but for many. They mean more than one thing, and can be interpreted in many different ways by different readers. Faulkner took advantage of the symbolic meaning of rose throughout this short story. This paper tracks the provenance of the word "rose" in the story to analyze its symbolic meaning.

Readers can find "faded red rose color" and "rose-shaded lights" concerning rose in the last section. Rose is often a symbol of love, and portrays an everlasting beauty. The rose has been used for centuries to illustrate an everlasting type of love and faithfulness. Eager for sweet love captures every woman. Receiving red roses from one' beloved may be the happiest moment for a woman. Miss Emily is of no exception, which can be found in her room the "faded red rose color" and "rose-shaded lights". This is the second time the readers can find "rose" in this story. William Faulkner's symbolic use of the "rose" is essential to the story's theme of Miss Emily's self-isolation. She was denied her "rose" by her father and by the townspeople. They ruthlessly robbed Mill Emily's normal relationship just for the maintenance of their family's social position, for the tottering southern authority. "None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. We had long thought of them as a tableau." Being a young lady in white behind her father, Miss Emily's choice was compromise and obedience and what she reaped was noble position, safety and worship in her white house. Everyone deserves a rose in life. Emily found her "rose" after her father's death. The townspeople assumed because of Miss Emily's social status, and her age that she would be a spinster, and expected her to act as that has been formed in her father's time to remain as the model of south. But Miss Emily courageously loved Homer Baron, a construction worker who shed hope into Emily's life when he came into her life. He offered Emily a chance to feel love and to receive the affection she had previously only dreamed of. When Homer Barron arrived in Jefferson, he knew nothing of the lonely woman in the old white house. Although he was not of Miss Emily's hierarchy social status, "of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer." The people of the town looked at Emily as a person who is not a complete human being, not a woman but a model without any real needs like being liked, being cared. At the same time, her social position requires a certain sort of match to satisfy the town, and Homer Barron does not fit the bill. The townspeople wouldn't expect for Miss Emily to even be seen in public speaking with him. "Presently we began to see him and Miss Emily on Sunday afternoons driving in the yellow-wheeled buggy and the matched team of bays from the livery stable. At first we were glad that Miss Emily would have an interest because the ladies all said."How much courage did she need to be seen by the townspeople with this young guy just because of this sweet "rose"? Had she ever repented of her violation painfully before her father's portrait in her white house because of this northerner? No one in the town cared about what she needed in heart. What they want was a model of south lady with noble position, obedience, a complete southerner. The love between a southern and a northern was to risk everyone's condemnation in the town, which may be accepted for ordinary people but not for Miss Emily, who was a monument of southern gentility. The acronym of H.B on the objects for Homer Baron is a testimony of Miss Emily's sincere love, which is much the same as a normal girl in love would do for her beloved ones. But poor Emily as Faulkner had mentioned many times in the story, her only rose was going to be dined again. Miss Emily was a clear symbol of the past in the story and Baron was a clear symbol of the present, representing a conflict of a rapidly fading way of life and the new century and its new ways. She loved a man but didn't know the intrinsic differences between them. What's more, she didn't figure out what kind of a person Homer Baron was. For so many years, she had lived in isolation in her white house while Homer Baron lived a life of strolling. For so many years, she was used to coziness while Homer Baron tended to seize the time. The prejudiced standard required her to get married. How could a playboy fulfill the responsibility of marriage as the prejudiced standard required Miss Emily to have her "rose" under marriage? They conflicted. She allowed herself to love but would not allow herself to lose. She had lost everything that had ever come to her, including her father, her self-esteem. She chose an extreme way to get her "rose" forever, which scared people who entered her isolated house after Miss Emily's death. She lived with Homer Baron's corpus in the past years. She gave up freedom, never going out and living in isolation with her only "rose" in the "faded rose colored" bedroom under the "the rose-shaded lights." She lived in her own world of cruel romance. If we think the "faded rose color" is a sign of Miss Emily's the eager for love, why not take another look at the title A Rose for Emily. Miss Ma (2008) thought that EROS and ROSE are homophonies in English and the meaning of the former is "sex". From this point of view, eager for sex is another need for Miss Emily. According to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, each one is motivated by needs including needs at the bottom which has sex as a necessary part. Being a physically healthy woman, Miss Emily has the need-driven motivation to enjoy sex with the one she loved. And again, the "faded rose color" suggests Miss Emily's sadness in love. Homer sounds quite similar to "Home" and Homer was confined to Emily's bedroom for forty years. This is the most terrible way to have her rose forever. A Rose for Emily thus reveals the symbolic meaning of Emily's need for love mentally and sex physically.

Miss Emily's "rose" exists within the story's title and also the very first time comes to the readers. As a remarkable literary works, A Rose for Emily is widely read and debated. Faulkner's use of symbolism and his nontraditional chronology writing style create a story that has many interpretations among its readers. It can be assumed that a lot of them touch upon Faulkner's original intentions. As Harris and Fitzgerald (1988) pointed that Faulkner had showed sympathizes with Miss Emily that he would propose a toast for a man and send a rose for a woman. Then this rose must be from Faulkner. A Rose for Emily is one of the earliest, though most popular short stories of Faulkner, written in a gothic tradition. The story is set against Faulkner's south, his first true southern story about his townspeople, in the small town of Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, and is included in `The Village′. Crosman(1982) once stated that the narrator himself is the reader of the story of Miss Emily. He was adept at combing several segments into one complete picture trying to reveal the significance of Emily's life. He was just one of the townspeople himself. The story takes place when the Civil War is over .The conflict between the past and the present is one of the main themes of this story. Faulkner himself is one of the southerners in the face of this conflict. The south complex roots deeply in his heart. The foundation that economy depends on for existence at the plantation has been out of existence. Plantation economy moves towards collapsing. The impact of the northern civilization makes it not be legal to hold slaves any more. In the face of the new economic mode of the North and culture values, some people fight stubbornly with one's back to the wall. The conflict between the present and the past is the conflict designating the contrast between the south and the north in the American. According to Xiao (1997), Miss Emily undertakes to become the monument for old south. Emily is a symbol of old values, standing for tradition, duty and glory. Emily is undoubtedly the models of these declining aristocrats. Southern represents decline, while northern represents rise. Between the decline and rise, there are some people who are bearing the misfortune due to tenaciously defending after all. “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 man-servant——a combined gardener and cook had seen in at least ten years.”The death of Miss Emily is a sign of falling down of this monument. Although she was dead, she still lived in her idolaters' hearts. In their eyes, Miss Emily was an angel. As one of them recalling the past, William Faulkner sent a rose for Miss Emily to commemorate his south complex. From the title, we can sense the intention of the south complex of Faulkner and the rose sent for Emily is from Faulkner. This is the only rose that Miss Emily got after her death and also the only one rose all her life.

References

[1] Crosman, Robert. How Readers Make Meaning. College Literature (1982): 14- 15.

[2] Harris L, Fitzgerald F. S. Short Story Criticism. Detroit: Gale Research Company. 1988.

[3]William Faulkner. Collected Stories. New York: Random House, 1950.

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