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What Does Miss Emily Represent The Old South

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In the short story “A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner, Miss Emily Grierson has passed away, and the townspeople have gathered at her funeral to pay their respects to their fallen monument, Miss Emily. Miss Emily’s family was a part of the town for many years, and Miss Emily was the last of her family left alive. Miss Emily is described as a small, heavy woman who always looks bloated with small eyes that are difficult to see. The townspeople are afraid of Miss Emily, but throughout time, they begin to feel pity for her. Faulkner uses the characterization of Miss Emily to show how she represents the Old South, and uses the conflicts between Miss Emily and the town to show how the town represents the New South. Miss Emily’s characterization …show more content…

She is the last surviving member of her family, which has allowed her to be independent. Miss Emily’s family is considered to be the old, Southern family who once had wealth; however, the only thing Miss Emily’s family left her is the Grierson family mansion and two servants. The Griersons are portrayed to believe they are better than everyone else through Miss Emily’s characterization with her attitude towards the townspeople and the druggist. Miss Emily treats the druggist as an incompetent man by intimidating him into giving her the arsenic without the reason for buying it because Miss Emily is using arsenic to murder Homer Barron, her supposed boyfriend. Miss Emily actually uses one glance to get her what she wants: “Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up” (226). Miss Emily’s …show more content…

The town, where the Griersons have planted their roots, was once controlled by the old, Southern family’s wealth and intimidation. As time passes, the Grierson family dies out, and the town begins to embrace the changes in the Old South. Once the town shows a wealthy, old family has lost all control over the town, the New South begins to improve. Proving the town is improving the narrator tells us, “ When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen….The tax notice was also enclosed, without comment” (225), which shows more modern ideas for the town. One conflict in the story starts once the Board of Alderman visits Miss Emily in hopes of collecting her taxes. The gentlemen approach Miss Emily with intent on receiving the tax money that she owes, which is an example of how they live in the New South because they are not afraid to speak to Miss Emily face to face that they are not afraid to speak to her face to face. They have improved their way of handling conflicts with Miss Emily, for example, by not allowing her to continue the way her father controlled the town. As time shifts backward thirty years ago, the town leaders have secretly approached the Grierson mansion during in the middle of the night in order to rid the town of the awful smell coming from her home. The town leaders are afraid to approach Miss

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Miss Emily comes from an old wealthy line of family in the deep south. Faulkner story is highly symbolic, enhancing miss Emily’s values and character. “Miss Emily is described as a fallen monument to the chivalric American South”(Allmon). Faulkner uses the setting of the story to show the emotional state of Emily. The female-male relationship between Emily and her father is strict, oppressive, and controlling; Their relationship has a major impact on Emily’s character Throughout the short story.

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The end of the story, however, reveals her beau to be dead for some years, possibly murdered by Emily herself. An important theme in this 1930 story was how the traditions of the South were vanishing as modernism encroached such as new sidewalks. This is also an reinactted in the state of affairs that are addressed by the new tax collector. She is shown

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Faulkner later reveals later in the story Miss Emily poisons Homer Barron, giving an explanation as to why Emily’s neighbors didn’t see Mr. Barron coming in and out of the home like he usually does. The neighbors then see his skeleton in the upstairs room following Miss Emily’s death. Second, Faulkner uses foreshadowing in “A Rose for Emily” when Miss Emily buys the arsenic, the townspeople think, “’[Emily] will kill herself’” (Faulkner 6). The townspeople then see Homer Barron and Miss Emily on a Sunday buggy ride with her head held high.

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She lived in an isolated world after her father’s death. Finally, she meets Homer; Homer was a man who knew what he wanted in life, and Miss Emily was not part of it. This drove Miss Emily to do the unthinkable, and she bought rat poison and killed Homer. Years passed, and no one knew that Miss Emily killed Homer and had him lying in the upstairs bed dead. It was intel her death that the towns people realized that miss Emily had become mentally ill with the death of her father and

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She would not listen to them.” Miss Emily was the only one in the entire town that refused a mailbox attached to her door or metal numbers. Miss Emily did not like change and in her mind, she always had a choice because the authorities of the city always allowed her to make her own choices. It really upset the people of Jefferson; after her dad died; when she got a boyfriend named Homer Baron. He was a yankee and that was post-civil war times when the north was more industrialized and the south was more of a farming community.

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In many situations, the people within the town notice Miss Emily’s odd behavior, but they choose to maintain peace with her instead of helping her when she clearly needs it the most. However, this need to preserve the respectful image of Miss Emily ultimately leads to her emotional breakdown of isolation and

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Miss Emily’s inconsistent and peculiar behavior has left readers questioning her mental state. “The problematic of Miss Emily’s mental state is her failed interactions with the male characters.” (Arensberg, 127) The most important male characters are first her father and second Homer Barron. The townspeople also are seen as a problem by enabling her behavior by being in denial

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In his short story, “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner intends to convey a message to his audience about the unwillingness in human nature to accept change and more specifically the secretive tendencies of aristocrats in the South during the early 20th century. In order to do this, Faulkner sets up a story in which he isolates and old aristocratic woman, Miss Emily, from her fellow townspeople and proceeds to juxtapose her lifestyle with theirs. In doing this he demonstrates her stubborn refusal to change along with the town, but also Among several literary devices the author employs to achieve this contrast, Faulkner sets up his narrator as a seemingly reliable, impartial and knowledgeable member of the community in which Miss Emily lives by using a first person plural, partially omniscient point of view. The narrator is present for all of the scenes that take place in the story, but does not play any role in the events, and speaks for the town as a whole. Faulkner immediately sets up his narrator as a member of the community in the first line of the story, saying that when Miss Emily died “our whole town went to her funeral.”

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After purchasing the arsenic from the drug store, many were concerned with what was to follow. “So the next day we all said, ‘She will kill herself’; and we said it would be the best thing” (Faulkner 43). As the members of the town searched Emily’s home earlier in the story, they find that Emily was not oblivious to their inquiries. The use of the word “we” is once again powerful and suggests the uniformity between the townspeople and the exclusion of Emily. The changing community of Jefferson,“we”, have followed Emily from her youth, and now come to the conclusion that it is simply best for her to end her life.

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The story is set in the post-Civil War reconstruction era where two generations are colliding on letting go of the past and trying to move forward. Emily is shown as an embodiment of the Old South. The younger townsfolk do not seem

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Emily would isolate herself from the world that went on around her by never leaving her run down home. Having been suppressed by her father for the majority of her young adulthood, she desperately wants a lifelong partner. As she begins to be interested in a soul mate she is noticed one Sunday morning in a yellow wheeled buggy driving with Homer Barron (Faulkner822). “Poor Emily. Her kinsfolk should come to her” (Faulkner822).

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“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner is written about the change from Old South to New South and Emily refuses to accept the changes by living in her own version of reality. An analysis of William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” will explain how Faulkner portrays the change in the social structure of the American South in the early twentieth century as a change from Old South to New South by showing the Griersons no longer hold power, the changes in the town, and Emily’s denial to change. In the New South the Griersons no longer hold power. Emily believes that her family still holds the power that they had in the Old South, so she never payed her taxes.

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