The story “A Rose For Emily” by William Faulkner is a very odd story with a plot twist to it at the end of the story. The main character Emily is a misunderstood individual who was always being controlled by her father. Emily died at the age of 74 and was supposed to marry a man named Homer but we come to find out at the end that she poisons him and leaves his dead body in a room. This is found out when the townspeople go into her house for the first time after she passes away. The paradox in the story was when Emily went to the pharmacy to buy Arsenic, everyone in the town knew that she had problems in her life and they thought that she was going to commit suicide using the poison on herself but however the audience sees that the poison was really used to kill the man she was supposed to marry (Homer). Earlier in the story it said “Homer was not the marrying type” which I think was why she poisoned him because she wanted to be with him forever but knew he was not going to marry her so she killed him so that they could be together forever in the afterlife. Emily had a lot of act of redemption in the story when killing her lover, Homer. She wanted to stay with Homer for the rest of her life but knew it wasn’t going to happen this way so she murdered him so they could be together literally for eternity because they are together now after death.
The story “Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Herman Melville is less of an odd and chilling story however was more confusing to find out the meaning of the story. A lawyer hires Bartleby who is a “copyist” and is very good at one part of his work but as time goes on he refuses to do office work and we find out he actually lives in the office where he works. At the end he is arrested and put in prison, when he is prison he does not eat and stares at the wall which causes his death. The redemption in this story is the actions of Bartleby and how he acts. He is very strong in his morals and what he believes in and he can be seen as an action of redemption when he refuses to do anything against what he believes like at the end of the story he starves himself to stay strong to his morals and what he believes.
Leave a Reply