A Rose for Emily: Expressive means and stylistic devices

1)      Lexical:

Metaphor: “Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of

the town”; “past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow”; “only sign of life about the place was the Negro man”; “Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town”. The metaphors allow the reader greater understanding of the concept, object, or character being described in particular the appearance of Emily and Homer and the town.

Personofication: “faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray”, “Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons” The function of personification is to give a concept or object human features, usually to describe its qualities or to make a statement about human behavior. So, the house, like its owner, lifts its stubborn and coquettish decay in order to show  a tardy pride).

Metonymy: “the Board of Aldermen met--three graybeards and one younger man”; “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral”. It shows the features of people according their appearance ( men with grey beards) and the town – means citizens.

Epithets : cold, haughty black eyes – is used to emphasize on Emily’s appearance; heavily lightsome style – to specificate the style of seventies; iron-grey hear; a big, dark, ready man- was used to describe the appearance of Homer Barron.

Eiphemism - "Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names..."(the author uses the euphemism instead of the verb "to die".

Simile – “She carried her head high enough …as if it had wanted that touch of earthiness to reaffirm her imperviousness”; “Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough”; “it was still that vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man”  – such similes help us to imagine the appearance and the character of Emily better.

2)     Syntactical:

Ellipsis: “Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such?”\ "Arsenic," Miss Emily said.\ "Why, of course," the druggist said”.

Asyndeton: “The Negro delivery boy brought her the package; the druggist didn't come back.”; “"We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door.” Asyndeton makes the narration more impulse and tense.

Polysyndeton: “A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man's toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured” -  this stylistic device make the utterance more rhythmical.

Aposiopesis –  "Is . . . arsenic? Yes, ma'am. But what you want--";\ "Of course it is. What else could . . ." \ Give her a certain time to do it in, and if she don't. .." it reflects the emotional state of the speaker.

Climax – “When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray. During the next few years it grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray, when it ceased turning. Up to the day of her death at seventy-four it was still that vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man”. It gives emotional and logical influence.

Inversion – “Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized” – is used to emphasize on her state of loneliness and how she could change.

Repetition - "Poor Emily. Her kinsfolk should come to her."\ "Poor Emily," the whispering began\ "Poor Emily" behind the jalousies as they passed on Sunday afternoon in the glittering buggy…” it attracts our attention to Emily’s condition in order to symphasize  her.

3)     Phonetic

Onomatopoeia - "...swift clop-clop-clop of the matched team passed...". the sound effect, which resembles the sound of hourses.

4)     Graphic

Hyphenation - "During the next few years it grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray, when it ceased turning.” Is used to emphasize on the color and its changes.

Summing up the analysis of the given story I can say that William Cuthbert Faulkner brilliantly used a lot of lexical, syntactical, phonetic and graphic means of expression which help to reveal the main character’s nature and  to create a true-to-life atmosphere of the events.