Flashbacks and Foreshadowing in a Rose for Emily free essay sample

A Rose for Emily Analysis Piecing Together the Puzzle: Flashbacks and Foreshadowing in A Rose for Emily William Faulkner incorporates flashbacks and foreshadowing into the plot of â€Å"A Rose for Emily,† to create an aura of suspense. Faulkner presents the life of the main character, Emily Grierson, in a seemingly disorganized manner, as the author wrote the events out of chronological order. The format of his story confuses the reader, and adds a level of mystery into the plot. The story begins at the end of Emily’s life, her funeral. The narrator appears as a citizen of the town attending. He or she expresses how Miss Emily’s unpopularity doesn’t affect the turnout, â€Å"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† (Faulkner 1). We will write a custom essay sample on Flashbacks and Foreshadowing in a Rose for Emily or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The quote sets the story up for a flashback, as one immediately wonders about the mystery behind the interior of the house. In the next paragraph Faulkner depicts her home as following, â€Å"It was a big squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. † (Faulkner 1). The author describes Miss Emily’s residence, as â€Å"decorated with cupolas and spires† (Faulkner 1), which installs in the reader’s mind a depiction of a luxurious property. Through the narrator’s thoughts, Faulkner expresses the magnificence of the house which stood twenty years ago, and then brings the reader back to present, by illustrating the house’s current outward appearance. The flashback allows the reader to gain a full understanding of the significant change which happened to Miss Emily during her transition from young adulthood to an elderly woman, as the author employs the house as an emblem of Miss Emily’s life. Throughout the story, flashbacks explain the relationship between Emily and her father. In the second section, the story jumps back to when Emily was just turning thirty years old. The author portrays Miss Emily as â€Å"a slender figure in white in the background† (Faulkner 2), to show her beauty and innocence when she was younger, and proceeds to describe her father as â€Å"a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door† (Faulkner 2). The previous quotes clear up the mystery to why Miss Emily behaves so strangely. One can assume her father hovered over her as a domineering figure in Emily’s life, and she doesn’t know how to blend in socially without him to guide her. â€Å"The Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were. None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such†¦ So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated;† The purpose of the flashback was to show her relationship with her father, and explain why she never entered a marriage. Her father deflects every suitor who attempts to court Emily, as a result she never experienced the joy of being in love. The reader may find the relationship between Homer Baron and Miss Emily suspect, as the previous quote describes how her family agrees no man was good enough for her. The suspense exacerbates as it causes the reader to doubt the success of Miss Emily, and Homer’s relationship. As the plot evolves, the reader will come to recognize the quote foreshadows into the reason Emily murdered Homer Baron. Driven by a desperate fear of loneliness, she killed Homer to circumvent the risk of him leaving her. The section of the story in which Miss Emily bought the arsenic also supports the theory of her killing Homer. The passage says, â€Å"The druggist looked down at her. She looked back at him, erect, her face like a strained flag. â€Å"Why, of course,† the druggist said. â€Å"If that’s what you want. But the law requires you tell what you are going to use it for. † Miss Emily just stared at him† (Faulkner 4). The reader already knows Miss Emily as a disturbed old woman; these lines in the story add suspense as they suggest she may do something atrocious with the arsenic. Faulkner writes about every significant event which occurs in Miss Emily Grierson life; however they are not in sequence. The reader must piece together which parts of the story are happening in real time, and which parts are flashbacks. The flashbacks of the story are important, as they give you background information, about Emily, her family, and her lifestyle. A rose for Emily is a puzzle, a puzzle the reader must put together, in order to properly understand the ending.