The construction of the plot of A Rose for Emily
We analyze \to discuss the relation between the construction of the plot and the thematic meaning.
(1)The organic of the whole article
This story is constructed deliberately by the author. \subtle of the story which can be divided into five parts. The issue of the taxes, the smell, the death of his father, the marriage of Emily and the funeral ,all these offer \the narrator, the viewpoint and the opportunity ;all these are the turning points of the plot. The conflicts arise from these issue are the hinges of the characters' fates. The language also gives much contribution to the natural development of the plot.
(2)The multiply of the inversion of the time and the order The plot can be arranged in the original sequence in order to help the readers to understand the characters' \break the time order and use flashback to make the story attractive. The story tells the story of Emily. The multiply flashbacks lets us see the new sight of the structure. Meanwhile, we also find that the skip of the time is very natural. This kind of flashback produces suspense so the author approaches her deep soul in order to expose her abnormality and her tragedy.
(3)The everlasting negation
The development of the story is almost a mathematic process: 0+1-1+1. Her father's death makes Emily determine to change her appearance and try to establish the connection with the outer world; after all, it's a turning point of her life. When she fell into love with the snobbish bourgeois Homer, her individualities unveil slowly. The failure of the love with Homer indicates that: Homer represent a totally different life from Emily's resting one, it's one full of din and stir. Homer didn't accept Emily's love, all the people didn't allow this, and Emily herself also struggled in the inner self to the extent that when she carried her head high enough, she was also full of conflicts. It hints that there is a great gulf between them.
Time and Temporal shift
In “A Rose for Emily,” Faulkner does not rely on a conventional linear approach to present his characters’ inner lives and motivations. Instead, he fractures, shifts, and manipulates time, stretching the story out over several decades. We learn about Emily’s life through a series of flashbacks. The story begins with a description of Emily’s funeral and then moves into the near-distant past. At the end of the story, we see that the funeral is a flashback as well, preceding the unsealing of the upstairs bedroom door. We see Emily as a young girl, attracting suitors whom her father chases off with a whip, and as an old woman, when she
dies at seventy-four. As Emily’s grip on reality grows more tenuous over the years, the South itself experiences a great deal of change. By moving forward and backward in time, Faulkner portrays the past and the present as coexisting and is able to examine how they influence each other. He creates a complex, layered, and multidimensional world. Faulkner presents two visions of time in the story. One is based in the mathematical precision and objectivity of reality, in which time moves forward relentlessly, and what’s done is done; only the present exists. The other vision is more subjective. Time moves forward, but events don’t stay in distant memory; rather, memory can exist unhindered, alive and active no matter how much time passes or how much things change. Even if a person is physically bound to the present, the past can play a vibrant, dynamic role. Emily stays firmly planted in a subjective realm of time, where life moves on with her in it—but she stays committed, regardless, to the past.