The Nature of Time and Change in William Faulkners A Rose for Emily Es

The Nature of Time and Change in William Faulkners A pink wine for EmilyIn A uprise for Emily, William Faulkners use of language foreshadows and builds up to the orgasm of the story. His choice of words is descriptive, tying resoundingly into the theme through which dismiss Emily Grierson threads, herself emblematic of the effects of time and the nature of the old and the new. Appropriately, the story begins with death, flashes behind to the near distant past and leads on to the demise of a woman and the traditions of the past she personifies. Faulkner has carefully crafted a multi-layered masterpiece, and he uses language, characterization, and chronology to move it along, a earnest commentary flowing beneath on the nature of time, change, and chance-as well as a psychological yarn on the static nature of memory. Faulker begins his tosh at the end after learning of Miss Emilys death, we catch a glimpse of her dwelling, itself a reflection of its late owner. The house lifts its stubborn and sexy decay above new traditions just as its spinster is seen to do, an eyesore among eyesores (Faulkner, 666). The narrative voice suggests the gossipy nature of a Southern town where everyone knows everyone else, and nosy neighbors speculate about the affairs of Miss Emily, noting her often antiquated shipway and her early retirement. In fact, it appears as if the town itself is describing the events of Miss Emilys life, the first-person plural we a telling indication. The first explicit example of this occurrence takes place during the flashback in the second section, when, in speaking of her sweetheart, the narrator parenthetically adds the one we believed would bind her (667). In the opening characterization, many de... ...hich no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent cristal of years (672). This description would seem to explain the static nature of an unchanging Miss Emily-the carven torso of the idol in a receding (671)-the tableau vivant framed by the back-flung front door (668) through which the cryptical might be unlocked-and the unchanging nature of the manservant. It would seem Faulkner has woven a multifaceted tapestry with its warp and woof firmly anchored to universal-and therefore timeless-truth, sequence his historical particulars form the aesthetic shag bedecking its surface the changeless beingness of being beneath, the straining world of becoming above. Works CitedFaulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. Literature The Human Experience. 8th ed. Ed. Richard Abcarian and Marvin Klotz. Boston Bedford, 2002. 666-672.