Abstract:At the end of April in 1930, William Faulkner published his short story A Rose for Emily on the national magzine Forum. With the beginning of the heroine, Emily’s death, the story reflected the full view of a small southern town in America. However, to everyone’s surprise, the auther did not mention that who had ever sent Emily a rose. Therefore, this essay analyses the potential meaning of “ROSE” in the puzzled title, which is divided into three sections. In the first part, there are a brief introduction about the content of the short story and some related background. Then, the second part is divided into three aspects to set forth the symbolic meaning of “ROSE” from the surface to the interiority, which is the key of the essay. In the last section, the conclution is to be made to summarize the above points of view. Besides, this essay adopts the methods of analyse and comparison.
Key Words: symbolic meaning; rose; A Rose for Emily; William Faulkner
Introduction 1
1. About the Story and the Author 1
1.1 A brife Introduction of A Rose for Emily 1
1.2 About the Author William Faulkner 2
2. The Symbolic Meaning of Rose in the Story 3
2.1 Rose for Love, Beauty and Noble 3
2.2 Rose for the Declining Society 5
3. Rose for Faulkner’s Southern Complex 7
3.1 Comparison with The Sound and The Fury 7
3.2 Relationship between Faulkner’s southern complex and himself 8
4. Conclusion 10
Bibliography 12
