A Rose For Emily Literary Analysis

“A Rose for Emily”, written by William Faulkner, starts with a funeral for the main character, Emily Grierson. Emily was a quiet woman and very reserved. It was rumored that no one had seen her in nearly a decade except for her servant. She also has one of the nicest homes in town. Emily was also the only person in the town who is never forced to pay taxes, until near the time of her death.
Many of the younger people in town, who pay their taxes, are not happy that she gets out of paying them. They soon visit her trying to persuade that the old plan is not going to work anymore and that he has to pay her debts. But she refuses and chooses not to pay . Many years earlier the tax collectors had a weird incident with the Grierson residence. The townspeople started complaining about a strange odor coming from Miss Emily’s home. So “they break open her cellar door and sprinkle it with lime” (31). Then in the next few weeks the smell begins to go away, and everyone soon forgets about the matter.

After all is said and done, it shows Emily as a murderer which is considerably unexpected compared to how she is portrayed at the beginning. The text shapes how the readers comprehend the plot. Faulkner leads into the story with innocent old lady, Emily, living alone with few troubles in her life. While she is young, her father passes and she meets a man who is thought to have left town. Emily then in old age, dies, and the body of her love, Homer Barron, is discovered in her home. Faulkner planned Emily to murder Homer Barron with the arsenic she purchases yet have the murder remain undiscovered for years. Some readers may question Faulkner’s motives. At the beginning of the short story, it was believed by the readers that Faulkner was telling the tale of a woman’s life who everybody adored, and then it suddenly turns and shows how she murdered a man and kept his body hidden and even slept with