Comparing Short Stories of "The Flowers" and "A Rose for Emily"
Essay (Practice) By comparing the ending of Alice Walker’s story “The Flowers” with that of William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”, there have been some similarities in the stories. Such as for the main character of both stories had personally faced a dead body. For Myop in “The Flowers”, she innocently stumbles onto the remains of a man who had clearly been killed in a lynching. She discovers the body when she saw the man cracked or broken large white teeth in the woods. For Emily in “A rose for Emily” she had one love, Homer Barron, whom the town had believed he had left her. It is revealed at the end of the story that he in fact did not leave Miss Emily; in fact, Emily had poisoned Mr. Barron and left his dead body in her bed for so many years until her time had come. Other similarities would be the figure flowers, in which Myop in “The Flowers” while she was walking in the woods, she found a handful of blue flowers. In the end when she had found the body, she had laid the flowers next to the body and walk back home. For Emily, the narrator seems to have this deep emotion to the fate of Emily. There is a deep understanding of the situation that she faced or grew up with. In this, it clearly showed that despite of the attitude that Emily portrayed and the crime she had committed, the narrator seemed to acknowledge the woman inside her facade. So the rose only symbolizes the life or respect for Emily. Further comparing the stories, we found some opposite similarities. For instance in “The Flowers”, Myop plays as an African American girl in a poor family whom in the end came out and faces the cruel reality in the world. For Emily, she plays as a rich white woman and the narrator tells the story of how her life began and ended in the