Symbol For The Changes In Miss Emily example essay topic

Change is Memorable When readers read a book that they like, they will remember at least one character in the book for some specific reason. Authors have many different ways to make a character memorable but one of the most common ways that characters become memorable is the way that they change throughout the story. William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily", Anton Chekhov's "The Lady with the Pet Dog", and Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People" all have main characters that are memorable because of the changes that take place physically and mentally in their respective stories. In the story, "A Rose for Emily", William Faulkner creates a mysterious yet respectable character.

The changes that Miss Emily experiences in the story make her a memorable character. Faulkner uses symbolism in order to show the changes that take place with Miss Emily. The changes in Miss Emily's hair can be taken as a symbol for the changes in Miss Emily herself. Before the death of Homer Barron her hair is "cut short making her look like a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows".

As the story moves on her hair "grows grayer and grayer until it attains an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray". Her hair grows a dull color as Miss Emily turns into a dull person. Her hair, in the beginning, is described as one of an angel, and then described as one you would find on a witch. In the beginning of the story Miss Emily has no bad intentions and later, her fears of being alone lead her to turn evil as she poisons Homer Wagoner 2 Barron. As her hair's appearance goes from innocent to evil Miss Emily goes from being innocent to evil.

Her hair loses its life, foreshadowing the future of Miss Emily. Another memorable character is that of the womanizer Dmitri Gurov in "The Lady with the Pet Dog". Gurov is the protagonist in "The Lady with the Pet Dog" and the readers get to view the changes of a man who has fallen in love but then is forced to examine the way that he looks at the world. Gurov is memorable because the things that he does and says on the surface are not the way Gurov actually feels about the world.

Although he looks down upon women and refers to them as 'the inferior race,' Gurov furtively admits that he feels more relaxed with them than he does with men. As Gurov gets more involved with Anna, he recognizes that he has distorted himself to women. With this recognition comes a deeper logic of need and a drive for emotional, rather than material, fulfillment. Anton Chekhov successfully shows Gurov's cynicism and disillusionment to make Gurov a memorable character. The last memorable character is Joy Hopewell from "Good Country People".

In 'Good Country People', Flannery O'Connor introduces the readers to Hopewell by telling how her leg was blasted off in a childhood accident. She sees herself as being completely ugly, and now, as an adult, she has had her name legally changed to Hula because it sounds ugly too. Having neither joy nor hope, she specializes in moving around boisterously on her wooden leg because it sounds ugly. She wears ugly clothes, makes ugly faces and ugly remarks. She basically tries to be as ugly as possible. Joy Hopewell changes in two ways during the story.

She of course changes physically when she gets Wagoner 3 her leg blown off but because of that she changes the way she acts as well. She goes from acting regular and polite to acting rude and ugly all of the time. The three authors listed above all have different writing styles and all three write about different situations. One thing they have in common is the fact the main characters in their stories all go through certain changes as the story progresses. Even though there are some memorable characters that stay the same, most of the characters that stick in the minds of the readers are the ones that change throughout the story.