Attitudes Toward The Old South In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

In the short story A Rose for Emily written by William Faulkner, readers are immersed in the narrative of a supposed town member who describes the impact that the recent death of an old woman has had upon their small community. In the narrative, readers are taken on a journey through the life of Miss Emily, an old, lonely woman who is seemingly frozen in her own timeframe. As the story unfolds, readers learn about the various tragedies Emily encountered in her lifetime such as the sudden death of her controlling father as well as her alienation from other family members that leaves her utterly alone following his death. Audiences also learn about events that happened throughout Emily’s life that both molded her as a person and aided in shaping her reputation around the town. From her controversial relationship with a construction worker named Homer Barron to her suspicious purchase of arsenic at the local drug store, there is no question that Emily lived under the constant scrutiny of her fellow townspeople. After reading the initial sentences, it can be concurred that this story doesn’t simply describe the life of an old, questionably insane woman, but also the story of the age-old battle between old and new. Through symbolism and an artful arrangement of the events described, Faulkner is able to meticulously weave a tale of the clash between newer and older generations’ views and standards.

Tradition controls the actions of both the town and Emily herself.  “A Rose for Emily” captures the importance tradition holds for her Southern community.  The Civil War was an issue of lifestyle.  Southerners hung to the lifestyle they had, with the slaves. Tradition was the reason Emily didn’t pay her taxes. Her father was aristocracy and paid no taxes , therefore , Emily refused. When the slavery era passed, the South fell, the lifestyle was torn apart and the economy changed.  Old-time families, like Emilie’s, lost their position with their

William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” employs indirect characterisation to create a detailed picture of not only Emily but also of the narrator. While she is described in seemingly direct ways, the comparison between the vision of her in the past and her present appearance reveals further characterization than the descriptors themselves. When she is young and pure to the town, she appears as “a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background” (page 767). She is almost granted an angelic aura by her virginity, and when the town believes she has lost it her image it is turned entirely on its head. They see her as tarnishes and no longer consumable or fit to find a man. She is no longer svelte and desirable, but a “small, fat woman in black” (page 765). The transformation of Emily from slender to fat, and a white dress to a black dress mirrors that of the marriage set’s tarnishing. Emily’s

In the Rusty Belt of America there a minority group of people whose income level has surpassed the poverty line. Inside the state of Ohio lies the poorest white American which describes themselves as hillbillies as they reside in the eastern Kentucky. In his personal analysis of culture in crisis of hillbillies, J.D. Vance tries to explain, in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, what goes on in the lives of people as the economy goes south in a culture that is culturally deceptive, family deceptive, and in a community, whose doctrine of loyalty is heavily guarded. Like every poor Scot-Irish hillbilly in his community, Vance came from being poor, like the rest of his kind, to be a successful Law graduate from Yale Law school. As result of this transition and being the only child in his family to graduate from a highly respected intuition in the country, Vance thought out to analyze the ostensible reason of why many people are poor in his community.

William Faulkner wrote, "A Rose for Emily." In the gothic, short story he contrasted the lives of the people of a small Southern town during the late 1800's, and he compared their ability and inability to change with the time. The old or "Antebellum South" was represented by the characters Miss Emily, Colonel Sartoris, the Board of Aldermen, and the Negro servant. The new or "Modern South" was expressed through the words of the unnamed narrator, the new Board of Aldermen, Homer Barron, and the townspeople. In the shocking story, "A Rose for Emily," Faulkner used symbolism and a unique narrative perspective to describe Miss Emily's inner struggles to accept time and change

Through this examination of the differences between past and present, wrong and right, and North and South, by Ray West Jr., the different viewpoints and conflicts that appear throughout “A Rose for Emily” are deeply analyzed. West’s critical assessment divides the characters based on who represents the old ways and who represents the changing times. However, the story shows the South’s fervent desire to keep their lifestyle the same. Emily attempted to hold her love for Homer like the South attempted to hold its love for gentile days before the Civil War. West’s asserts that Emily’s fall from grace symbolizes the South’s fall. The deterioration of Emily and the South during reconstruction parallels the slow deterioration of Emily’s house.

William Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning” describes a typical relationship between wealthy people and poor people during the Civil War.

William Faulkner’s short story, A Rose for Emily, is a dark tale of a young girl damaged by her father that ended up leaving her with abandonment issues. Placed in the south in the 1930’s, the traditional old south was beginning to go under transition. It went from being traditionally based on agriculture and slavery to gradually moving into industrial and abolition. Most families went smoothly into the transition and others, like the Griersons, did not. Keeping with southern tradition, the Griersons thought of themselves as much higher class then the rest of their community. Emily’s father found no male suitable for his daughter and kept her single into her thirties. After her fathers death Miss Emily was swept off of

Harper Lee once said, “My book had a universal theme, It’s not a ‘racial’ novel. It portrays an aspect of civilization, not necessarily Southern civilization.” The aspect of civilization Harper Lee was most likely referring to was prejudice. Prejudice is very prominent in our culture today. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows humans have a natural tendency to prejudice those that are different from themselves in order to teach her 1960s readers that anyone can become a perpetrator of prejudice.

actions to show that no one will own or control him. He has no regard

The youthful protagonists of The Unvanquished and "Barn Burning," Bayard Sartoris and Sarty Snopes respectively, offer through their experiences and, most importantly, the way their stories are told, telling insights about the constructions of southern masculinities with respect to class. The relative innocence that each of the boys has in common, though ultimately loses, provides a record of sorts to the formation of the impressions that shape their young lives and their early conceptions of what it means to be a man. Through narrative artifice, Faulkner is able to make observations, apt but at times scathing, about these constructions of southern masculinity as

Southern hospitality, this is something everyone knows and loves. In the South there is a different atmosphere than in the North. People smile at strangers, they bring food to neighbors, and most of the time are just generally polite. In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, there are many examples of people with southern hospitality, and a few examples of others without it. The city of Maycomb, where the book is set, is a small town, everyone knows everyone else, this makes the atmosphere of the book feel as if everyone is one big family. The theme of southern hospitality runs throughout To Kill a Mockingbird and is shown as Miss Maudie's house burns down, as Mr. Raymond gladly helps make Dill feel better, and in the fact that everyone's door is always open.

In 1930 William Faulkner published his very first story, “A Rose for Emily.” The story emerges with the funeral of Emily Grierson and discloses the story out of sequence; Faulkner brings into play an anonymous first-person narrator thought to be the representation of Grierson’s municipality. Miss Emily Grierson’s life was read to be controlled by her father and all his restrictions. Grierson was raised through her life with the thought that no man was adequate for her. Stuck in her old ways, Grierson continued with the Old South’s traditions once her father had passed. Awhile following her father’s death, Emily aims to put the longing for love to a stop and allows Homer Barron to enter her life. Faulkner portrays the literary movement of Modernism utilizing allegory through the post-bellum South after the American Civil War. In the short story “A Rose Emily,” William Faulkner uses a series of symbols to illustrate the prominent theme of the resistance of the refinement of life around Miss Emily.

Post Civil war era Mississippi, a racially divided confederate state. The south is known for hospitality, and that special charm. Yet in “A Rose for Emily” the townspeople tend to gossip about Emily and are very nosey. The author of the short story created an environment in where the values of the town contrast the typical stereotypes of a southern state. William Faulkner's, “A Rose for Emily” exposes the hypocrisy of the Post Civil War south.

They tried to control me. Like when I was a little girl, they would put me in the closet because they thought that would silence me. However, if only they could see what was really going on inside my head. It’s just like putting a bird in a cage. It may be trapped inside a confined space; still its mind cannot be controlled or limited.