Elements of Fiction Essay

â€Å"A Rose for Emily,† is about the story of a strange spinster, her father and her lover. Years before her death, the spinster was seen to have bought arsenic, which many believed she would use to commit suicide. The incident gave rise to gossip in town. However, she didn’t die and no one knew then to what use the arsenic was for. Also at that time, her lover was not seen or heard of in town. Many presumed that he has left and went north. After her death, it was discovered that the spinster had kept her lover’s corpse in her bedroom and slept with it all those times. â€Å"Soldier’s Home,† is the story of a Word War I veteran who has been mentally scarred by his tour of duty. The soldier discovered upon his return that he can not reintegrate in a society that he has lost connection with. The main character felt bad for the town’s avoidance to know the horrors of war. He responded by being unenthusiastic about town life and being part of it. In the two stories, the plots are similar in the sense that they deal about personal struggles in dealing with the demands of society. The plots also revolve around life in towns and how everyone is more or less aware of everybody else’s business and society tends to dictate its members. Setting The settings of the two stories are the places and their corresponding social environments. The settings take on different functions in these two stories by becoming the major antagonists to the characters. Both characters rejected their community’s ways and values. 2 â€Å"A Rose for Emily† is set in Jefferson, a place known to be part of the â€Å"old south. † Emily embodies the ideal southern belle and the changes in her life are things she can’t cope with. â€Å"Soldier’s Home† is set in a small Oklahoma town whose interests on the war veteran have become a burden, which the soldier ultimately rejected. Character Emily Grierson and Harold Krebs, the lead characters in the two stories, are similar in being resistant to society’s demands on them. Both suffered mental scarring caused by different events. As a result of those traumatic events, Emily and Krebs have become abnormal psychologically and turned into dysfunctional individuals. Emily lived with a corpse, while Krebs lied his way in town and fabricated stories that would satisfy the town’s romantic notion of war. Both were misunderstood and kept captured by their pasts. Theme The central idea in the two stories is about the characters’ responses to the dictates of society. Emily suffered financially and mentally when his father died and left her penniless. Yet, society still looked on her as a highborn woman and expected her to choose her lover accordingly. Krebs, on the other hand, returned home a war hero. As such, the community wanted to hear glamorous details about war and turned deaf when they started to be told about the atrocities of fighting. Emily and Krebs escaped by hiding inside themselves, the end result of which are the gruesome truth about Emily and the lies fabricated by Krebs. Works Cited Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. 29 April 2008 http://www. ariyam. com/docs/lit/wf_rose. html Hemingway, Ernest. Soldier’s Home. 29 April 2008 http://www. cis. vt. edu/modernworld/d/hemingway. html#3