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A Rose For Emily Essay

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William Faulkner is an American writer, who was born in Oxford, Mississippi. Living in the South gave Faulkner a direct report of the conflict that some people had with letting go of the past and trying to move forward. He also saw the problems that people who surrounded him were facing: the struggle with trying to make ends meet, the struggle to be treated just like everyone else, and the struggle with trying to let go of the past and move on to a new beginning. Faulkner truly did bring all these factors to life in “A Rose for Emily .” This very gothic short story tells a very interesting tale about an elderly woman, who goes by the name of Emily Grierson, that is clinging to her past with much desperation, while the world around her is moving …show more content…

Faulkner begins the short story by describing Emily’s home. “ It was a big squarish house that had once been white…”(Faulkner 146). The house itself represents the old South. It is aged and outdated, and instead of it being rebuilt and improved upon like the rest of the South, it has remained unchanged for many years. As the narrator goes on to explain Emily’s life, it is obvious that her bloodline is very respected. Although she is respected, when her and Homer are seen out together, then town becomes enraged. Because Emily is not a married woman, it is an old custom for her to be chaperoned when out with a man. But to Jefferson’s dismay, Emily does not care whether she has a chaperon or not, and she also doesn’t care who is bothered by it. This event brings a theme of hypocrisy in the story, because the town wants Emily to let go of her old southern ways, but wants her to also go by old southern rules. Thomas Argiro also makes some good points about Homer, he stated, “ During the story’s era a white man with a dark complexion was an unsettling subject in the South, and that Homer’s eyes are lighter than his face indicates his countenance is noticeably darker than typical”. Meaning that maybe the town was so outraged at the relationship between Homer and Emily because Homer is actually mixed. It is possible that Miss Emily was finally trying to break out of the old south values by dating who she

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Mr. Grierson, Emily’s father, prohibited her from socializing with men because, in Mr. Grierson’s eyes, there was no man suitable for Emily. After being tired of being alone for so long, Emily decided to date Homer Barron. Homer Barron was a Northerner and worked as a foreman for a construction company. The older folks of the town were excited for Emily, there was even talk about marriage between the couple. However, the younger crowd did not believe Homer was that of Ms. Griersons high status.

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Not only that, as Homer becomes a popular figure in town and is seen taking Emily on buggy rides on Sunday afternoons, it scandalizes the town and increases the condescension and pity they have for Emily. They feel that she is forgetting her family pride and becoming involved with a man beneath her station. Even though Emily is from the high class family, it does not mean that she is living up to the pleasant lifestyle. As a matter of fact, she is actually living a gloomy and desolate life, which is essentially the opposite lifestyle expected for Emily's rank in society by the townspeople. Although Emily once represented a great southern tradition centering on the landed gentry with their vast holdings and considerable resources, Emily's legacy has devolved, making her more a duty and an obligation than a romanticized vestige of a dying order.

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Her father stood by the door’s path blocking Emily’s would be suitors from accessing her because he believed they were not good enough for her daughter. This sets the stage for his daughter loneliness. Throughout William Faulkner’s “a rose for Emily” he uses the house, Emily’s hair, and the rose to portray change and decay. The house in which she lives with her father embodies decay and was like a prison in which she was locked and suitor bared from accessing her.

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Faulkner makes Emily’s flaws abundantly clear from the start of the story. The first sentence, “the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of the house, which no one save an old manservant-a combined gardener and cook--had seen in the last ten years” (Faulkner 517) serves to describe Emily as an outsider and sort of outcast before the story really even starts. Faulkner uses Emily to capture an extreme version of what he saw a little of in all women. One example of Emily’s differentness is her dating of Homer. Faulkner describes Homer as an outsider the first time we meet him, “Homer Barron-a big, dark, ready man” (Faulkner 520).

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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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