The interpretation of Symbolism in William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily
The interpretation of Symbolism in William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily William Faulkner (1897-1962), American novelist, born into an old Southern family in the town of Oxford, is regarded as one of the great American writers of the 20th century. From many aspects, he is an original writer. His subject matter, his originality of working out the plot, and his unusual artistic style let him stand like a firm and erect reef in the in the fast changing western literary currents. It is owning to his outstanding contribution to world literature that he was awarded The Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. As a writer, Faulkner’s primary concern was to probe his own region, the deep South. Most of his novels are set in Yoknapatawpha County, an imaginary area in Mississippi with a colorful history and a richly varied population. The county is a microcosm of the South as a whole, and Faulkner’s novels examine the effects of the dissolution of traditional values and authority of all levels of Southern society. The master of a rhetorical, highly symbolic style, Faulkner was also a brilliant literary technician, making frequent use of convoluted time sequences and of the stream of consciousness technique. He used skillfully a variety of traditional and modern techniques in his novels while symbolism is one of the most important. In literature, a symbol is a thing that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention or accidental resemblance, especially a visible sign of something invisible.