1 Godoy Ricardo Godoy Dr. Meyer Literature 2000 20 November 2017 “Exit to Nothing” William Faulkner’s infamous style of writing is evidently shown through the short story, “A Rose for Emily”. Faulkner tends to go back and forth in time through story, a tool that unquestionably intrigues the public to keep reading further, providing the reader with specific evidence on the most dramatic instants. “the story opens with her funeral and proceeds from segment to segment, cording to what seem to be local principles of transition (Perry, 312) The author manages the chronological order of the story in a curious technique. The writer establishes the story in the old south also known as the reconstruction era, a certain time in history were a group of flush white men reigned, since various of the white leaders owned a vast majority of properties and slavery. The author centralizes the story around the daughter from a powerful marriage, Emily Grierner. Emily or also known as Miss Emily was born into a tremendously privileged family named the Grierner family. The dominant family gained power due to Emily’s father arrangement with the town which excluded the Grierner’s from paying taxes eternally including Emily, an arrangement that definitely marked the life of Emily. Once the public continues Faulkner’s intriguing story from this point on, the reader’s interpretation concerning Emily Grierner will be divided in basically two different points of view. On one side of the equation, Miss Emily might be identified as a direct victim of the negative pressure stipulated by the Grierner family. Many readers might agree with this specific point of view towards Emily, since Faulkner focus mainly in tragedy. Basically, Emily had no freedom of speech since Mr. Grierner scared all the suitors using a violent horsewhip, being controlled by someone with excess of power can be one of the many reasons of why Emily later committed murder. The death of Mr. Grierner completed a big negative impact in Emily’s life. A lonely Miss Emily was again surrounded by tragedy, in this instance Emily was extremely hurt. At the lowest peak of mountain and alone is hard to fight for almost anybody. Life comes with various types of tests with no cautions, in this case Emily was brave enough to not give up even at the lowest point which is exceptionally admirable considering all the tragedy. It is worth to mention Emily’s boundless desire to improve in life leaving apart the sadness of losing Mr. Grieiner, which many other individuals wouldn’t be able to stand back again. In this interpretation Emily clearly plays the role of the sufferer, since at an old age Emily lost again a loved one by the hands of the Grierner family, Homer Barron a man who Emily had a relationship before he was frightened by the influential Grierner family. Society has always been awfully selective no matter what time in history, in this occasion affecting negatively against Miss Emily. Homer Barron ...

1. 1 Godoy
Ricardo Godoy
Dr. Meyer
Literature 2000
20 November 2017
“Exit to Nothing”
William Faulkner’s infamous style of writing is evidently
shown through the short story, “A Rose for Emily”. Faulkner
tends to go back and forth in time through story, a tool that
unquestionably intrigues the public to keep reading further,
providing the reader with specific evidence on the most
dramatic instants. “the story opens with her funeral and
proceeds from segment to segment, cording to what seem to be
local principles of transition (Perry, 312)
The author manages the chronological order of the story in a
curious technique. The writer establishes the story in the old
south also known as the reconstruction era, a certain time in
history were a group of flush white men reigned, since various
of the white leaders owned a vast majority of properties and
slavery. The author centralizes the story around the daughter
from a powerful marriage, Emily Grierner.
Emily or also known as Miss Emily was born into a
tremendously privileged family named the Grierner family. The
dominant family gained power due to Emily’s father

2. arrangement with the town which excluded the Grierner’s from
paying taxes eternally including Emily, an arrangement that
definitely marked the life of Emily. Once the public continues
Faulkner’s intriguing story from this point on, the reader’s
interpretation concerning Emily Grierner will be divided in
basically two different points of view. On one side of the
equation, Miss Emily might be identified as a direct victim of
the negative pressure stipulated by the Grierner family. Many
readers might agree with this specific point of view towards
Emily, since Faulkner focus mainly in tragedy. Basically, Emily
had no freedom of speech since Mr. Grierner scared all the
suitors using a violent horsewhip, being controlled by someone
with excess of power can be one of the many reasons of why
Emily later committed murder.
The death of Mr. Grierner completed a big negative impact
in Emily’s life. A lonely Miss Emily was again surrounded by
tragedy, in this instance Emily was extremely hurt. At the
lowest peak of mountain and alone is hard to fight for almost
anybody. Life comes with various types of tests with no
cautions, in this case Emily was brave enough to not give up
even at the lowest point which is exceptionally admirable
considering all the tragedy. It is worth to mention Emily’s
boundless desire to improve in life leaving apart the sadness of
losing Mr. Grieiner, which many other individuals wouldn’t be
able to stand back again. In this interpretation Emily clearly
plays the role of the sufferer, since at an old age Emily lost
again a loved one by the hands of the Grierner family, Homer
Barron a man who Emily had a relationship before he was
frightened by the influential Grierner family.
Society has always been awfully selective no matter what time
in history, in this occasion affecting negatively against Miss
Emily. Homer Barron a true candidate for Miss Emily was sadly
not part of the same elite class as Emily, and that made the
Grierner family acted. Injustices were occurring frequently in

3. Emily’s life provoked by the Grierner family itself. This
sickened Miss Emily, who killed Mr. Barron. This interpretation
of Miss Emily might justify the reason of why Emily murdered
and reacted violently. Emily’s morals were completely shattered
and alone, leaving Miss Emily with the wrong mental thoughts
and really vulnerable of making the worst life decisions. Emily
felt hopeless in a world where not even the Grierner family was
supportive.
On a totally contrary interpretation, Emily Grierner can be
perfectly identified as the anti-hero of the short story, since she
is targeted as the killer of Homer. The readers might debate that
Miss Emily had all the wealth and advantages to be an educated
person and live a prosperous life. Emily being part of the
Grierner Family could had done enormous contributions to the
community such as an attempt to abolish slavery, which was
badly affecting the public in the Old South.
The moment Emily decided to obtain a poisonous
substance demonstrates who the real Emily Grierner maybe is.
The reader of "A Rose for Emily" realizes immediately the
vagueness of the pronoun focus within this story” (Nebeker, 4).
This type of mental behavior could easily transform into a
really negative influence for a lot of the members of the
community, since Miss Emily was grown with a large amount of
power and wealth. Proving a large quantity of goods to the
wrong type of person can result into a tragedy, which could be
the reason that Emily is always bounded by tragedy during
Faulkner’s short story. Any individual who has been filled with
pure misfortune such as Emily can be more focused on
depressing thoughts which could end up bad for everybody
surrounding Miss Emily. Folks with such dark thoughts similar
to Emily’s tend to be obscure and mysterious trying to evade
their true identity in front of the rest of humankind. This is the
reason why Emily tried to constantly refuses to pay taxes after
Mr. Griersons death.

4. Emily’s overalls behavior in the short story demonstrates a
classic controlling person. Miss Emily kept continuously trying
to control the townspeople with evidently the wrong procedures.
This is how wrong societies start developing in the sometimes
the worst environment, thanks to the immoral leaders spreading
the erroneous message, contaminating with negative sensations.
Miss Emily’s mind was bad enough to produce awful scenarios
such as killing Homer. Humans like Emily Grierner is what the
rest of the population is scared of, individuals with no
hesitation of causing harm to innocent people invading peaceful
settings. Miss Emily’s mentality is exceedingly possessive, so
persistent always ending getting the prize.
It’s` well known that tragedy followed Miss Emily,
contrasting different interpretations creates various views of a
very mysterious character. Miss Emily will always be marked as
the negative character in this short story. All the actions
regarding Emily are mainly viewed by two separate kind of
views, this is because Miss Emily knows how to hide from
society by only representing one face, but all that hiding is what
has really has been tearing up the personality of Emily. It is
very immature the way a very privileged and powerful young
Emily has done, such catastrophes that no many regular human
beings have heard before. Emily grows personally thought the
whole short story, but not necessarily in a good sense. This
character secretly becomes into kind of a serial killer, who
amazingly doesn’t realize the magnitude of the reactions.
Some of these consequences will be soon transformed into a
kind of karma vigor, against Miss Emily which later in the short
story dies. These characters serve as an example of how
dangerous are the violent and controlling minds, since
sometimes civilians are not interested in what it’s happening
around them. Civilizations without repulsive minds such as
Miss Emily is the key for coexisting between healthy human
minds. The moment that something impure with obscure

5. feelings such as Miss Emily’s mind is the moment everything
changes. Miss Emily is that classic image of destruction and
worst habits towards the townspeople which will still be
existing but with different faces. Emily’s darkest thoughts will
continue to be recreated in large amount of times because life
has always different type of mentality’s, that psychologists are
still trying to understand until this day, Miss Emily’s mind
would surely be one to study with alertness.
Works Cited
· Perry, Menakhem. “Literary Dynamics: How the Order of a
Text Creates Its Meanings [With an Analysis of Faulkner's ‘A
Rose for Emily’].” Poetics Today, vol. 1, no. 1/2, 1979, pp. 35–
361. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1772040.
· Nebeker, Helen E. “Emily's Rose of Love: Thematic
Implications of Point of View in Faulkner's ‘A Rose for
Emily.’” The Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language
Association, vol. 24, no. 1, 1970, pp. 3–13. JSTOR, JSTOR,

6. www.jstor.org/stable/1346461.
LIT2000
Research Essay: Character & Motive
The Ancient Greeks believed that a person’s character—his/her
“daimon” or personal spirit—determines that person’s destiny
or fate. This sense of character-driven destiny was related to
the Greek concept of arete: a duty to cultivate one’s particular
excellence. A person should be careful of pride or
immoderation because carrying one’s excellence too far might
produce a “fall” or lead to a tragic mistake.
As with real people, fictional characters often present a
complex array of motives that are subject to interpretation. The
sample Research Essay by Jackie Izawa on page 1609 of your
textbook explores two different interpretations of Antigone’s
character and motives (Is Antigone so bent on justice that she is
insensitive to the feeling of others OR does Antigone care so
much for the feelings of others that she tries to shield Ismene
and Haemon from the pain of her loss). Both interpretations are
present in the ambiguity of the text.
PROMPT: Below are a number of stories we’ve read this
semester that feature round and dynamic characters. Select
ONE character from the list of stories and explore two
contrasting interpretations of that character (usually one
interpretation will be more sympathetic to the character’s
motives and the other will be more judgmental, just as an
individual’s friends might interpret his/her character differently
than an enemy would). In the manner of the student sample,
you will support the plausibility of each interpretation with

7. your own textual analysis and the analysis of other literary
scholars. I recommend that you select a character whom you
found to be very puzzling.
Sonny’s Blues
Barn Burning
Puppy
The Birthmark
Wildwood
A Good Man is Hard to Find
Good Country People
Everything that Rises Must Converge
A Rose for Emily
Antigone
Research Requirement: your essay should cite at least two
scholarly journal articles located in our library databases.
Literary encyclopedia entries and online materials do not
satisfy this requirement. All sources (wherever located) that are
used in the formation of your interpretation must be cited.
Other Requirements: Essay and Works Cited should be in MLA
format. Essay should be between 1200 and 1800 words in
length (not including scholarly quotations and works cited).
You are strongly advised to consult chapter 28 in your textbook;
it is assumed that this essay will conform to the general
requirements of essay writing—title, introduction, thesis, body,
conclusion, thesis, paragraphing with strong topic sentences,
and in-text citation of evidence matched to works cited page.
Throughout the writing process, I encourage you to take
advantage of writing tutoring offered by the Learning Commons
and online via Smartthinking. And, of course, you are also
welcome to conference with me in my office during any stage of
the