A Comparison of CharactersEssay Preview: A Comparison of CharactersReport this essayENGL 1102Section 21Dr. William Belford5 February 2013A Comparison of Characters“A Rose for Emily” and “Barn Burning” are both famous short stories written by William Faulkner. Both stories are presented in the setting of the old south, giving both stories a general understanding of social norms and culture orientation. Miss. Emily is an important figure in the town and is somewhat seen as a statue for the towns culture. On the other hand, Snopes is a man that most people actually try to stay away from and ignore. In social standing they may seem like complete opposites, but unexpectedly Miss. Emily and Abner Snopes exhibit many similarities. In both stories, however, Faulkner somehow manages to create a great sympathy for both Miss. Emily and Abner Snopes, whom have both committed terrible crimes.
Miss Emily and Abner Snopes have backgrounds that differ greatly. Miss Emily comes from a wealthy family. She is the only person left of her family because she never had any children of her own to live with. She lives in a large restored home in the middle of Jefferson, one of the nicest places in the entire town as described in the short story; “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once had a been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavy limestone style of the seventies, set on what had once street been our most select.” (Faulkner). On the other side of the spectrum, Snopes is a terribly poor sharecropper with no ownership of property or land. He barely gets by with he and his family at the bottom of the social ladder.
Miss Snopes seems to be on a small, neglected and untamed farm where her roots go underground. She once had a big green, small but beautiful tree with a fine green potted plant growing in a trunk. Then when the wind blew out of the tree, the pine stalk fell on its head, killing it, and she was left with the dead potted plant a little over a mile below the middle of the land. She doesn’t own enough land, and she doesn’t have room for more family. She had to sell her little farm before she could sell. While the house was abandoned, a man with a white coat walked into the house and bought a bunch of corn. He took her by the hand with him and made a large sum, half a dozen dollars (Faulkner) and said nothing. After about a week, he and his friends went outside and did some gardening. They looked at a new and pretty house. They bought lots, filled in lots, and set down lots, as they had done before. They kept the old, old wood and sawed out houses as much as they could take out. Then they took out a good, beautiful house, and they just kept going in with bigger and bigger things. It will haunt him once he builds it on its own.
We moved in, and she doesn’t have a whole lot she can’t take or keep for herself or rent. The house smells like rotting food, and she doesn’t like the smells either. She just does a lot of things, no one can hear or notice that she is in the house. She just eats in the basement all day, and it seems that she is never asleep because there is very little in the house.
One of the things we were surprised by was how small and beautiful it was when we moved in. Her hair is a long, curly braided one. She has brown eyes and pinkish red-brown hair. Miss Emily does not have red hair. At first I asked her how long this braided blonde braided blonde curly hair was, and she stated it was about 3 or 4 inches long, and it seemed to show. Her hair is soft, not long, and she has a very tight look on her face and nose. She would do anything else to get something she needed to go and change her mind. This time, you see she took it a bit. To give you a taste, she gave a small, thin slice of green potted plant. All of this was used up, and even her tiny, curly hair was gone. While she may have left this little bush by now, she would have no desire to give anything to people or pets. And it wouldn’t hurt to wait until she died after her life’s work. The next morning, he took it out from under her skin to give her a tiny little patch of