“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner: A Modern American Literature

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“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner
Artists make art in different styles that represent their creativity. As many artists pursue their unique techniques, the number of styles increases and their similarities. These similarities then followed to be a school in which literary movements are developed (Sedwick 466). Some scholarly activities can be identified from their pollical and social views, which is same as German Expressionism or freedom from bourgeois limitations of artistry, which is also the same as Dada and Surrealism (Wolfe 59). Whitworth disclosed another form of a literary movement: modernism, which focuses on urban life and its inconsistency (11). On the other hand, naturalism was also an example of literary activity that is considered the exaggeration of Realism that focuses on society’s dark characteristics (Sedwick 469). The story written by William Faulkner, titled A Rose for Emily, can be considered a mixture of literary modernism and naturalism.
A Rose for Emily is a short story that depicts the unforeseen life of Emily Grierson before her death. The story started when the new generation of townspeople asked her to return her tax up to discovering his late marriage prospect locked inside her house after her death (Faulkner). The rose on the title represents the Southern romanticist tradition where roses are given to express love or friendship. Such, Emily knew this tradition because she is a young woman who grew up in the South in the late 1800s (Kurtz 40). The story setting was located in two different places, the town of Jefferson and the house of Emily Grierson. While the present's government was already invaded by the new generation that the narrator specified in the story. The story showed the changes of time in which only Emily was stuck in time.
According to Mohammad, modernism's traits can be shown in the subjects’ symbolization of death and suffering. He stated, “They have been shown revolting, independent, sensual, self-willed, and energetic—the embodiment of death and destruction.” (225). In the story, the author showed the death of the character by announcing her death at the start of the narration: “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral… (Faulkner 253)“ This shows that the character that influences the surrounding characters is already dead and the flow of the story would be a backtrack of the life of Emily. Modernism was also disclosed as writing that confuses its readers and deals with complex visualization (Childs 6). The story A Rose for Emily does not have a chronological order of events since Emily's death, where the subject of the story was already announced in the early part. The story gave off the ending already before even starting the story. Childs also added that modernism was for...