Resistance to Change: Miss Emily Grierson

An important idiosyncrasy of Emily's that will help the reader to understand the bizarre finale of the story, is her apparent inability to cope with the death of someone she cared for. When deputies were sent to recover back taxes from Emily, she directed them to Colonel Sartoris, an ex-mayor that had told her she would never have to pay taxes, and a man that had been dead for ten years. Years before this incident, however, after her father had died, she continued to act has if he had not, and only allowed his body to be removed when threatened with legal action. Considering the fate of her lover's corpse, one suspects she would have kept her father's corpse also, had the town not known of his death.

A statistic shows that “by summer of 1863, in New Bern, N.C., only 20 of the 250 white people remaining in town were men” (Abbott). In a depletion of man, the appearance of Homer Barron is like a light to Emily’s heart. She does not mind about Homer’s origin, as long as she has a man whom can live with her. However, it is not easy to own a man in this period. Abbott states that “widowed women in their 30s faced stiff competition for available men in their age group and suffered constant reminders of their grim odds” (Abbott). This fact explains Emily’s action of poisoning her lover, Homer. She wants to keep him beside her forever. Killing Homer is the only way, she can get him away from all other women and do not lose him. Due to the effect of war on men, Emily is trying to fight over her destiny to own a man for herself, but she seems to go too far with it.

The summer after her father died, the town hired contractors to pave the sidewalks. The foreman, Homer Barron, and Miss. Emily became quite fond of one another. On Sunday afternoons they could bee seen driving in his buggy together. Soon the people began to whisper about Emily and Homer. Emily held her head high; she would not be seen as anything other than respectful. The town's people believed that Miss. Emily should have kinfolk come to stay with her for a while.

            Emily chooses a lover that resembles her father in many ways;  Homer is big, strong, outspoken, and domineering.  Initially, the townspeople are happy to know that Emily is dating Homer.  "Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer."  When they realize that Emily is serious about him, they have a change of heart.  "Miss Emily with her head high and Homer Barron with his hat cocked and a cigar in his teeth, reigns and whip in a yellow glove."  Emily does not care about the people's reaction toward her affair with Homer.  Emily's affair with a "day laborer" is an act of defiance, toward her father and perhaps, even the toward the townspeople.  She wants to show everyone that she is in control of her life and will do as she pleases.

In “A Rose for Emily” Miss Emily Grierson live a life of quiet turmoil. Her entire life has revolved around an inexplicable loneliness mostly characterized by the harsh abandonment of death. The most vital imagery utilized by Faulkner demonstrates Miss Emily’s mental condition. She, being self-improsened within the confines of her home, is the human embodiment of her house; Faulkner describes it as “... stubborn an coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps--an eyesore among eyesores.” (Faulkner 308).

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

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

Emily is destroyed by her father's over-protectiveness. He prevents her from courting anyone as "none of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such" (82). When her father dies, Emily refuses to acknowledge his death; "[W]ith nothing left, she . . . [had] to cling to that which had robbed her" (83). When she finally begins a relationship after his death, she unfortunately falls for Homer

Her relationship with her father is a total mystery, however it’s well implied that their relationship was more than the typical normal father and daughter relationship. For this reason the community wasn’t at all shocked that Emily was single and turning thirty. In denial about her father’s death, she refused to le the townspeople remove the body for three days. Once she met Homer Barron, Emily begins an undesirable affair. Many of the town people were happy she was with someone. Though it is soon found that Homer played for the other team, Emily goes to the pharmacist for poison, it is then that the townspeople think that she will kill herself. After buying the arsenic, the next time they see her it’s stated, “she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray” (Faulkner 521). This perhaps the result of Homer Barron’s murder and the loss of her dad. At seventy four years old, Emily died in her home “She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her gray head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight” (Faulkner 521). The major plot twist is that the townspeople find Homer Barron in a bedroom upstairs, lying in a lover’s embrace, with the indentation of a head upon the pillow next to him and one “long strand of iron gray hair” (Faulkner 522). Ms. Emily is “jilted” by the death of her father and Homer Barron leaving her. Since her father isolated her so well

Emily’s Rose “A Rose for Emily,” written by William Faulkner takes place in a post-Civil War town with dirt roads and dusty air, which adds a sense of an old feel of an old town. Emily being cold like an old statue that never changes, but only ages with time. Her man servant, Toby, is the only one who really saw Miss Emily as she was very ill and reclusive at the end of her life.

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.

Emily never had a relationship with a man so when Homer Barron came into town to work, he and Emily was seen riding through the town together. Quite naturally people in the town would start talking and speculating about the relationship, speculating whether or not he and Emily would marry. But it was said that Homer Barron liked men. When Homer wasn’t seen for awhile people thought he had left Emily and gone away. When the town people learned that Emily had purchased arsenic, they got happy hoping she would kill herself.

The short story of A Rose for Emily takes place in around the 1930’s about a woman who lived in a fictional town in Mississippi. The story goes on about how most people view the stereotypical woman who is alone, the townspeople felt apologetic and bereaved of her after her father had died and her lover had left her. Emily is seen never to leave her house and the house is known to smell rotten, yet due to the pity that the townspeople feel for her, they refuse to do anything about it, ‘“Dammit, Sir,” Judge Stevens

Homer Barron and starts a relationship with Emily. She heard her father’s words, “None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such” (Faulkner 451). Despite her father’s views Emily feels like she might have finally found true love, even get married that is until Homer tells her he isn’t the marrying kind. The ideal of true love becomes forever when she kills Homer, just as a rose is dried and placed in a book. Homer’ corpse is placed in Emily’s bedroom with a strand of her hair next to him in her bed. The gray hair is symbolic that she will have him forever and it was her last chance to wed, they were destined to be together in that bed if they would have married. Emily grows old and her spirit grows older. The rose stands for Emily’s secret; that Homer is her “rose” that she loved and kept to herself even after his body was decaying. Her madness grows after killing her boyfriend and sleeping with his corpse, the smell around the house becomes foul. The towns people sneak and place lime around the house which dissipates the

The story is about a spinster: Miss Emily, who is described as an undefeated maiden, she was motherless and was raised by a restricted father who did not allow her to communicate with other men. When her father died, she tried to keep his corpse at home, which later in the story, produced some bad smell, therefore leading the town government to investigate her house. Later in the story, she met and dated a worker from the North, who afterward disappeared. During their acquaintance, the town started talking about Homers and Emily’s relationship, because Homer was from North and was not suitable for a lady from South. After her death, the town discovered that all that time she had been living with the corpse of her suitor, Homer Barron, who