What Is The Change In A Rose For Emily

Society changing and progressing around us forces us to adapt, we cannot resist growth in a progressive society. Change in society spurs change in us and how we see the world. William Faulkner, the author of the short story based on a woman dealing with loss and transition in the post civil war south, “A Rose For Emily”, elaborates on the idea of how impossible it is to stay constant and prevent change in a progressive society. In the time period of the book the whole United States is working through a giant change after the abolishment of slavery, although some citizens did not know how to address that change and wanted to refuse it. In the narrative, through themes and motifs, William Faulkner claimed that, while in a progressive society

When Miss Emily refuses to respond to a government letter regarding her taxes the Board of Alderman comes to visit her. When she comes in she is cold to the gentlemen, showing her lack of social skills which in many cases is a factor in mental Illness. Also before Miss Emily makes the guests leave she tells the, that if they still think she has taxes they need to "see Colonel Sartoris," (Faulkner 149) who has been dead ten years. This statement by Miss Emily could be seen as her minds unwillingness to live in the present. Her mind belives what it wants which is also the case after her fathers death. We see in the book that after her father’s death and her subsequent breakdown, Miss Emily was “sick for a long time." This could mean the state that Miss Emily refused to believe her father was gone. Right after the death of her father, the ladies of the town come to Miss Emily’s home to offer their condolences, and they observe that she had “no trace of grief on her face” (Faulkner 151). The inability to either feel or demonstrate appropriate emotion, is a classic symptom of mental illness. More explicitly, Miss Emily insisted to the visitors that “her father was not dead” (Faulkner 151). For this reason, Miss Emily would not let anyone remove her father's body until three days after her father should have been buried. Finally the third day “she broke down” and let the townspeople remove the body quickly

Miss Emily also shows how she is living in the past when her father dies.  She told everyone that came to get his body that her father was still alive, she refused to believe he was dead.  However, she eventually was forced to give them his body.  "After her father's death, she looked like a girl 'with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows-sort of tragic and serene.'  This suggest that she has already begun her entrance into the nether-world"(Rodriguez 1).  The people did not know what to make of Emily.  Many thought she was

Faulkner’s use of southern gothic writing style helps the reader build a mental depiction of Miss Emily. When the town sent their ambassadors to discuss the taxes that were owed, Faulkner described Miss Emily as “bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water” (2182). This description gives the reader the sense that the character is not well. Faulkner’s description that Miss Emily looked bloated achieves the desired effect on the reader to show how hideous she appears. This graphic description, combined with the author’s depressing description of the parlor (2182), makes the reader think of death. The reader gets the sense of being in a funeral parlor which helps to strengthen Faulkner’s narrative.

The first instance occurs with the death of her father. Mr. Grierson died, leaving Miss Emily alone with the house and his body to dispose of (325). Miss Emily did not take care of either the house or the deceased body of her father (325). When the authorities came, she greeted them as if nothing was wrong, and with “no trace of grief in her face” (325). The town even reportedly said that they “hardly ever see her at all” after Mr. Grierson died and Miss Emily’s companion had left her (324). Emily’s tendencies to never leave her house and to keep her father’s dead body show signs of instability. Miss Emily publicly displayed an unstable psyche when she told the men who came to collect her taxes to refer to a man who had been dead for nearly ten years (324). A woman who expresses these psychological abnormalities must be examined closely when she is as closely related to the crime as Emily. Not only did her behavior concern others, it made them suspicious. Miss Emily also tried to cover up her crime in the end.

Being raised in the south, there are somethings that life teaches a person; you always hold the door, acknowledge someone as they pass you by, and always say “ya’ll”. The southern culture is something that sites in its own niche of history and drags the past into the future. In A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, the reader gets a taste of the south and the way of southern living through an outside view of Emily Grierson’s life in a strange series of events. Falkner’s character, Emily, symbolizes the conflict of the past and the future in southern heritage though the events of her life.

In the short story, “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, there are several instances of Mrs. Emily resisting and showing her overwhelming disdain for the oncoming train of change to many aspects of her life. One such resistance to change is when Mrs. Emily refuses to pay her taxes. She shows her disdain for the unwanted change by saying, “I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me. Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy

It is evident that Miss Emily’s past influenced her appalling actions at the end of the book. I believe that her father’s oppressive behavior still lingered within her. Her father's impact was so strong that she felt the only way Homer Barron wouldn't exit her life was if he laid with her in his eternal sleep. Furthermore, in the story when the men came to her to speak on her taxes, she kept repeating “I have no taxes in Jefferson. Ask Colonel Sartoris” even though Colonel Sartoris has been dead for some years. Her repeating those lines inevitably foreshadows her

The social classes in this story that help determine the theme by showing that Emily doesn’t want to move on from the past. She wants to stay in the same place that she has grown up with. “‘See Colonel Sartoris.’ (Colonel Sartoris has been dead almost ten years.) ‘I have no taxes in Jefferson.’”

Ray B. West, Jr. best describes Miss Emily as refusing to acknowledge the death of Colonel Sartoris just as she refused to acknowledge the death of her own father. Her father was told by Colonel Sartoris he didn’t have to pay taxes, in Emily’s eyes this was indefinite. She lingers in the past and does not face reality of the present (149). The author’s discussion then shifts to Emily’s father’s passing and her not being able to accept his death or move on. This is reflective of “Miss Emily [who met the ladies] at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead” (Faulkner, 179). It took the doctors and ministers three days to convince her to let them take possession of his body. Additionally, “When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it” (Faulkner, 182). The author is implying that Miss Emily was the only person in the town that was against having the numbers and a mailbox affixed to her house. She was set in her ways and not able to change as the times were.

Homer Barron was also a very symbolic person in the story. He was a Yankee, and also a construction worker. He has a lower ascribed status and is not considered good enough for Miss Emily. The townspeople say "None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such” (302). In spite of that, she fell in love with him and he ended up being her rival. When Miss Emily is looking for poison without giving a cause, and cashier writes “For rats” (303). Although the whole town thought that would kill herself. Emily is actually planning on killing Homer. Faulkner is comparing Homer to a rat that came to town and took advantage of Miss Emily and had no aim of marrying

Hinting at her insanity, Emily, when told to pay her taxes, told them to “see Colonel Sartoris” although he has been dead for ten years (219).

One critic, Celia Rodriquez, believes that Emily is ambush in the circle of the elapsed. She ponder that Emily has no notice of degraded figures liking her sire and Colonel Sartoris. Celia backs this confidence when she says that Emily suppose she has no tribute in Jefferson for of verbose agreement with the Colonel "who had been motionless for ten years." A period when her house had government in the South and when the Grierson name meant something. Rodriquez colloquy of Emily maxim "She was a "remembrance" of Southern heathenism, an mental of elapsed appreciate." She gets the emotion that Emily is at fixed battalion with the present age.

Throughout the short story “A Rose for Emily”, by William Faulkner, the new generation tries to enforce modern standards on Miss Emily and her contemporaries. Despite their best efforts, the older generation remains cemented in traditional values. The older generation faces a slow, tragic, rotting death similar to Miss Emily’s if they continue to adhere to tradition in a modern age.

‘Perhaps he considers he self the sheriff..I have no taxes in Jefferson." "But there is nothing on the books to show that, you see. We must go, by the-"See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson." " But Miss Emily---" See Colonel Sartoris.""(pg.2) well as it turns out Colonel Sartoris had been dead for 10 years. Again later in the story Emily shows her reaction to death with denial as her husband died, yet she still slept with him in the bed where he died for years, never removing and disposing of his body. In the story "Barn Burning" the young boy reacts to death opposite of Emily. At the end of the story when his father is shot, he never looks back on it, he just keeps on running. He reacted to the death of his father as a means to break free, and live a life of his own rather than his fathers. Falkner does a wonderful job of showing opposite human reactions to death. Every person reacts different to situations in life. Emily most likely reacted to the death of her father and subsequent deaths in the way she did, due to the fact that her father was everything to her and in a sense ran her life, she was lost without him and never fully recovered to be a socially active human being. In "Barn Burning" however the boy was not happy with his father, he did not like how he was growing up and how the father lived a life of lies and lack of respect which is why the boy was able to move on easily.