Rose for Emily

Aleksandra Filipovski English 1102 Dr. William Belford January 23, 2012 Compare and contrast Faulkner’s characterizations of Abner Snopes in â€Å"Barn Burning† and Miss Emily in â€Å"A Rose for Emily†. How does Faulkner generate sympathy in the reader for each character even though both characters are guilty of terrible crimes? Toward which character are you more sympathetic? Explain why. Two characters are worth to compare in Faulkner’s fictions Miss Emily in â€Å"A Rose for Emily†, and Abner Snopes in â€Å"Barn Burning†. Emily Grierson is an important figure in the town. She is not having any social life there, mostly quiet lady, but still a big element of the town’s life. On the contrary, Abner Snopes is a loud person that most people tend to avoid. They are completely opposite but surprisingly they have similarities in their personalities. First of all, the two characters have different backgrounds. Miss Emily is from a wealthy family, lives in a huge beautiful house, rebuilt after the Civil War. Her house is in the middle of Jefferson, at least it was when it was built. The nicest, richest area. The main character in Faulkner’s fiction is Emily Grierson. Miss Emily will always be defined by her bizarre habits. Since we can’t follow her to the house we don’t know much. Tobe is a regular town man who helps and works for Miss Emily. Different generations and different characters treat her differently. They think about her more as an idol than a freak lady. But Emily is just a human, who lost her dad and her loved husband too. Their color of hair, which is grey, defines what age are they in. They are older people, and stubborn. They don’t like changes. The color of Tobe’s skin shows us his available options in the town and in that period the black people were the servant and the slaves, and the white represented the wealthy families. His skin isolates him from the rest of the people. Tobe is just a servant who serves Miss Emily. He is going to the grocery store every day, and coming back with a full basket. We never see inside the house, so we can’t really tell how the life is in the building. Miss Emily never goes out from her home. The only time someone saw her was on the second floor out of the window for a second. Emily was a mistery for everyone in the town. There is something about Emily and her physical appearance. She is described as an angel by the narrator after her father’s death. And she is also described twice as an idol in the fiction. This confuses us because we have a picture in our heads that she is a crazy and an insane person. She killed someone how she can be named or compared with an idol.