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The Treatment Of Women In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

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The story starts with the death of Miss Emily Grierson. The whole town decided they were going to her funeral in her home. The men went to her funeral to pay their respects to what some people thought of her as a fallen monument. The women of the town went to her home to see what it looked like inside since no one has been in her home for over ten years. Miss Emily was a fallen monument because of who her father was to the community. In William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily,” it depicts the treatment of women in the south if they did not find a husband and the strain it put on Emily’s fragile mind. When Miss Emily was around the age of thirty and still not married the townspeople saw her as a pauper. It seemed like when her father was still alive no man was good enough for his daughter. Thought out the years there was gentlemen callers but they none of them were good enough in her father’s eyes so he always pushed them away from her. Southern women had no choice but to play the roles given to them by the men in their lives whether it be their fathers or their husbands. In the nineteenth century, most Americans assumed that there …show more content…

The townspeople would not suspect anything else about the disappearance of Homer until the day of Miss Emily’s funeral. This is when they would find out just how crazy Miss Emily was. The last day Homer is seen going into her house was possibly the last day he would live. Miss Emily’s house was dusty and dirty like that of a woman who just did not care anymore. There was one room in the house that no one was able to get into for forty or so years (Faulkner, 1930). Once they forcefully gained entry to the forbidden room, there was a disturbing scene. As the group visually inspected the room from the doorway as the cloud of dust began to settle what they seen astounded

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William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” shows the relationship between Mrs. Emily Grierson and the people of the town in which she resides. The southern Gothic novel highlights the prejudice that existed in the South, following the Civil War. Overall, the story illustrates how much the South struggled to adapt to the changes that have been implemented upon it. Race relations, the economic status and small town values that exemplify the southern atmosphere of the time are prevalent throughout “A Rose for Emily.” Faulkner communicates the theme of tradition and change successively through point of view and symbolism, which can all be explored through a historical lens.

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In the story "A Rose for Emily," William Faulkner illustrates the story of an older woman refusing to adjust to new customs of the southern society. Miss Emily's behavior, her appearance, and the house she resides in, all portray her inability to adapt to the modernizing South. All in all, the decaying of Miss Emily and the old South's social codes cannot survive in a new, changing society. Throughout Miss Emily's resistance to change, her behavior is the first indication that she is stuck in the past.

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No one ever sees Homer come back out of the house and everyone starts to notice an awful smell coming from inside. Since it was in a generation when the law wasn’t so strict no one really looked into the situation. When Emily died people finally were let into her house for the funeral. They found Homer lying in the bed decayed. Everyone then realizes that was the awful smell coming from house.

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The titled short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner is set in the post-civil war era in a southern town named Jefferson. The story discusses the themes of race and social class through the characters, Tobe and Miss Emily. Miss Emily Grierson is a distinguished woman in southern society while Tobe is her black manservant. Tobe stays with Miss Emily until her death and suddenly disappears afterwards because their relationship is a remnant of the race relationship in the antebellum South: master and slave. He no longer has any obligations to stay in Jefferson because his duty to Miss Emily is no longer needed since she died.

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William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

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