The Setting

The way I imagine Miss Emily's house

   The events in the analysed story happen in a southern town somewhere in Jefferson from the late 1800's up to the early 1900's. As for me, the main peculiarity of this town is that the representatives of two absolutely different generations live there. The trouble is that southerners who have lived during the slavery era don’t know what to do when that whole way of life turns around. At the same time the story also explores how contemporary generations deal with the legacy of the previous epoch.     An important part of the setting is Miss Emily’s house. It is described in the following way: “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street”. The house is a symbol of time that once stopped for Miss Emily. After her father’s death the house becomes a shelter for young women, and as the time runs out, it becomes the only thing that connects her with the past. Initially the house looks elaborated and sophisticated, but it fades the same way as Miss Emily’s sole.

     When the Board of Aldermen, the representatives of the new generation, come “into a dim hall from which a stairway mounted into still more shadow” (alliteration; assonance – to describe the gloomy atmosphere of the house), they see that nothing has changed there: “It smelled of dust and disuse (a case of inverted epithet – to denote that time frozen in that place) a close, dank smell. ... and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray (a case of alliteration – to denote the way the house was neglected)”.

    Miss Emily imprisons herself in the house and there she dies: “Fell in the house filled with dust and shadows” (a case of hyperbola is used here to denote the tragedy of Miss Emily’s life). The women’s death reveals the greatest secret of her life. As the two female cousins enter the hidden room, they see a body of Homer Barron who used to be Miss Emily’s groom.

    Describing the room the writer repeats the word "rose" twice in the meaning of the colour in order to denote the innocent and endless love of Miss Emily to Homer  as rose color first of all reflects tenderness: "upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man's toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver (a case of catch repetition – to denote that there is a thing that belonged to Hector) so tarnished that the monogram was obscured… Upon a chair hung the suit, carefully folded (a case of compound epithet – to show that Miss Emily loved Homer)". “Upon” denotes a case of anaphora – to make tension higher as it is a preface to the climax of the story which reveals the dreary truth – Miss Emily killed Homer Barron.

   So, we can say that the setting of the events in the given extract is realistic and presented in a detailed way as it provides a background for action and contributes to our understanding of the Miss Emily.