Interpretation Of Faulkner's A Rose For Emily From The Perspective Of The Rhizome

William Faulkner is one of America's greatest novelists in the 20 th century.It is because his work is obscure,full of infinite charm,that numerous researchers endlessly explore the profound mystery.A Rose for Emily,published in 1930,is his most famous short story.The story,taking the southern social change in the American civil war as the background,with the author's native southern home life as the material,successfully shapes the typical artistic images of Emily Grierson,daughter of a declining aristocratic family in the south of America.Ignoring the changes of the real life,with love,hate and revenge,Emily desperately insists on her own isolated way of life.All of these truly reflect the great changes of southern society after the Civil War.Deleuze is a French postmodern philosopher in the latter half of the 20 th century and acknowledged in the world as a master of metaphors.He takes Freud's Oedipus complex as the main target and criticizes the psychoanalysis.From the flow of social unconscious desires to looking through the social consciousness and the individual psychology,this new scenography will help reveal the constrained and disruptive desire of the individual psychology,which reflects the functionality of the literature.Deleuze and Guattari create the concept of “the rhizome” from the epistemological perspective.The rhizome is referred to as the thing whose nature is totally different from that of the things from which it ruptures.The rhizome in Deleuze's philosophy is about the connections that occur between most disparate as well as the most similar objects,places or people.The introduction of the philosophical concept of the rhizome into literature criticism can greatly widen the views of literature researches.Taking its cue from Deleuze's philosophy---schizoanalysis,this thesis attempts to adopt “the rhizome” to the interpretation of A Rose for Emily.This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One introduces the research background,including research objective,research methodology and the layout of the thesis.It also gives a brief introduction to William Faulkner,A Rose for Emily and its influence in the United States.Chapter Two is literature review,which collects and summarizes researches on A Rose for Emily at home and abroad.Chapter Three is the theoretical framework of the rhizome,which gives a brief introduction to the rhizome theory.Chapter Four is the main part of this thesis.Based on the rhizome theory,it presents a systematic and in-depth analysis of A Rose for Emily.Taking the rhizome as the method of literary criticism,first of all it is reflected in the creative form and content.The thesis firstpoints out the rhizomatic method of narration.Then through the analysis of the five words describing Emily in the story,it dwells on her rhizomatic stages of Emily's life.Finally through the relationships between Emily and other characters surrounding her,it analyzes her rhizomatic relationships with them.It points out that Emily's rhizomatic way of thinking leads her to maturity,and her final becoming of a firm minoritarian.The last chapter is the summary and induction of this thesis.It concludes that Emily's rhizomatic thinking endows her the characteristics of a minoritarian.Emily is no longer living for herself,but a belief,which she cherishes with her life.Rhizomatic thinking and rhizomatic personality help her successfully accomplish the protection of spiritual world in the 30 s of the 20 th century America where all have become chaotic.In addition,it points out the limitations of the study and suggestions for future work.