Emily And Miss Emily In Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

On April 1865 General Lee surrendered his army of Northern Virginia and the American Civil War came to an end. This marked the beginning of the reconstruction era and a time when the northern social structure began to have major influences on southern societies. The South, however, struggled to retain the social structure they took for granted in the Antebellum period. In “A Rose for Emily”, Faulkner uses the townspeople, Miss Emily, and Miss Emily’s home to show this pervading idealistic society of the Old South, within the reformative society of the New South. In this story, readers witness the life of Miss Emily through the eyes of the townspeople; some of which are the very embodiment of Old South ideals. Judge Stevens, the 80-year-old member of the board of Aldermen, is a leading example. The use of slavery in the pre-Civil War Southern states created a sense of social hierarchy, in which more whites espoused an aristocratic nature. As an 80-year-old citizen, who lived in the idealist era, Judge Stevens retains these traits. When he responds to the neighbor woman about the developing smell he states, “it’s probably just a rat that n***** of hers killed in the yard. I’ll speak to him about it” (Faulkner 452). He is quick to overlook Miss Emily and blames

This is indicative of a pervading social hierarchy that can even overcome law and order. Judge Stevens’ behavior can be attributed to the high influence that chivalrous ideals played in law and order,