On the surface, the literary pieces "A Rose for Emily," by William Faulkner and "The Thorn," by William Wordsworth, appear to be very different works of literature. "A Rose for Emily," is a Southern Gothic short story written in 1930 about a woman refusing to change with the times and becoming the center of local gossip. "The Thorn  was written by the Romantic poet William Wordsworth about a middle-aged man and his experience observing a woman's emotional breakdown. Though the settings for "A Rose for Emily  and "The Thorn  and the time period they were written in are different, both works share similarities in terms of themes, symbolism, negative influences of males, and narration. The literary genres of Faulkner's and Wordsworth's period are reflected in their literature. The characteristics of Southern Gothic, the subgenre of Gothic fiction, are prevalent throughout much of Faulkner's work, making him one of the key authors of the field. Such features of Southern Gothic include deeply flawed characters, ambivalent gender roles, derelict settings, and situations that involve crime and violence, poverty, and alienation. These features comprise the entirety of "A Rose for Emily  and further reflect Southern Gothic's notions of depicting the decay of southern aristocracy. The main character Emily Grierson is a relic of the South's past and is never able to move forward in her life. The old world around her crumbles and withers just as the once proud home she lives in deteriorates with the passage of time. The presence of death is apparent throughout the story and is another element expressed in Southern Gothic works. Such features of death and the supernatural are also present in Romantic literature. Romanticism came about as a defiance of the scientific rationalization of the Enlightenment Period by returning to aesthetic experiences of awe and wonder that had not been seen since the Renaissance. Romantic writers such as William Wordsworth focused on the individual with emphasis on internal views and raw emotions as a form of revolt against the social and political standards of the time. Romantic authors wanted to return to nature and find the extraordinary in the mundane, but they also depicted elements above the natural order, outside the cycle of life and death. They often included the supernatural in forms such as ghosts, fairies, witches, and goblins, and they also emphasized the notion of remaining stuck in a never-ending cycle of repetition. Wordsworth incorporates many of these aspects into his poetry, especially in "The Thorn." The main character, Martha Ray, remains in a constant sequence of grief and loss as she continually returns to the location where her child is allegedly buried. She is never able to break this cycle, thus becoming a "ghost  rather than a grieving woman., Both Faulkner and Wordsworth reveal greater insights into Emily and Martha Ray with the use of symbols. Symbols are powerful tools in conveying deeper messages to the literary work, adding to the depth of the story, event, or feeling being expressed. Both Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" and Wordsworth's "The Thorn," utilize symbolism to great effect. The very title of Faulkner's short story uses an image of a rose to foreshadow impending tragedy and a sense of sympathy for the main character Emily, though there is no mention of the flower within the story itself. Faulkner implies that respect should be given to Emily when he was asked about the meaning behind the title: "I pitied [Emily] and this was a salute ¦ to a