“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. When the men came and asked her about her taxes, she said “See Colonel Sartoris. I have …show more content…
Emily’s house is described as “lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay” (451) and “an eyesore among eyesores” (451). Her house is from the Old South and is outdated compared to the rest of the buildings in the town, but she refuses to change anything with the house, leaving it to decay with her. The street that her house is on “had once been our most select street” (451), but now everything has changed around her house and her house is the only thing remaining from the Old South on the street. Industrialism is occurring around this time and is changing the town, but she refuses to change her house to match with the New South. On the same street as her house, “garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily’s house was left” (451). These changes on the street cause her house to look out of place, because her house is from the Old South while everything else is the New South. Her town was also getting sidewalks as a part of the industrialization, which led to her meeting Homer Barron. There social changes going on around this time. One change in the town was “when the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily rejected letting them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it” (455). She refused this change, because it was causing a change to her house, which …show more content…
Meeting Homer Barron was her biggest change from her old self, because her father did not allow her be in any relationships, but she went out in public with Homer “driving in the yellow-wheeled buggy and the matched team of bays from the livery stable” (454). Consequently, this was only because she was living in her own reality and believed that Homer would be the one to marry her. Homer was “not a marrying man” (454) and would not marry Emily, but she refused to accept the denial of marriage from him, so she killed him to keep him with her forever. She stayed within her house to keep herself in the Old South. When she told the men to see Colonel Sartoris, she was not aware that “Colonel Sartoris had been dead for almost ten years” (452) at that point. Emily kept her house the same way it had always been and was letting it decay while she stayed in it. She refused to clean or change the house at all to preserve it in the Old South. She did not want to accept the death of other people. When Emily’s father died, she refused the town from taking his body and burying it. She wanted to keep her father’s body with her and the town was “about to use law and force, but she broke down, and they buried her father quickly” (453). She also hid Homer’s body after she killed him. Emily wanted to keep him with her forever and did not let him say no to marrying her. She bought clothes and a bathroom set to
She discontinued her painting lessons because she did not want any relationships with the people around her. Naturally, some were offended by her standoffish attitude so they stopped sending her gifts during the holidays. Emily became so secluded, it seemed like she and everything in her house were suspended in time. Even the townspeople described her wallpaper and furniture as archaic and dust ridden when they toured her home after her death. She rarely went out
Emily knows how the people in the town stare and talk about her dating Homer and she does not care. Emily likes to hold on to the past and considering how she was brought up she cannot let Homer go when he states that their relationship is coming to an end. She decides she will hold on to him anyway she can. She inds up killing Homer and keeps him in the house with her. People complain of the smell but the townspeople will not confront her.
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.
But we don’t know why Emily was the way she was or why she did what she did. Emily is like any woman or girl who feel insecure or not sure how she feels and is just confused on how to handle things going on in her life. Emily didn’t live the life like any other woman in her town. Being in the situation she was in was, what choices would you make? There are some things we can’t explain like why Emily kill Homer Barron and why she kept her father's corpse before letting anyone know that he was dead.
Now, her house is decrepit, and as it turns out, she’s keeping a dead body in a bed in her house. Emily tries to hold on to old privileges granted to her family in more prosperous times. Meanwhile, the town around her grows and changes. Falkner presents Emily as a symbol of a dying culture, namely the antebellum South. Before the Civil War, the South was thriving due to its use of slave labor.
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.
The culture of preservation in Jefferson is a component of the motivation behind Homer Barron’s murder. Homer first meets Miss Emily and they both become increasingly attached to one another, so much so that Miss Emily buys him silver toiletries because she assumes that he will ask her to marry him. However, when it becomes clear to her that he has no intention of marrying at all, she poisons him with rat poison. She murders him because she realizes that if he rejects her affections publicly, she will be accused of being unable to retain a relationship and the town will regard her as
Before Homer arrived at the town, Emily never married, or even dated, since her father turned away every potential suitor for not being good enough. This further increased her seclusion from the town, making it seem like Emily was above all of them, a monument to be looked up to. Due to her higher social status, Emily was forced into a life of solitude, not even being recognized as a
“Change is Miss Emily’s enemy, so she refuses to acknowledge it, whether that change is the death of her father, the arrival of tax bills, the decay of her house”(Mosby 1). Her father 's death was by far the most detrimental change that further
When her father died we can see that she is controlling of him and would not release the body for burial. After she loses her father, it is as if she loses her sense of reality. It is as if maybe the old white house is beginning to represent the attitude and ways of Emily. The house is old, dark, and very dusty just as the townspeople think Emily is. Homer Barron is a construction worker from New York.
William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily Authors have their own style of writing. They use different various techniques to get the attention of the readers. In some instances, the authors also want their readers to read between the lines for them to understand what the former really want to imply. In line with this assertion, this paper will serve as an analysis for Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily. First-Person Plural Nouns It can be observed that in the starting paragraph of Faulkner’s
Another important trope in the story is symbols. There are plenty of them including the old house as a representation of stable and permanent Emily 's lifestyle, pocket watch that indicates the time Emily lives in and the moment of wedding that is stopped, untouched wedding suits covered with dust as a symbol of unresolved love, a strand of gray hair on the pillow as a sign of eternal feelings, etc. Moreover, such powerful symbols of the story as lime and arsenic used to kill the person and then stop the smell from corpse 's decomposing are allegory for people 's attitude towards problems. Instead of investigating the source of smell and face the issue, they tend to get rid of the consequences that bother them and remain not touched by the complication. Such behavior can be also viewed as a sort of alienation, when people try to ignore the individual who refused to socialize with them.
The story is set right after the civil war. Emily and her father are high class people who owned slaves to do all the things around the house. Because of her social status everyone in the town would never think of Emily as someone who would sleep with a dead body. When everyone found out about Emily’s secret it was a shock to everyone. Necrophilia is not something someone who was first class would do.
William Faulkner writes “A Rose for Emily” to discuss the south and how it’s denying to acknowledge the unavoidable changes, historically and socially. Just as Emily passed, so well the south if they do not adapt to modern times. Throughout the short story written by William Faulkner, the perplexing character Miss Emily, Faulkner brings across the struggles that surface from trying to keep tradition alive, while modernization is occurring. Jefferson is at a road block accepting a modern, more monetary future while at the same time still lounged on the point of the past.
There are terrible secrets everywhere, like Homer Barron’s corpse. Barron’s corpse shows how detached and unresolved Emily was. She was afraid of letting go of the things she loved. She never accept her Mr. Grierson’s death. So, she decided to do some necrophilia in order to preserve Homer.