Comparing William Faulkners Short Stories, A Rose for Emily and Dry Se

Comparing William Faulkner's Short Stories, A Rose for Emily and Dry September Three key elements link William Faulkner's two short stories "A Rose for Emily" and "Dry September": sex, death, and women (King 203). Staging his two stories against a backdrop of stereotypical characters and a southern code of honor, Faulkner deliberately withholds important details, fragments chronological times, and fuses the past with the present to imply the character's act and motivation. The characters in Faulkner's southern society are drawn from three social levels: the aristocrats, the townspeople, and the Negroes (Volpe 15). In "A Rose for Emily," Faulkner describes Miss Emily Grierson in flowing, descriptive sentences. Once a "slender figure in white," the last descendent of a formerly affluent aristocratic family matures into a "small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head" (Faulkner, Literature 25-27). Despite her diminished financial status, Miss Emily exhibits her aristocratic demeanor by carrying her head high "as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson" (28). In an equally descriptive manner, Faulkner paints a written portrait of Miss Minnie Cooper in "Dry September." He portrays her as a spinster "of comfortable people - not the best in Jefferson, but good enough people" and "still on the slender side of ordinary looking, with a bright faintly haggard manner and dress (Faulkner, Reader 520). Cleanth Brooks sheds considerable insight on Faulkner's view of women. He notes that Faulkner's women are "the source and sustainer of virtue and also a prime source of evil. She can be ... ...uth. Works Cited Brooks, Cleanth. "William Faulkner: Visions of Good and Evil." Faulkner, New Perspectives. Ed. Richard H. Brodhead. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey : Prentice-Hall, 1983. ---. Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House,1986. Faulkner, William. "Dry September." The Faulkner Reader. New York; Random House, 1954. ---. "A Rose for Emily." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 5th ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1991. ---. Selected Letters of William Faulkner. Ed. Joseph Blotner. New York: Random House, 1977. Kazin, Alfred. Bright Book of Life. Boston: Little Brown Company, 1973. King, Richard H. Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. Reed, Joseph. Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. Volpe, Edmond. A Reader's Guide to William Faulkner. New York: Octagon, 1974.