The Questia Online Library

According to the book, “The Shapers of America Fiction” by George Snell, published in 1947, “Not since Poe has an American produced a horror tale match “A Rose for Emily,” which is perfect story from the technical point of view, and one of the most effective and violent stories even Faulkner himself has written. Its gradual unfolding of the character Miss Emily, its full acquiescent gifts of revelation, the carefully sown clues and the well-prepared yet shocking climax and denouement are among the marvels of the Faulkner virtuosity. ” (Snell 96-97)

Truly, this fine, fiendishly brilliant, subtle story “A Rose for Emily” outshines many of its kind in the short story done so far in America during the time it was written. I agree with Snell when he said that Faulkner is as great as Poe. The story is the commonsensical development of Poe, but brought to an elevated degree of force since its action takes place not in some misty mid region but circumstantially and precisely in an identifiable South, with all the appurtenances and censures of a civilization which Faulkner recognizes and concurrently loves and hates.

The misfortune that Faulkner depicts does, of course, entail the passing of time and the simultaneous changing of customs. Hence, time in “A Rose for Emily” is noteworthy as based on personal experience, cultural history, and aesthetic technique. One would say that the story shows how modest Faulkner has been reserved by the principles of Southern life, which have dictated to many Southern writers how diminutive of reality they could deal with.

At the same time shows his obvious ineluctable affinity with Poe, as with Faulkner’s style and as master of the bizarre and morbid. In 1949, William Faulkner was given the world’s premier literary award, the Nobel Prize in Literature. No wonder the Mississippi native William Faulkner is considered one of the world’s best writers and conceivably the most momentous writer the United States has yet produced. Reading Faulkner permits today’s culture to take a step back in era and capture a glance of one of the most evolutionary epochs in American society.

William Faulkner said, “That was simply another manifestation of man’s injustice to man, of the poor tragic human being struggling with its own heart, with others, with its environment, for the simple things which all human beings want. In that case it was a young girl that just wanted to be loved and to love and to have a husband and a family. ” Work Cited: “The Questia Online Library. ” 23 June 2007 <http://www. questia. com/read/10392194#>.