Plot Structure of
“A Rose for Emily”
Essential Question:
What did Faulkner accomplish by
writing his story nonlinearly?
(YOU WANT TO BE ABLE TO ANSWER THIS
QUESTION BY THE END OF THESE NOTES!)
Plot of “A Rose for Emily”
 By taking apart Faulkner’s story we are
able to see the genius of the plot structure
Plot of “A Rose for Emily” :
Linear Timeline
Section II
Her father dies, and for three days she refuses to
acknowledge his death.
Section III Homer Barron arrives in town and begins to court Miss
Emily.
Section IV She buys a man’s silver toilet set—a mirror, razor, brush &
comb—and men’s clothing.
Section III The town relegates her to disgrace and sends for her
cousins.
Section IV The cousins arrive, and Homer leaves town.
Section IV Three days after the cousins leave, Homer returns.
Section III Miss Emily buys poison at the local drug store.
Section IV Homer disappears.
Section II A horrible stench envelops Miss Emily’s house.
Section II Four town aldermen secretly sprinkle lime on her lawn.
ect…(see your flow chart for the rest)
Plot of “A Rose for Emily”
 But reconstructing the plot in a linear
fashion renders Faulkner’s
masterpiece an injustice
 Let’s find out why…
Plot of “A Rose for Emily”
  Let’s look at the central events chronologically:
  Miss Emily’s Father dies and she wants to keep his
body
  Miss Emily buys poison
  Homer Barron disappears suddenly
  A horrible stench surrounds the house
  It is apparent why she buys the poison, and
what causes the stench—she killed Homer!
  There is no mystery about what happened to
Homer and what the smell is
Plot of “A Rose for Emily”
 When we continue to look
chronologically at the remaining events
after Homer’s death, the story is quite
dull:
 Emily isn’t seen for 6 months
 Emily gives china painting lessons
 Men see her about her taxes
 She dies…
Plot of “A Rose for Emily”
 When we take the plot apart, the only
surprise we are left with is at the end and
the shocking realization that Miss Emily has
slept for many years in the same bed with
her dead lover’s rotting corpse.
 The horror of this knowledge makes the
murder of Homer almost insignificant when
compared to the necrophilia.
 Necrophilia:a morbid attraction toward corpses
Plot of “A Rose for Emily”
 If the story was written in a linear fashion,
half way through the story, the reader
would know that Emily obviously murdered
Homer
 But because we only get bits of the story at
random times, the story acts like a murder
mystery
Plot of “A Rose for Emily”
 At the end of the story, the reader is not
only shocked that Emily murdered
Homer, but they are horrified to find she
was sleeping with his dead body as well
 The end is dual-climatic (double
whammy climax)
Plot of “A Rose for Emily”
 The greatness of the story lies not
making the plot linear
 Instead it is great because Faulkner
leaves us horrified as we discover, bit by
bit, the mystery of Emily Grierson’s life
 The reader experiences an epiphany (an
ah ha! moment of realization)
What Does the Title Mean?
Why Plot “A Rose for Emily”?
 Let’s hear your ideas…
  William Faulkner speaks on “A Rose for Emily” in
1955:
I feel sorry for Emily's tragedy; her tragedy was, she was an
only child, an only daughter. At first when she could have
found a husband, could have had a life of her own, there
was probably some one, her father, who said, "No, you
must stay here and take care of me." And then when she
found a man, she had had no experience in people. She
picked out probably a bad one, who was about to desert
her. And when she lost him she could see that for her that
was the end of life, there was nothing left, except to grow
older, alone, solitary; she had had something and she
wanted to keep it, which is bad--to go to any length to keep
something;
but I pity Emily. I don't know whether I would have liked
her or not, I might have been afraid of her. Not of her, but
of anyone who had suffered, had been warped, as her life
had been probably warped by a selfish father . . . . [The
title] was an allegorical title; the meaning was, here was a
woman who had had a tragedy, an irrevocable tragedy
and nothing could be done about it, and I pitied her and
this was a salute . . . to a woman you would hand a rose.
In Your Notes/Notebook:
  Write a 5 sentence summary of the plot of “A
Rose for Emily.”
  Answer the essential question from the front
page!