A Rose for Emily vs the Lottery

Robert Brockel Brockel1 Dr. Robert Janusko English 2 19 February 201 Foreshadowing There are many ways that a reader can be prepared for the ending of a story, “The Lottery” and “A Rose for Emily” are two very grueling short stories with a long suspense and a similar plot. The narrator’s stance in “A Rose for Emily” was first-person observer, which is defined as a single character point of view in which the narrator was is not involved with the story and the narrator’s stance in “The Lottery” was third-person anonymous which is involves a narrator that does not enter any minds.

Both stances conceal the endings and both the stories use imagery and foreshadowing to prepare the reader for the ending. “A Rose for Emily” contains more direct clues but leaves you second guessing whether what is anticipated really happens. “The Lottery” is better known for concealing the entire story till the ending. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a very surprising story to say the least and gives an overview in the beginning of a small American town of three hundred people that have an annual ritual called “the lottery. There are significant parts of the story that adumbrate the end of the story and leave the reader in a muddle until the end. First off, in the beginning of the story, the children of the town have just finished school Brockel 2 for the summer on a beautiful June day and they are running around gathering stones to form into a pile. The anticipated ritual is performed to ensure a good harvest even though they do not remember this. One character named Warner quotes an old proverb, "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon. Knowing how the story ends its hard to understand that people in an old American town would sacrifice one for the belief that is would give them decent fruitage for the months to come. This story would have a better affiliation with another part of the world where people live in cannibalistic tribes; then it would be easier to predict the ending. Shirley Jackson leaves her audience in the dark until the ending. Tessie’s late arrival at the lottery ritual instantly sets her apart from the crowd of town people, and the Mr.

Summers makes a statement to her “Thought we were going to have to get on without you” (Pg4p9). The town people have prescience about Tessie’s fate. When Mr. Summers asks whether the Watson boy will draw for him and his mother, no reason is given why Mr. Watson wouldn’t draw as all the other husbands and fathers do, which suggests that Mr. Watson may have been last year’s victim. William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is a very chilling story that opens with a brief first-person account of the funeral of Emily Grierson who is an old widow.

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Her father died when Emily was about thirty and she refused to accept that he was dead for three days. Mr. Grierson choked Emily’s social ability. After a life of having potential husbands rejected by her father, she spends time after his death with a newcomer, Homer Barron who is a northern laborer. Emily buys arsenic from a shop in town for no Brockel 3 possible reason, which gives her neighbors the idea that she is going to kill herself.

Whether or not she is going to kill herself, the reader does not know but the fact that the narrator mentions the poison implies that someone is going to die. She then takes the life of the man whom she refuses to allow to abandon her while the house is a symbol of a shield as she is the outsider of the town and no one knows of the death until she passes away. Faulkner describes her later in the story as someone bloated and pallid with steel hair. This signifies death is close by.

Her death ignited a great deal of curiosity about her reclusive individuality. After she was buried, a group of local citizens entered her house to see what remained of her life there. The door to her bedroom was locked kicking in the door they see what had been hidden for so long. Inside, among the possessions that were in Emily’s room were wedding material and the horribly decomposed corpse of Homer Barron on the bed. On the pillow beside him was the indentation of her head, and a single thread of Emily's grey hair.

This could be foreshadowed by the disappearance of Homer Barron and the horrible odor that was in the air. We learn a lot about the lottery, including the elements of the tradition that have survived or have been lost. We learn about the significance of the lottery and how important it is to the villagers, particularly Old Man Warner. We also read through the entire ritual, hearing characters names and watching the men approach the box to take their slips. But Shirley Jackson never tells us what the lottery prize is until the moment the first rock is thrown at Tessie. A Rose for Emily” Is a very similar situation in the Brockel 4 sense that we learn about almost everything, how queer the life of Emily Grierson is, the struggle she went through with losing her father, and the curiosity of the citizens from the town. The things we are not aware of are concealed within her house until they kick open her upstairs bedroom door. Both narrators, with different points of view, prepare the audience for the story without giving away the ending.

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