William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

Time is one of life’s constants; never rushed, never biased, and never forgiving. Sometimes it feels as if we have too much, or too little, but it never truly changes. For Emily Grierson, time is nothing more than an illusion, and she is not subject to its effects, avoiding any and all changes to her way of life. William Faulkner uses A Rose for Emily’s setting, symbolism, and Emily’s character development to explain the crippling and gruesome effects of time on those who choose to swim against its current. Emily’s home plays a crucial role in the telling of the story. It not only serves as the main setting, but also as a mark to show the change in setting around her. In the introduction of the story we get a fairly unflattering description of Emily’s home at the time of her death, “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in

After one of the most grotesque and shocking descriptions of Homer’s decaying body, we are left linger with this final detail, “…in the second pillows was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair. (211)” Faulkner did not just give us a very horrific ending, but one that was tragic for both of the dead. Homer was tragically killed by Emily, and Emily died after years of lying next to her dead lover. Here, Faulkner uses the discovery of the hair in his nose to show that Emily felt strongly for Homer, and looked beyond his cold-decaying figure, to feel what she felt before in his arms; she felt loved, and this time death was not to take him from her, but to preserve him in her life, much like death preserved her father’s care for her long