《献给艾米丽的玫瑰花》人物简要分析

A brief analysis of characters of A Rose for Emily

Abstract: “A Rose for Emily", by William Faulkner, begins and ends with the death of Miss Emily Grierson, the main character of the story. William Faulkner divided the story "into five sections, the first and last section having to do with the present, and the now of the narration, with the three middle sections detailing the past". This paper attempts to talk about who Emily really was, and to analysis her characters. In this paper, the author did not regard Emily as a sick and twist woman as many other people, and aims to help the readers understand this story better in another point of view.

Key words: character; symbolism; tragedy;

《献给艾米丽的玫瑰花》人物简要分析

摘要：《献给艾米丽的玫瑰花》是著名作家威廉·福克纳短篇小说的代表作。作者讲文章分为五个部分，首尾两章描写现在，中间三章描写过去，并以主人公艾米丽小姐的去世情节描写首尾呼应，结构新颖。本文着重对文章主人公艾米丽究竟是怎么样一个人，她的性格究竟如何进行探讨。在这篇文章中，作者一反前人认为认为艾米丽是一个病态，扭曲的人的观点，旨在希望能从新的观点帮助读者更好地理解这篇文章

关键词：人物性格；象征主义；悲剧

Introduction

“A Rose for Emily” was a horrible and tragic Gothic fiction by William Faulkner, a famous American writer. It was a story about the life of Miss Emily, who was the last aristocrat in the southern America. Emily’s father did not allowed his only daughter to meet anybody who admired her, and sealed her up in their own tower, and regarded as “a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town”. [1]When she finally met Homer Barron, “a Yankee--a big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face”, [2]everybody said they would get married. Then, Mr. Homer Barron disappeared. Poor Emily went to visit the druggist

for some arsenic, and townspeople thought her might commit suicide, but she did not. Forty years later, Miss Emily died, townspeople went to her funeral to mourn her, no matter men or women, o ld or young, to grieve the “fallen monument”[3]. To their surprise, when their entered her room that did not opened for forty years by others expect Miss Emily herself ,their were astonished at “The man himself lay in the bed. ” “rotted beneath what was le ft of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust.” [4]That was Mr. Homer Barron, who was disappeared for forty years. Absolutely, Miss Emily killed him.

1 The background of this story

William Faulkner was an important writer in the modern literature period time not only in America but also in the whole literary world. He was the most prominent writer in southern America, and famous for his Yoknapatawpha country. Faulkner’s attitude towards the southern “aristocratic” families that he wrote about was ambiguous. Alongside his censure of their injustice to the African America, there was some indication of pity or sympathy. His famous sh ort stories “A Rose for Emily”, was a good index to the mixed feeling that his works reveal.[5] This story happened after the American Civil War, the southern America was defeated by the northern, and had to end the slavery and the industrialization progress which brought by the northern was in prosperity. In this story, we can see the Emily and the townspeople, who represented the southern Americans after the Civil War. They were so afraid of losing their wealth, position, and stepping down the stage of history of their own accord. In the town where Emily lived, as the last aristocrat, her was well respected by the townspeople, and she was regarded as the symbol of the old traditions and the past glory. When she still alive, people might has the illusion of going back to their past lives, once she died, their realized that their past had already gone. The new power came from north destroyed their dreams, it was the world for the bourgeois.

The heroines Miss Emily Grierson, a southern “aristocrat”, who hersel f was a tragedy because of her reluctance of leaving the stage of the history that her should leave. Of course, as the last aristocrat of her family, Emily would not understand this.