“A Rose for Emily” published in 1930 is the best known and widely read work among William Faulkner’s all the works. The story is set in the town of Jefferson, Faulkner’s creates factional kingdom. Miss Emily is the main character in the story. She is protected by his father from the world outside the big house. But her father is a stubborn man with old values. He thinks that Emily must act like a noble lady and cannot marry any of her followers in the town when her father is alive. Miss Emily soon falls in love with Homer Barron, a Yankee who is looked down upon by the whole town after her father’s death. So, Miss Emily insists on marrying Homer Barron. Unfortunately, Miss Emily finds that Homer is unwilling to marry her and wants to live his free life. She can’t accept the truth that Barron betrays her. As a result, Miss Emily poisons Barron with arsenic and keeps the body with her to retain the love between them. From then on, Miss Emily keeps herself away from the outside world, such as people in the town and her relatives. She lives a lonely life until her death. After Miss Emily’s death, people go to the funeral in the house and find a body in the attic. Then they realize that poor Emily is a murderer. 

On the surface level, “A Rose for Emily” is just a love and murder story. It described a poor woman who couldn’t stand her love’s betray so she killed him to retain the love. But on another level, it described a intensive conflict between the North and the South. In the story, Miss Emily represents the south and Homer represents the North. On the deeper level, it shows the inner world struggle in humans’ hearts.

William Faulkner published many novels in 1960s and 1970s such as: The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Absalom, Absalom (1936) and other famous works. Also, “A Rose for Emily” as one of his famous works has attracted many critics to express their understandings. Different scholars study on the short story from different aspects. Gene M. Moore’s Of Time and Its Mathematical Progression: Problem s of Chronological in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” study on the chronological sequence in this short story; Thomas Fick and Eva Gold’s He liked man: Homer , homosexuality, and the culture of Manhood in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” studies on the “manhood” to show us the reason why Homer is not a marrying man; Dennis W. Allen’s Horror and Reverse Delight: Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” analyses the short story from the aspect of Emily’s contradictory state: she is alive, but her behaviors show that she were dead; she is a mixture of male and female-a woman with gray hair and those features make her “a most gothic of figures-the compound being” (Allen 686); Floyd C•Watkins’ The Structure of “A Rose for Emily” discusses the structural problem and the situation of isolation and actions of townspeople based on five parts of this short story. This paper analyses the short story in the aspect of Gothic from three parts to show the intensive conflicts between the South and the North. 论文网

The word “Gothic” comes from the word “Goths”. “‘Gothic’ generally refers to the ‘superstitious’, ‘barbarous’ and ‘benighted’ medieval age which stretches from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century up to the Renaissance”(Liu Jiong 2). At first, the word “Gothic” is used to describe a special construction style. This style often applies to church and castle constructions. The characteristics of this style are towering spires, massive stone walls and gloomy tunnels. It is popular from 12th century to 16th century in Europe. But after few centuries, this word is referred to a special kind of novels. The Gothic includes poetry, drama, film and fiction. And fiction is the most common and important form in literature. Gothic has an effect and always plays an important role in British and American literature. The source of Gothic literature is drama in the period of Renaissance. The plots of drama are mainly from the “Bible”. Most of them give publicity to Christian doctrine. The Gothic novels always take place in Gothic castle, wasteland, attic and tombs. The plot of this kind of story is that a beautiful prince or a lady is kidnapped by a monster or a bad guy, and then she is rescued by the hero. Finally, they live a happy life. The Gothic novel is always full of horror, mysteries and excitement. The first Gothic novel was published by Horace Walpole called The Castle of Otranto in late 18th century. This novel is taken as an example by many writers such as Clara Reeve, Sophia Lee and William Beckford, and becomes a popular genre from British to the whole Europe. The Gothic novel is pided into two parts in 1790s. One is horror Gothic novel, such as The Monk written by Matthew Lewis in 1795, the other is sentimental Gothic novel, such as The Mysteries of Udolpho written by Mary Radcliffe in 1794.