摘 要

在文学作品中，“玫瑰”具有丰富内涵。它赞美自然，谴责丑陋，表达对爱的渴望。本文通过对比福克纳的《献给艾米莉的玫瑰》和张爱玲的《红玫瑰与白玫瑰》中对玫瑰的描述，来研究玫瑰象征意义的变化与延伸。两部作品中玫瑰均代表了起初爱情的美好和最终爱情的毁灭。《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》中，这朵玫瑰花显示了福克纳对家乡的热爱，对南方传统文化衰败的无助；对艾米丽悲惨人生的同情和对她敢于突破、坚持自我的尊重。在张爱玲的小说中，她用红白玫瑰表达男权社会中对女性的压迫和女性自身的反抗。这两位作家以不同的方式使用了“玫瑰”这个意象。福克纳赋予玫瑰鲜明独特的含义。而张爱玲对玫瑰这个意象的反复描写中，赋予其更深刻的含义。

关键词：玫瑰，象征意义，《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》，《红玫瑰与白玫瑰》

Abstract

In literary works, “rose” has many connotations such as the praise of nature, the condemnation of ugliness, and the aspiration for beautiful love. This paper is to study rose’s symbolic meanings in two novels: A Rose for Emily written by Faulkner and The Red Rose and the White Rose written by Eileen Change. Through comparison of uses of “rose” in these two novels, it can be explored how roses’ symbolic meanings are changed over time and what some extended symbolic meanings of “rose” are. In these two works, the symbolic meanings of rose have something in common, as they both represent sweetness of love in the beginning and ruin of love in the end.  In A Rose for Emily, the rose shows Faulkner’s love for his homeland, helplessness and deep attachment to the dying south culture, the sympathy with miserable life of Emily, and respect to her endeavor and perseveration. In Eileen Chang’s novel, she uses red and white roses to show suppression to women in male-dominated world and women’s fight against a sexism society. The two writers use the images of “rose” in different ways as Faulkner gives the rose multilevel meanings and Chang repeats the images to enhance its symbolic meaning.

Key Words: Rose, Symbolic Meaning, A Rose for Emily, The Red Rose and The White Rose

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Background Information 4

2.1 On authors 4

2.1.1 On William Faulkner 4

2.1.2 On Eileen Chang 5

2.2 On symbol 5

2.2.1 Symbol 5

2.2.2 Symbol and image 6

2.2.3 Basic symbolic meaning of roses 6

3 Analysis of Symbolic Meaning of Rose in A Rose for Emily and The Red Rose and The White Rose 8

3.1 Symbolic meaning of rose in A Rose for Emily 8

3.2 Symbolic meaning of rose in The Red Rose and The White Rose 9

4 Comparison of the Symbolic Signification of Rose in A Rose for Emily and The Red Rose and The White Rose 13

4.1 Similarities: love and destruction 13

4.2 Differences 14

4.2.1 Distinct way of representation 14

4.2.2 Different symbolic meanings 14

5 Conclusion 16

References 18

Acknowledgments 20

On the Symbolic Significance of Roses

- A Comparison of Works by Faulkner and Eileen Chang

1 Introduction

Roses have played an important role in the history of mankind. In 1985, the rose became the national flower of the United States. In the United Kingdom, the rose represents the royal family and the aristocracy. Rose’s inherent characteristics, such as beauty, aroma, thorn and easiness to fade, make roses have human feelings and spirit. People also give the rose many other symbolic meanings. 

In religion, the rose is rich in religious significance. People regarded “rose” as the flower of the soul, especially the “red rose” as the flower of the holy soul. The origin of roses in religion provides the mysterious color and rich imagery significance. When Christian churches energetically built all over Europe, the rose which had previously been the symbol of love for God began to symbolize the suffering and death of the martyrs and Christ. Christianity believes that the origin of the rose comes from the Christ’s blood that flowed to the ground when the Christ suffered the martyrdom on the cross. This blood rose is a holy blood rose; its bright red color is derived from the blood of Christ and it is inviolable. Therefore, one of the symbolic meanings of roses is fraternity, that is, Christ’s love for humanity.

In literary works, the rose has rich connotation, praise of nature, condemnation of the ugly, also the yearning for beautiful love. In rhetoric, the rose is used as a carrier metaphor for many ideas and circumstances of life. In The Last Rose of Summer, the lonely rose bloomed alone, all the adorable companions had left her, and she is no longer in the most beautiful age and is quietly waiting for the wither in cold autumn. This “rose” represents a frustrated and sad beauty. However the famous poem A Red Red Rose written by Burns is full of passionate emotions. The verses at the beginning of these two lines “O, my luve’s like a red red rose/ That’s newly sprung in June” (Burns, 2018) show us a lively and lovely Scottish girl imaged by the expression of a red rose.

Different writers give roses different meanings, this paper focuses on the symbolic significance of roses, based on A Rose for Emily written by William Faulkner and The Red Rose and The White Rose written by Eileen Chang. Through the comparison of these two novels, changes and extensions of the symbolic meaning of roses are explored. Eileen Chang and William Faulkner all using “roses” as an important symbol, this paper compares the similarities and differences of symbolic meanings of “rose”.

There are a lot of domestic and foreign scholars who have studied on the symbolic meaning of “rose” in A Rose for Emily and The Red Rose and the White Rose from a variety of different angles of research or through a different perspective.

In earlier researches, the scholars studied A Rose for Emily from a psychological point of view. According to A Romance to Kill for: Homicidal Complicity in Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily written by Dilworth, he indicated that the motive for Emily’s killing and the homicidal complicity of her servant reflected the psychological distortions under the pressure of convention (Dilworth, 1999: 251). After that, the scholars held a new angle to analyze Emily. By comparing with the general symbolic meanings of roses, Liu discussed the specific meanings of roses in her work which named A Stylistics Analysis of “A Rose for Emily”, she presented that the symbolic meaning of rose in A Rose for Emily was entirely different from the traditional meaning. Rose is no longer a representative of sweet love, in contrast, the rose is Emily’s tragedy, in which the inducement and destruction of love are expressed (Liu, 2015: 76). At the same time in translation, from Tezcan’s A Stylistic Analysis of A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner and its Turkish Translation, he emphasized that the unique meaning of rose and Faulkner’s writing style also impacted the translation of this work (Tezcan, 2014: 366). Moreover, in recent times, the angle of studies turned to the female characters and the profound meaning of rose in A Rose for Emily. Kong indicated his opinions in The Absence of the Rose the Symbolic Meaning of “Rose” in William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, he considered that the rose connected with the theme and characteristics of the heroine closely. And it disclosed the inevitable causes of Emily’s tragedy character distortion. The dried rose represents “secrecy”, introducing the “rose” is a symbol of silence between the narrator and Emily, and the narrator keeps Emily’s secrets until her death (Kong, 2016: 389).

Originally, the scholars focused on the imagery analysis. In The Lift of Love’s Veil-Analyzing The Red Rose and The White Rose written by Wang, she stated that Chang regarded “rose” as a symbol of female rhetoric to represent the reconstruction of love, and delineation of the two types of woman’s life trajectory(Wang, 2010: 105). In The Red Rose and the White Rose, the use of color images is thought-provoking. In the light of this theme, A Study on Color Images in The Red Rose and the White Rose written by Lan showed that Chang focused on the different color of rose to arouse different feelings and stands for the different features. The symbolic meaning of rose is not shown by the rose itself but the color (Lan, 2010: 68). Later, as a famous female writer of modern fiction, Eileen Chang’s literature works is widely studied from the feminine view, while the identical literature theme’s work has the different significance completely in the different angle of view. In Lou and Hua’s study: A Comparative Study of Woman’s Status and Image in Chinese and English Literary Works-A Case Study of The Grimson Petals and The White and The Red Rose and the White Rose, they illustrated that The Red Rose and the White Rose is a feminine view novel, but Chang changes the image of women as the center of narrative model and focuses on a man called Zhenbao, namely, this novel is the female perspective in the “man narrator”. From the female tragic image, Chang’s work shows the early feminism in China, The Red Rose and the White Rose holds an in-depth discussion about sexual relation in patriarchal society (Lou amp; Hua, 2016, 69). However, the domestic and foreign scholars analyze the symbolic meaning of “rose” by studying on a single work; rarely do scholars compare A Rose for Emily with The Red Rose and the White Rose. This paper emphasizes the symbolic meanings through two different types of literary works.

2 Background Information

This part is intended to introduce William Faulkner, Eileen Chang and symbol. It begins with the brief introduction about the authors and the summary of their works. In the next part, the paper is mainly introducing the definition of symbol, the relationship between symbol and image and the basic symbolic meaning of roses.

2.1 On authors

Throughout the history, writers who pay lots of their attention to the meaning behind rose have published large quantities of literature works and research all over the world. William Faulkner and Eileen Chang, as two representative writers relatively in America and China, have both made great contributions to the exploration of rose. Detailed information is presented as follows.

2.1.1 On William Faulkner

William Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers in American Literature generally and southern literature specifically. He has written 19 novels and more than 120 short stories in his entire life, which has made a powerful and artistic contribution to contemporary American fiction. He has a southern complex, and most of his works are based on the southern United States, emphasizing southern themes and southern consciousness. One of his most famous short stories, A Rose for Emily, is of great significance for understanding and studying Faulkner’s work style and the American southern culture. Along with the development of the north industrial civilization, the traditional southern society is under a great threat, and the southern tradition and civilization are gradually decayed, based on this situation, A Rose for Emily tells the story about Emily, an elderly southern woman whose funeral is the obligation of their small town. And the title A Rose For Emily as an allegorical title; this woman had undergone a great tragedy, for this Faulkner pitied her. And as a salute, he handed her a rose.

2.1.2 On Eileen Chang