Greenleaf And A Rose For Emily - 1191 Words

The short stories ‘Greenleaf’ by Flannery O’Connor and ‘A Rose for Emily’ by William Faulkner tell the the story of isolated individuals living in the historical south. In these stories, Faulkner and O’Connor tell of the unique breed of people that the South produces. The authors create seemingly unrelatable stories with outrageous extremes that are almost comical in their absurdity. These Authors also showcase the typical southern ideal of tradition as it manifests itself into the Southern person’s pride in their appearance, religious beliefs and kindness. In addition, O’Connor and Faulkner trifle with the concept of time. Faulkner s southern town in ‘A Rose for Emily’ seems to be stuck in a sort of limbo as does Ms. Emily, and in†¦show more content†¦Greenleaf’s spiritual rituals in the woods with newspaper clippings of the different sinful things humanity has done that particular morning. She takes this very seriously and one morning goes as far as to say â€Å"Oh Jesus, stab me in the heart.† This is a direct foreshadow of events to come later on in the story. Mrs. May looks down on Mrs. Greenleaf because she doesn’t keep up the southern appearance standard by keeping her house clean and washing her children’s clothes. Her shallow minded view of Mrs. Greenleaf demonstrates Mrs. May’s obsession with appearances and her lack of devotion to Christianity even when it stares her in the face every day through Mrs. Greenleaf. Though she has a choice between becoming a true christian and staying the way she is, she continues to be selfish and push the bull out her life. The Greenleafs think that the bull is a force that can not be controlled by Mrs. May but she does not buy it. That’s why in the end of the story, the bull stabs Mrs. May in the heart as a sign of grace and when it does, Mrs. May â€Å"had the look of a person whose sight has been su ddenly restored but who finds the light unbearable.† Showcasing the fact that Mrs. May was too involved in the world, which has a sinful nature, and sin, that when she was approaching death, the glory Hardee 3 and truth of God was too unbearable for her. The bull stabs Mrs. May in the heart because the heart represents the soul, the bull pierced her soul and sends her toShow MoreRelatedANALIZ TEXT INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS28843 Words   |  116 Pagesthe middle. In still other cases, the chronology of plot may shift backward and forward in time, as for example in William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, where the author deliberately sets aside the chronological ordering of events and their cause/effect relationship in order to establish an atmosphere of unreality, build suspense and mystery, and underscore Emily Grierson’s own attempt to deny the passage of time itself. Perhaps the most frequently and conventionally used device of interrupting