Comparing Faulkner's The Swimmer And A Rose For Emily

Every story is composed of a theme, tone, mood, or any other literary device. That's what makes them remarkable, and at the same time, gives them a sense of uniqueness. However, within the pages of every story, there is always a hidden message. Most often, these messages usually intertwine between a mixture of different literary elements and generalized concepts or ideas that make the story more appealing and relatable to the readers. In most stories theme is a prominent element that helps authors convey their message. In the short stories The Swimmer and A Rose for Emily, there is a recurring theme of loss in self-awareness due to the inexplicable change of time. In both stories, the protagonists struggle with the cruel fact that the time periods and cultural traditions they once knew, have now disappeared, and become more modernized. This inevitable change of time and customs have caused these major characters to incarcerate themselves with a loss of self-identity.
Furthermore, in the short story A Rose for Emily, William Faulkner, starts his writing piece by saying “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral…a respectful affection for a fallen …show more content…
The short stories A Rose for Emily and The Swimmer explored this theme of time against the ability to keep some form of self-identity. This sense of self-awareness is when the protagonists reject the idea of a time change, and thus, create some form of incarceration within their own mindset. That incarceration within themselves doesn’t allow them to be open-minded towards new modernized ideas. Likewise, we sometimes keep going to the past without realizing that people change, ideas change, feelings change, and thus, sometimes we must adapt to these unprecedented changes. This generalized idea of time versus self-awareness makes the reader wonder if sometimes we take time for