In "A Rose for Emily," William Faulkner's use of language foreshadows and builds up to the climax of the story. His choice of words is descriptive, tying resoundingly into the theme through which Miss Emily Grierson threads, herself emblematic of the effects of time and the nature of the old and the new. Appropriately, the story begins with death, flashes back to the near distant past and leads on to the demise of a woman …showed first 75 words of 1716 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1716 total…Emily--"the carven torso of the idol in a niche" (671)--the tableau vivant framed by the "back-flung front door" (668) through which the secret might be unlocked--and the unchanging nature of the manservant. It would seem Faulkner has woven a multifaceted tapestry with its warp and woof firmly anchored to universal--and therefore timeless--truth, while his historical particulars form the aesthetic shag bedecking its surface: the changeless world of being beneath, the straining world of becoming above.