Miss Emily In Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

“A Rose for Emily” takes place in a small southern town called Jefferson. Miss Emily who is the main character represents a “fallen monument” to the town. She is a small piece of history from the town’s pre-civil war lifestyle. The town undergoes modern progression throughout the story. Faulkner uses Miss Emily, Homer Barron, and the town of Jefferson to symbolize progression in the South. Miss Emily, who represents a “monument” to the townspeople, is a member of the Grierson family, who are wealthy and highly respected. She is a traditionalist throughout the story, and does not progress or modernize. Even when she finds herself falling into poverty she still manages to retain her aristocratic manner, and when the town felt as though she was a “hereditary obligation upon” them Miss Emily still would not “have accepted charity”. “As the last Grierson” Miss Emily upholds her father’s wishes of not becoming romantically involved with anyone of a lower class, although the

The town’s economy which once flourished in agriculture has begun to change, and is slowly being replaced by modern industry. The once proud plantation style mansions with “a big squarish frame” and “decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies” such as Miss Emily’s home, have now become “encroached and obliterated” with more economically friendly “garages and cotton gins”. The town, once ran by aldermen such as colonel Sartoris, who served in the Civil war, is now being ran by new aldermen who are apart of “the new generation, with its more modern ideas”. While Miss Emily is stuck in a past that no longer exists her home town of Jefferson is evolving right before her, and she is not able to keep up and becomes swallowed by all the progression. Faulkner is criticizing the south for wanting to hold onto its traditions. So he uses Miss Emily, Homer Barron, and the town of Jefferson to symbolize progression in the