Lives In The Past Meets The Future example essay topic

This story is set in the south where Faulkner contrasted the past with the present. The first hint of this is his comparison of the death of Miss Emily to that of a fallen monument. This comparison sets the scene for the reader to look and see how the new meets the old in the south. The description of her house in the second paragraph "lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps– an eyesore among eyesores' (p. 71) is a perfect example of what the present sees in the past. The description of the interior of the house also leads the reader to this conclusion of the decay of both property and life, reminding the readers of people and places of the past which did not retain its position into the future. This description is clearly seen in the following lines, ' into a dim hall from which a stairway mounted into still more shadow.

It smelled of dust and disuse– a close, dank smell. ' "It was furnished in heavy leather-covered furniture. When the Negro opened the blinds of the window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sunray. On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss Emily's father. ' (p. 71) These lines set the stage for entering into Miss Emily's world, where you receive a glimpse of the past with the eyes of the present. Visually the reader sees the past as a gloomy presence without any light and that things within are rotting. These paragraphs also describe Miss Emily, a person living in the past, "She looked bloated like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that palled hue. ' (p. 71) Miss Emily was so obsessed with the past that she would have done anything to stay in it.

Homer was a person who lived with her in the past but wanted to evolve to the future. She on the other hand does not wish to move to the future but neither does she wish to let go of Homer thus she keeps him in her world the only way she sees fit by killing him. The murder of Homer was eventually fruitless because Miss Emily like all of us must also eventually give in to death. In her death the present and future descend upon Miss Emily's world combining new with the old. "When Miss Emily died, our whole town went to her funeral the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant had seen in at least ten years' (p. 71) In conclusion the setting of the story shows how one who lives in the past meets the future whether they like or not and no matter what they try to do or how hard they try to hide the future will come about which in turn will make them a part of history.