The Plot; Main Ingredients of the Story

The Plot; Main Ingredients of the Story

  • Submitted By: darrelmasc
  • Date Submitted: 03/09/2010 6:46 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 1665
  • Page: 7
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A Rose for Emily – Brainstorm and Critique of the story

In "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, In order for a story to take shape, one of the main ingredients is the plot. An author must figure out where the story is going to take the reader. In the story, William Faulkner uses in medias res, flashback, and foreshadowing to tell the story of a heartbroken and disenchanted woman. We see how past events effect the main character Miss Emily, especially her mental state. She seems to live in a sort of fantasy world where death has no real meaning. Miss Emily refuses to accept or even recognize the death of her father or that of Colonel Satoris. She does not want to acknowledge the fact that the world around her was changing therefore Miss Emily surrounds herself with death. What Faulkner tries to state in this story is that you should not let death overpower your life. A person should try and let go of their beloved ones after they have passed away. He also tries to state is to always expect the unexpected, like when Miss Emily killed Homer.
Faulkner chooses to use third person narration in this particular story for a couple of reasons. He tries to show Emily's world to us as seen through the eyes of a respectable resident, so we can understand the town life as if we lived there. This way we were able to understand how the people of Jefferson thought of her. If the story would have been told in first person we would not have been able to relate to Miss Emily. The reason for that would be, if she would have been the narrator we would have understood the story in a whole different manner. Faulkner used third person narration and from that we were able to find out many things about Miss Emily's past. For instance the death of her father, the love she had for Homer, and how she felt the need for affection. Those ideas she would have kept to herself, if she were to have told the story.
Another technique William Faulkner uses was flashbacks. After starting at...

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