Life. A continuous cycle of the highs and the lows, love and heartbreak, success and failure, and living and dying. It is the brutal truth of what every human goes through, from back to the beginning of time to present day. Miss Emily Grierson is an example of that in William Faulkner's writing, A Rose for Emily. The story explains the final years of her life, going into detail about what exactly was "normal" at that time, which also turns out to be very similar to the Civil War years. William Faulkner's, A Rose for Emily, expresses and focuses on the similarities and contrasts from different, historical time eras of our world's existence, while using the other texts The World House and Friday Night Lights.

The similarities of time eras are relevant between A Rose for Emily and The World House, written by Martin Luther King Jr. Centering around the Civil Rights movement, this story also goes through the motions of life; however, focusing more on the affect of war during this time. For example, Faulkner writes, "And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson" (Faulkner 226). In similarity, The World House was written based on fighting between the north and the south, the Unions and Confederates. This direct example from the text ties both stories together, relating the big events in life from this specific time era to each other. Another example includes both stories' use of the word "negro." As commonly known, this specific word was used quite often back in the Civil War time era, due to the ongoing and intense conflict of the northerners and the southerners. Mentioned in the very first sentence of the second paragraph of The World House, King writes, "However deeply American Negroes are caught in the struggle to be at last at home in our homeland of the United States, we cannot ignore the larger world house in which we are also dwellers" (King Jr., 284). A Rose for Emily, where "negro" is frequently used, relates to The World House's use of the word to show that whether you are just a neighbor in a town, or one of the country's most powerful speakers, it was used without second thought or hesitation. These similarities in both stories make the connection of A Rose for Emily's to the Civil War and are an example of the time era then. 

In contrast, there are differences that can be found from A Rose for Emily when being compared to Friday Night Lights, written by H.G. Bissinger. This story focuses more on the day-to-day life of normal high school students and the sport of football. Surprisingly, a topic completely non-related to the Civil War time era still does have its relations to A Rose with Emily. For example, the setting of Faulkner's story is centered in a smaller town where everyone is neighbors and knows who everyone and their second cousin is. In Friday Night Lights, the setting takes place at a public high school in the middle of Texas. This shows the differences of the considered "normal" living from back in the Civil War time to now. Back then you would find it common to have a small, one story house right outside of town, whereas today it is common to see multiple neighborhoods with full brick houses up to three stories. Towns have increased drastically in size and everyone mingles with one another, no longer distinguishing someone from the color of their skin. As another example, Friday Night Lights is also a television show, as you may already know. There are actors in the show that contain colored skin. Back in the Civil War time era, it would be rare to see any popular colored people. Throughout the story, there was no use of the word "negro," expressing the matter that it is no longer commonly used in this current time era. A Rose for Emily, compared to Friday Night Lights, gives the reader a taste of how it was to live back in the midst of the Civil War. Today, yes, there is still conflict with our country but with the outside world instead. Bissinger's piece of writing really sticks out to me by providing the contrasts between this time era and the war time era. 

Many stories have different ways of expressing the bits and pieces of its main point. Life, in these cases, can be interpreted in multiple occurrences due to the different time settings. A story about Miss Emily Grierson's final years of her life sets an example between two related and nonrelated stories. The focus of A Rose for Emily is detailed on the similarities and contrasts between two different time eras of our country, proven in the stories The World House and Friday Night Lights.  

