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A Rose for Emily Summary

You might want to look at our discussion of the novel's setting before you enter here, or at least know it's there to help if you get
tangled up in this story's crazy chronology. Also keep in mind that the narrator of this story represents several generations of men
and women from the town.
The story begins at the huge funeral for Miss Emily Grierson. Nobody has been to her house in ten years, except for her servant.
Her house is old, but was once the best house around. The town had a special relationship with Miss Emily ever since it decided to
stop billing her for taxes in 1894. But, the "newer generation" wasn't happy with this arrangement, and so they paid a visit to Miss
Emily and tried to get her to pay the debt. She refused to acknowledge that the old arrangement might not work any more, and flatly
refused to pay.
Thirty years before, the tax collecting townspeople had a strange encounter with Miss Emily about a bad smell at her place. This
was about two years after her father died, and a short time after her lover disappeared from her life. Anyhow, the stink got stronger
and complaints were made, but the authorities didn't want to confront Emily about the problem. So, they sprinkled lime around the
house and the smell was eventually gone.
Everybody felt sorry for Emily when her father died. He left her with the house, but no money. When he died, Emily refused to admit
it for three whole days. The town didn't think she was "crazy then," but assumed that she just didn't want to let go of her dad, (even
though you could argue that he had stolen her youth from her).
Next, the story doubles back and tells us that not too long after her father died Emily begins dating Homer Barron, who is in town on
a sidewalk-building project. The town heavily disapproves of the affair and brings Emily's cousins to town to stop the relationship.
One day, Emily is seen buying arsenic at the drugstore, and the town thinks that Homer is giving her the shaft, and that she plans to
kill herself.
When she buys a bunch of men's items, they think that she and Homer are going to get married. Homer leaves town, then the
cousins leave town, and then Homer comes back. He is last seen entering Miss Emily's house. Emily herself rarely leaves the home
after that, except for a period of half a dozen years when she gives painting lessons.
Her hair turns gray, she gains weight, and she eventually dies in a downstairs bedroom that hasn't seen light in many years. The
story cycles back to where it began, at her funeral. Tobe, miss Emily's servant, lets in the town women and then leaves by the
backdoor forever. After the funeral, and after Emily is buried, the townspeople go upstairs to break into the room that they know has
been closed for forty years.
Inside, they find the corpse of Homer Barron, rotting in the bed. On the dust of the pillow next to Homer they find an indentation of a
head, and there, in the indentation, a long, gray hair.
A Rose for Emily Theme of Isolation

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There's no getting around the fact that "A Rose for Emily" is a story about the extremes of isolation by physical and emotional.
This Faulkner classic shows us the process by which human beings become isolated by their families, by their community, by
tradition, by law, by the past, and by their own actions and choices. In effect, this story takes a stand against such isolation, and
against all those who isolate others. When you get through with this story, you might feel the urge to take a nice stroll in the county,
or at least take a spin around the park. Go! Breathe the air; feel the sunshine; visit a friend.
Which character is more isolated, Tobe or Miss Emily? What are the different reasons behind their isolations? Did they
have a choice?
Does the town play a role in Miss Emily's isolation? If not, why not? If so, what are some of the things the town does to
isolate her?
Does Emily's father play a role in her isolation (even though he is dead)? If so, what role does he play?
What are some other factors behind Miss Emily's isolation?
Besides Tobe, and Miss Emily, are there any other isolated characters described in the story? If so, which ones, and how
are they isolated.
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devils advocate.
The narrator tells us twice that Miss Emily is similar to an idol, suggesting that because she was raised to think she is above others,
and because others were raised to look at her that way as well, she is permanently cut off from other people.
Miss Emily isolated herself by choosing to remain a town where she couldn't fit in.
A Rose for Emily Theme of Memory and the Past

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Gavin Stevens (a William Faulkner character) famously says, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." This idea is highly visible
in all Faulkner's work, and we definitely see it here, in "A Rose for Emily." Spanning approximately 74 years, this short story spins
backwards and forwards in time like memory, and shows a southern town torn between the present and the past. Post-Civil War
and Pre-Civil Rights, "A Rose for Emily" shows us an American South in limbo, trying desperately, with each generation, to find a
better way, a way which honors the good of the past, while coming to terms with its evils.
If this story is a memory, whose memory is it?
Does this memory work the way that your memory works? That is, do you remember your life and your history in a straight
time line, or do you skip around back and forth?
Is Emily trapped by the past? If so, which elements of the past trap her? Does she try to escape the trap?
Can you think of any examples of where the past and the present are in conflict in the story? If not, how are the past and
present working in sync.
.When Miss Emily begins dating Homer Barron, she is trying to free herself from her father's past control, and from the tradition of
being a proper lady.The story's structure is meant to mimic the way that memories are passed on from one generation to the next.

A Rose for Emily Theme of Visions of America

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"A Rose for Emily" doesn't look at America through rose-colored glasses, even though many of its characters do. In the aftermath of
slavery, the American South shown in the novel is in bad shape. The novel deals with the stubborn refusal of some southerners to
see that the America they believed in an America based on slavery was no more. The story covers about 74 years, beginning
sometime just before the Civil War. The focus, however, is on the periods from about 1894 to 1935. Because the dates are all
jumbled together, we have to work to untangle the stories present vision of America from the vision of the past.
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How does the story comment on America? What are the positive comments being made? What are the negative ones?
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Does the character of Tobe say something to us about America? If not, what might be the purpose of the character.
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Does the novel say anything about the American dream? What might the American dream look like to some of the different
characters?
The second paragraph of the first section of "A Rose for Emily" gives us all the clues we need to find out what the story is saying
about America.The story shows how difficult it was for southern people to deal with the new America represented by the
Emancipation Proclamation.
A Rose for Emily Theme of Versions of Reality

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By showing people with skewed versions of reality, "A Rose for Emily" asks us to take off our "rose-colored" glasses and look reality
in the face. What we confront is the reality of America in the story, and the reality of the main character's complete isolation.
Faulkner reveals how difficult it can be to see the past and the present clearly and honestly by depicting memory as flawed and
subjective. This "difficulty" is part of why the main characters goes insane, or so it certainly appears. Luckily, there are healthy
doses of compassion and forgiveness in the novel. When we start to feel that, we start to see things more clearly.
Is Miss Emily insane or vengeful and mean? A little of both?
Emily can seem both very strong and very weak. How, if at all, do these two approaches to life impact her reality?
Is it important to the story that Miss Emily's great-aunt, old lady Wyatt, is considered insane by the townspeople? Why or
why not?
Do you think Tobe has a clear view of reality? Is he insane for living in a house with a dead body, and protecting Miss
Emily by not telling the authorities? If he's not insane, what might motivate him to act this way?
Do the different generations of Jefferson society presented have different versions of the reality of Miss Emily? If so, what
are some of these versions?
"A Rose for Emily" shows how the unrealistic expectations placed on southern women in past eras were detrimental.
A Rose for Emily Theme of Compassion and Forgiveness

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"Compassion and Forgiveness" is another major theme that we can find in almost any Faulkner story. At first, it might not be
apparent in this case. We almost have to be told that these sentiments are behind "A Rose for Emily" before we can see them. The
story can seem downright cruel, the characters wholly unsympathetic, and the plot gross. When we begin to see the magnitude of
the tragedy, and its impact on multiple generations, we understand the story is a call for understanding. The story seems to argue
that forgiveness, compassion, and understanding can only come by facing the facts of the past and the present, which are tangled
up together in an tight knot. Faulkner is both mercilessly subtle, and painfully blunt in this story, but we can feel the spirit of
compassion rushing through.
Do the townspeople pity Emily? Is this pity the same thing as compassion? If so, how can pity and compassion the same?
Does the town treat Emily compassionately? Can you give any examples?
Would it have been more compassionate to leave Emily alone with her crime the way the town does in the story, or to let
her be processed by the system?
If it is true that Emily murdered Homer Barron, can we still feel compassionate for her? Explain. Do you feel compassion for
Homer?
Can we forgive Emily's father for what he did to her? Why or why not?
Is there anything shown in the novel that you find unforgivable? If so, what? If not, explain?
By showing us that Emily is insane, Faulkner gives us space to feel compassion for her, and to forgive her for her crime.
True compassion for criminals involves allowing them to face their crimes and their punishments on the legal record that the town
failed to allow Emily this process shows their lack of true compassion for her.
Miss Emily Grierson
Miss Emily is an old-school southern belle trapped in a society bent on forcing her to stay in her role. She clings to the old ways
even as she tries to break free. When she's not even forty, she's on a road that involves dying alone in a seemingly haunted house.
At thirty-something she is already a murderer, which only adds to her outcast status.
Miss Emily is a truly tragic figure, but one who we only see from the outside. Granted, the townspeople who tell her story know her
better than we do, but not really by much. This is why Emily is called "impervious." We can't quite penetrate her or completely
understand her. But, perhaps there is a little Emily in all of us. In the spirit of finding the human being behind the mask, lets zero in
on a few aspects of Emily, the person.
As far as we know, Emily is an only child. The story doesn't mention any siblings. It also doesn't mention her mother. It strikes us as
odd that the narrator doesn't say anything about her mother at all. We can't really think of a reasonable explanation for this, other
than that the narrator wants to emphasize just how much Emily was her father's daughter, and just how alone she was with him
when he was alive. From all evidence, he controlled her completely until his death, and even continued to control her from beyond
the grave. By separating her so severely from the rest of the town when he was alive, going as far as to make sure she didn't have
any lovers or a husband, he set her up for a way of life that was impossible for her to escape, until her death.
We might think of her as weak, or as unwilling to take a stand against her father in life. This assessment is kind of like blaming the
victim though. The bare sketch we have of her father shows a man who was unusually controlling, domineering, and perhaps
capable of deep cruelty, even toward his only daughter. This theory also disguises her behavior after his death, when she tried

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desperately to shed the image of dutiful daughter, and, probably for the first time, at thirty-something, pursued her own desires for
love and sex.
When this attempt at womanhood failed miserably, she reverted back to the life her father created for her a lonely, loveless,
isolated life. Except now, with Homer Barron rotting away upstairs, there are two men that haunt her.
We don't know for sure if Emily's artistic ability extended beyond china-painting. Some readers and critics seem to think that Miss
Emily is responsible for the "crayon portrait of Miss Emily's father" (1.4) that sits on an easel in the parlor. This may well be the
case. (Also, it should be noted that "crayon" here could refer to black or colored charcoal, chalk, or oil crayons.)
Even though we don't have the full lowdown on Emily's art, thinking of her as an artist helps us to see the tragedy of her life, and
also provides us a bit of a hopeful angle of vision. On the tragic side, we see that while Emily's art was at first a link to the town, a
way to be a member of the community and to have some contact with the outside world. Once the "newer generation" pieced
together her secret, even this last link was gone. On the hopeful side, there is some possibility that Emily was able to turn to her art
as a source of comfort and for something to do. Maybe after the townspeople found Homer Barron's corpse, they found a houseful
of Miss Emily's art as well.
In "What's Up With the Ending?", we discuss that the townspeople aren't at all surprised to find Homer Barron's body rotting in the
closed off room. They broke into the room to confirm what had probably become common knowledge over the years. When Emily
didn't kill herself with the arsenic, and when the smell appears, they drew the logical conclusion (passed down from one generation
to the next) that Emily must have used the poison on Homer. There is some indication that the townspeople were surprised to find
Miss Emily's hair on the pillow beside his body. The imprint of a head in the dust suggests that she might have lain there in the not
so distant past.
It's possible that she left this "evidence" there on purpose, her final comment on life before she died. It's not much of a will, but
perhaps it's still an important legacy for the townspeople, whose parents had cruelly interfered in Emily's happiness, and who
themselves further isolated her out of fear, disgust, and general spite. Everyone pitied Emily, but that's a lot different than loving her.
What she left them was the legacy of just how human she was, of just how much she wanted love, and just how warped and twisted
the desire for love can become when it is declared off limits
Tobe
Tobe, first described as "an old man-servant a combined gardener and cook" (1.1). He is an even more mysterious character than
Emily, and, ironically, probably the only one who knows the answers to all the mysteries in the story. He's also a major connection to
the theme "Compassion and Forgiveness." Read on to see what we mean.
Tobe gave his whole life to the care of Miss Emily. We don't know what kind of relationship they had beyond that of employer and
servant, but there isn't any indication that either of them abused the other. Perhaps they have us all fooled, and there in the haunted
old house they carried on a loving, caring relationship.
Whatever the case, we have to hand it to Tobe for taking care of Miss Emily for most of her life, and most of his (as we talk about in
the next section). He also must have been the one to alert the town to both Emily's father's death, and also to her own death. Loyal
and discreet, he protected her privacy from the prying eyes and ears of the town. This might be part of why he split after her death,
to avoid having to divulge her secrets to the town. Of course, he probably also left because his duty was finally done, and he could
escape the stinking, rotting crypt of a house.
In the section above, we speculate about Tobe. That analysis doesn't really get at the tragedy of his life. He was probably born
around the same time as Emily (approximately 1861) and so was almost definitely born a slave, probably on a plantation that
Emily's father may have owned.
Assuming he was born with the family or was with them from a young age, he stayed with them through the Civil War, and, as we
have seen, through all the rest, too. As a black man in the South his options were limited, maybe even more limited than Emily's.
Like her, he might have become convinced that the world outside that house was not the place for him. He might have felt intense
loyalty to Miss Emily, and maybe even, like the town, an obligation to her. If they were raised together, they might easily have
developed a kind of brother-sister relationship. Alternatively, he might have despised her, or been disgusted and horrified by her. He
might have wished for her death. As a human being in a completely bizarre situation, he might have felt a complex tangle of all of
those things, and more.
Homer Barron
Homer is the man Emily murderers. Yet, somehow, the focus of the tragedy is on Emily. Given the information we know about
Homer, he isn't a very sympathetic character. This is partly because the town, as represented by the narrator, doesn't like him.
Jeffersonians don't like him because he's a rough-talking, charismatic northerner and an overseer in town working on a sidewalkpaving project. How involved with Emily he was, we don't know. He may have intended to marry her, but became dissuaded by the
wacky antics of her cousins and the town. Why he went to her house that last time, and how exactly he ended up dead in the bed,
we don't know. We don't even know if he really did, or was about to, break off his relationship with Emily before she killed him.
We also don't know if he was gay. We bring this up because this is one of the big questions students have after reading the story.
The following line is the source of this confusion:
Then we said, "She will persuade him yet," because Homer himself had remarked he liked men, and it was known that he drank
with the younger men in the Elks' Club that he was not a marrying man. (4.1)
What a strange sentence to unpack. Remember also, that it's gossip, in the most hard-core gossip section of the story. In this
fragment, the town seems to be saying that even though Homer is gay, and even though he isn't the marrying kind, Emily will still
manage to hook him. Unpacked, we can really see the spite. Their comments means that she definitely won't succeed, but that if
she does, he's not the kind of man she thinks he is.
Nothing in the story tells us whether Homer was gay or not, but you can be pretty sure that's what the town people were insinuating.
It's hard to find anything nice to say about Homer, but that doesn't mean we can't extend to him that compassion this story tries (in
it's macabre way) to bring out in us. Whatever he did, whoever he was, he didn't deserve to be murdered. In over-sympathizing with
Emily, and with the town's rationalization and cover-up of the murder, we run the risk of erring where they erred.
While Emily probably would have ended up in an awful insane asylum had the town investigated the disappearance of Homer
Barron officially, Homer Barron might have had family or friends that never learned about what happened to him. Even if he didn't,
isn't it important that the justice speak for those victims who can't speak for themselves?

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Miss Emily's Father
Emily's father is the guy with the gigantic horsewhip. He's only referred to as "Emily's father." Faulkner himself didn't approve of the
man at all. In an interview, Faulkner expounds on this character:
In this case there was the young girl with a young girl's normal aspirations to find love and then a husband and a family, who was
brow-beaten and kept down by her father, a selfish man who didn't want her to leave home because he wanted a housekeeper, and
it was a natural instinct of repressed which you can't repress it you can mash it down but it comes up somewhere else and
very likely in a tragic form, and that was simply another manifestation of man's injustice to man, of the poor tragic human being
struggling with its own heart, with others, with its environment, for the simple things which all human beings want. In that case it was
a young girl that just wanted to be loved and to love and to have a husband and a family. (Source)
That description is pretty straightforward. The story is meant to show a very selfish man in a very selfish society. He's kind of a onenote fellow, and that note is Me, me, me, me, me!
Colonel Sartoris
The Colonel is the guy who initially dreamed up the scheme to relieve Emily of her tax obligations when her father died. That was a
nice thing to do. But, this same Colonel, the mayor, "who," we are told also "fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear
on the streets without an apron" (1.3). That's not so nice. Unfortunately, the coexistence of these two modes was the norm in those
days among powerful political figures
Judge Stevens
Judge Stevens gets one of the best lines in the story: "Dammit, sir, will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?" (2.9) Given
everything the town knows at this point, the smell should have generated a warrant to inspect her home. He's portrayed as an older,
(he's 80), powerful, and a very southern man, and he raises a little question.OK, we know that Colonel Sartoris was the mayor when
Emily's father died, and we know that it was two years later that the townspeople began complaining about the smell. The town
could have changed mayors in two years, but would they have elected a mayor that was eighty years old? We challenge you to
figure this out.
Old Lady Wyatt
Old lady Wyatt is Emily's great-aunt (on her father's side, we believe). Before her death, according to the townspeople, old lady
Wyatt is "completely crazy" (2.11). She seems to be in the story to suggest that insanity runs in Emily's family.
The Cousins
The town thinks Miss Emily's "two female cousins are even more Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been" (4.4). That is definitely
not a compliment. These cousins from Alabama are relatives of old lady Wyatt and had been estranged from Emily's father since
the time of old lady Wyatt's death. In fact, they were so estranged that they didn't even show up to Emily's father's funeral.
The situation with the cousins exposes some of the dark irony of the story. The townspeople call in the cousins to stop Emily from
dating Homer, but when they decide they hate the cousins, they switch sides and try to push Emily and Homer together.
A Rose for Emily Symbolism, Imagery & Allegory
The House
Miss Emily's house is an important symbol in this story. (In general, old family homes are often significant symbols in Gothic
literature.) For most of the story, we, like the townspeople, only see Miss Emily's house from the outside looking in. Let's look at the
some of the descriptions we get of the house:
It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the
heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had
encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and
coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps an eyesore among eyesores. (1.2)
The fact that the house was built in the 1870s tells us that Miss Emily's father must have been doing pretty well for himself after the
Civil War. The narrator's description of it as an "eyesore among eyesores" is a double or even triple judgment. The narrator doesn't
seem to approve of the urban sprawl. We also speculate that the house is an emblem of money probably earned in large part
through the labors of slaves, or emancipated slaves. The final part of this judgment has to do with the fact that the house was
allowed to decay and disintegrate.
For an idea of the kind of house Miss Emily lived in, take a look at artist Theora Hamblett's house in Mississippi, built, like Emily's, in
the 1870. Now picture the lawn overgrown, maybe a broken window or two, the paint worn and chipping and you have a the creepy
house that Emily lived in, and which the children of the "newer generation" probably ran past in a fright.
The house, as is often the case in scary stories, is also a symbol of the opposite of what it's supposed to be. Like most humans,
Emily wanted a house she could love someone in, and a house where she could be free. She thought she might have this with
Homer Barron, but something went terribly wrong. This something turned her house into a virtual prison she had nowhere else to
go but home, and this home, with the corpse of Homer Barron rotting in an upstairs room, this home could never be shared with
others. The house is a huge symbol of Miss Emily's isolation.
The Pocket Watch, the Stationery, and the Hair
These are all symbols of time in the story. What's more, the struggle between the past and the future threatens to rip the present to
pieces. When members of the Board of Aldermen visit Emily to see about the taxes a decade before her death, they hear her
pocket watch ticking, hidden somewhere in the folds of her clothing and her body. This is a signal to us that for Miss Emily time is
both a mysterious "invisible" force, and one of which she has always been acutely aware. With each tick of the clock, her chance for
happiness dwindles .

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Another symbol of time is Emily's hair. The town tells time first by Emily's hair, and then when she disappears into her house after
her hair has turned "a vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man" (4.6). When Emily no longer leaves the house, the town
uses Tobe's hair to tell time, watching as it too turns gray. The strand of Emily's hair found on the pillow next to Homer, is a timeteller too, though precisely what time it tells is hard to say. The narrator tells us that Homer's final resting place hadn't been opened
in 40 years, which is exactly how long Homer Barron has been missing. But, Emily's hair didn't turn "iron-gray" until approximately
1898, several years after Homer's death.
In "What's up With the Ending?" we suggest that the town knew they would find Homer Barron's dead body in the room. But maybe
what they didn't know was that she had lain next to the body at least several years after its owner had departed it, but perhaps much
more recently. Still, the townspeople did have to break into the room. When and why it was locked up is probably only known by
Emily (who is dead, and wouldn't talk anyway) and Tobe (who has disappeared, and wouldn't talk anyway).
The stationery is also a symbol of time, but in a different way. The letter the town gets from Emily is written "on paper of an archaic
shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink" (1.4). Emily probably doesn't write too many letters, so it's normal that she would
be using stationery that's probably at least 40 years old. The stationery is a symbol, and one that points back to the tensions
between the past, the present, and the future, which this story explores.
Lime and Arsenic
Lime and arsenic are some of the story's creepiest symbols. Lime is a white powder that's good at covering the smell of
decomposing bodies. Ironically, it seems that the lime was sprinkled in vain. The smell of the rotting corpse of Homer Barron
stopped wafting into the neighborhood of its own accord. Or maybe the town just got used to the smell. The lime is a symbol of a
fruitless attempt to hide something embarrassing, and creepy. It's also a symbol of the way the town, in that generation, did things.
We lump it together with arsenic because they are both symbols of getting rid of something that smells, and in the case of "A Rose
for Emily," it happens to be the very same thing. Remember what the druggist writes on Emily's packet of arsenic, under the poison
sign? "For rats." Faulkner himself claims that Homer was probably not a nice guy. If Homer is planning to break a promise to marry
Emily, she, in the southern tradition, would most probably have considered him a rat.
The arsenic used to kill a stinky rat creates a foul stench, which the townspeople want to get rid of with lime. (If you want to read
more about arsenic, click here). We should also note that arsenic is a favorite fictional murder weapon, due to its reputation for
being odorless, colorless, and virtually undetectable by the victim. Director Franz Capra's 1944 film Arsenic and Old Lace is good
example of this.
Death and Taxes
Notice how the first section of the story involves what Benjamin Franklin said were the only two certain things in the world: death
and taxes. Franklin was talking about the fact that even the U.S. Constitution would be subject to future change.
Miss Emily's death at the beginning of the story, and the narrators memory of the history of her tax situation in Jefferson might be
what Alfred Hitchcock called "macguffins." A macguffin is "an object, event, or character in a film or story that serves to set and keep
the plot in motion despite usually lacking intrinsic importance" (source). Neither the funeral nor the tax issue seem to be about are
all that important to the tale of murder and insanity that follows.
Still, we should question whether or not they actually are macguffins.
The taxes are can be seen as symbols of death. The initial remission of Miss Emily taxes is a symbol of the death of her father. It's
also a symbol of the financial decline the proud man must have experienced, but kept hidden from Emily and the town, until his
death. Since the story isn't clear on why Emily only got the house in the will, the taxes could also be a symbol of his continued
control over Emily from the grave. If he had money when he died, but left it to some mysterious entity, (the story is unclear on this
point), he would have denied Emily her independence.
Over 30 years after the initial remission of Miss Emily's taxes when the "newer generation" tries to revoke the ancient deal they
inherited, taxes are still a symbol of death, though this time, they symbolize the death of Homer Barron.
As we argue in "What's Up With the Ending?", the town is probably already aware that she has a rotting corpse upstairs. Maybe the
taxes were just an excuse to definitively see what was going on at the house. The next phase of their plan might well have been
foreclosure. They could have used the tax situation to remove Emily from the neighborhood, and to condemn her house. Perhaps
they wanted to remove the "eyesore," and to cover up everything Miss Emily says about the past and present of the South.
The fact that they didn't do this might just turn the taxes into a symbol of compassion. Wasn't it out of compassion that her taxes
were initially remitted? That the "newer generation" decides to continue the tradition also shows that some of the older ways might
well have merit.
A Rose for Emily Setting
A creepy old house in Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, 1861-1933 (approximately)
Setting is usually pretty rich in Faulkner. SimCity-style, William Faulkner created his own Mississippi County, Yoknapatawpha, as
the setting for much of his fiction. This county comes complete with several different families including the Grierson family. "A Rose
for Emily" is set in the county seat of Yoknapatawpha, Jefferson and as you know, focuses on Emily Grierson, the last living
Grierson. For a map and a detailed description of Yoknapatawpha, click here.
OK, so the where is pretty easy. Though Jefferson and its inhabitants are unique, we can see their town as any southern town
during that period. The situations that arise in the story develop in large part because many southerners who lived during the
slavery era didn't know what to do when that whole way of life ended. Imagine if suddenly you are told and shown that your whole
way of life is a sham, an atrocity, an evil. Then heap on a generous helping of southern pride, and you have tragedies like this one.
This story also explores how future generations deal with this legacy. To really feel the movement of history in the story, and to
understand the movements of Emily's life, it important to pin down the chronology of events.
The dates we use, other than 1874, are just a little rough, but in the ballpark.
1861 Miss Emily Grierson is born.
1870s The Grierson house is built.
1893 Miss Emily's father dies.
1893 Miss Emily falls ill.
1893 Miss Emily's taxes are remitted (in December).

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1894 Miss Emily meets Homer Barron (in the summer).
1895 Homer is last seen entering Miss Emily's house (Emily is "over thirty; we use thirty-three for our calculations).
1895 The townspeople become concerned about the smell of the Grierson house and sprinkle lime around Emily's place.
1895 Miss Emily stays in for six months.
1895-1898 Miss Emily emerges and her hair gradually turns gray.
1899 Miss Emily stops opening her door, and doesn't leave the house for about five years.
1904 Miss Emily emerges to give china-painting lessons for about seven years.
1911 Miss Emily stops giving painting lessons. Over ten years pass before she has any contact with the town.
1925 They "newer generation" comes to ask about the taxes. This is thirty years after the business with the lime. This is the last
contact she has with the town before her death.
1935 Miss Emily dies at 74 years old. Tobe leaves the house. Two days later the funeral is held at the Grierson house. At the
funeral, the townspeople break down the door to the bridal chamber/crypt, which no one has seen in 40 years.
This doesn't answer all the questions by any means. Since nobody in the town ever knew what was really going on in Emily's house,
there are numerous holes and gaps in this history. Still, you can use this as a guide to help make sense of some of the confusing
moments.
A Rose for Emily Narrator: First Person (Peripheral Narrator)
First Person (Peripheral Narrator)
The fascinating narrator of "A Rose for Emily" is more rightly called "first people" than "first person." Usually referring to itself as
"we," the narrator speaks sometimes for the men of Jefferson, sometimes for the women, and often for both. It also spans three
generations of Jeffersonians, including the generation of Miss Emily's father, Miss Emily's generation, and the "newer generation,"
made up of the children of Miss Emily's contemporaries. The narrator is pretty hard on the first two generations, and it's easy to see
how their treatment of Miss Emily may have led to her downfall. This lends the narrative a somewhat confessional feel.
While we are on the subject of "we," notice no one townsperson is completely responsible for what happened to Emily. (It is fair to
say, though that some are more responsible than others.) The willingness of the town to now admit responsibility is a hopeful sign,
and one that allows us to envision a better future for generations to come. We discuss this further in "Tone," so check out that
section for more information.
A Rose for Emily Genre
Horror or Gothic Fiction, Southern Gothic, Literary Fiction, Tragedy, Modernism
Even before we see the forty-year-old corpse of Homer Barron rotting into the bed, the creepy house, and the creepy Miss Emily let
us know that we are in the realm of horror or Gothic fiction. Combine that with a southern setting and we realize that it's not just
Gothic, but Southern Gothic. The Southern Gothic genre focuses sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly on slavery, or the
aftermath of slavery in the South. You can definitely see this in "A Rose for Emily."
Since author William Faulkner won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction twice (first in 1955 for A Fable, and then in 1963 for The Reivers),
and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1949) we'd also have to put it in the category of "Literary Fiction."
Even if Faulkner hadn't won all those prizes, we'd still put "A Rose for Emily" in this category. The story is masterfully told, and it's
obvious that much care and skill went into it. It's also strikingly original and experimental in terms of form. This is part of what makes
it a classic Modernist text. The Southern Gothic is a perfect field on which to perform a Modernist experiment. Modernist is all about
what happens when everything you thought was true is revealed to be false, resulting in shattered identities. Modernism tries to
make something constructive out of the pieces. We can see all that loud and clear in "A Rose for Emily."
A Rose for Emily Tone
Ironic, Confessional, Gossipy, Angry, Hopeful
We can think of a bunch more adjectives to describe the tone of the story, these seems to be the dominant emotional tones the
narrator is expressing as Miss Emily's story is told. (Keep in mind that it's also the town's story.)
The irony of the story is closely tied to the rose in the title, and to Williams Faulkner's explanation of it:
[The title] was an allegorical title; the meaning was, here was a woman who had had a tragedy, an irrevocable tragedy and nothing
could be done about it, and I pitied her and this was a saluteto a woman you would hand a rose. (Source)
It's ironic because in the story Miss Emily is continually handed thorns, not roses, and she herself produces many thorns in return.
This is where the "confessional" part comes in. Since the narrator is a member of the town, and takes responsibility for all the
townspeople's actions, the narrator is confessing the town's crimes against Emily.
Confession can be another word for gossip, especially when you are confessing the crimes of others. (Here one of the big crimes is
gossip.) The chilling first line of Section IV is a good representative of the elements of tone we've been discussing so far: "So the
next day we all said, 'She will kill herself'; and we said it would be the best thing." This is where the anger comes in. Because this
makes us angry, we feel that the narrator too is angry, particularly in this whole section. This leads us back to confession and
hopefulness.
The hopefulness of the town is the hardest for us to understand. It comes in part from the title again if we can put ourselves in the
same space as Faulkner and manage to give Emily a rose, to have compassion for her even though she is a murderer, to recognize
her tragedy for what it is, this might allow us to build a more compassionate future for ourselves, a future where tragedies like
Emily's don't occur. This also entails taking off our "rose-colored glasses" (as we discuss in "What's Up With the Title?") and facing
the ugly truths of life, even confessing our shortcomings. Hopefully, we can manage to take those glasses off before death takes
them off for us.

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Whats Up With the Ending?
It's funny that a story as out of sequence as "A Rose for Emily" ends at the end with the discovery of the forty-year-old corpse of
Homer Barron. Readers and critics often feel that if the story were told linearly, in sequence, it wouldn't be much of a story. Some
people feel that all the power lies in the discovery of the rotting corpse of this fellow.
We disagree with this opinion. For example, if we already knew that the corpse of Homer Barron was up in the bedroom, we would
have been creeped out to read that Emily was giving painting lessons to kids in the parlor (or wherever such lessons are given). The
story could have been just as creepy, and just as tragic, if told linearly.
So maybe "A Rose for Emily" had to be told this way to mirror the experience of the town, to mirror their surprise at finding the
corpse. Obviously, the town didn't know about Homer Barron until Emily died, otherwise, they sure as heck wouldn't have let their
kids go to her house for painting lessons, and they would arrested her for murder.Or maybe not. Check out this moment from the
ending: Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which
would have to be forced. They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it. (5.3)
The town must have known all along. Maybe this is the real surprise of the ending, the realization that the town has long ago pieced
together the puzzle. While we can be fairly sure that most townspeople had talked the matter to death and figured out what went on
before the end of the story, we can't be sure precisely when it became the consensus. Probably the night the lime was sprinkled
(we're talking about the white powder here, and not the citrus fruit!).
Thirty years later, those people's children had heard the story in bits and pieces (the way it's told to us), all the while seeing her
house grow more and more decayed, seeing her in the window, almost a ghost already, wandering the halls of her haunted house.
The town knew her story by heart, because it was also their story, down to the last detail.As such, the following passage takes on
new significance:Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of the town, and the painting pupils grew up and
fell away and did not send their children to her with boxes of color and tedious brushes and pictures cut from the ladies' magazines.
(4.8)The "newer generation" wasn't going to charge in and arrest Miss Emily, but they weren't about to leave their kids with her. If
they had arrested her, she probably would have ended up in an institution or worse. And this is where the theme "Compassion and
Forgiveness" comes into the picture. One question the story asks is whether the town's hiding of Miss Emily's crime is an act of
compassion, or yet another crime against her. To see how hard the question is, we can remember what we are told very early in the
story, "Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town" (1.3). She is family.
What would you do?
Whats Up With the Title?
You probably noticed that there is no rose in the story, though we do find the word "rose" four times. Check out the first two times
the word is used:
When the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down a faint
dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray. (1.5)
They rose when she entered a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her
belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. (1.6)
These first two times "rose" (as you can see) is used as a verb, which is why we barely notice the subtle echo of the "rose" in the
title when we read. We are concentrating on the image, first, of the inside of Miss Emily's lonely parlor, and then of Miss Emily
herself. In both cases, the word "rose" is working on us, maybe even subconsciously, to contribute to the image.
We have to look at a few more things before we can get at why these passages are significant.
First, let's consider the next two mentions of "rose," which occur at the very end of the story:
A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valance
curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man's
toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured. (5.4)
Things are starting to make sense here we are talking about the color "rose" from the curtains to the lampshades, rose was the
dominant color of Miss Emily's bridal chamber. We've all heard about the dangers of seeing through 'rose colored' glasses. This was
a particular problem for people of Miss Emily's generation in the South.
As we discuss in "Setting," Emily was born in the early 1860s, probably near the beginning of the Civil War. Emily's father basically
raised her to believe that nothing had really changed after the war. He instilled in her that being part of the southern aristocracy
(those who made money on backs of slaves) was still something to be proud of, and that people like them were above the law.
But, in this moment, we realize just how rosy Miss Emily's glasses were, and that death trumps glasses, rose colored or otherwise.
The reality of death cannot be avoided. Now that the bridal chamber has turned into a death chamber, the rose color is bathed in
the hues of decay and death, shaded by the "acrid pall as of the tomb." Which might make you wonder just what an "acrid pall" is.
"Acrid" is easy, it's used to refer to something that's nasty smelling. "Pall" is actually a pretty interesting word, and one that isn't
normally thrown around in conversation. It usually refers to some kind of covering, like a cloak or a blanket draped over a coffin. We
can see how the word works literally and figuratively to thicken the atmosphere of death and decomposition. It works because even
if we don't know precisely what a "pall" is, we can hear the deathly, pale tones it holds.
Well, we're not quite done yet. Lucky for us, William Faulkner told an interviewer (read it here) what he meant by the title:
[The title] was an allegorical title; the meaning was, here was a woman who had had a tragedy, an irrevocable tragedy and nothing
could be done about it, and I pitied her and this was a saluteto a woman you would hand a rose.
We think this perspective is very important, not just because it provides a straightforward explanation, but also because it persuades
us to indulge in a more compassionate reading. It's easy to judge Miss Emily, and maybe to forget she's a human being who has
had a tragic life. For a look at how this explanation exposes the story's irony, check out our discussion of "Writing Style." Needless
to say, there are many possible interpretations of the title, "A Rose for Emily," and you can feel free to think creatively when trying to
figure out what this title means.

A Rose for Emily Questions

Bring on the tough stuff - theres not just one right answer.
1. Why does Tobe stay with Emily?
2. Why does Emily stay in Jefferson.
3. If Emily's father only left her the house, how are her bills and food and things being paid for?
4. What are some of the different things inherited in the story?
5. Did you find this story depressing? Uplifting? Disgusting? What is your overall reaction to the story?
6. Do you find "A Rose for Emily" hard to read? If so, what parts are difficult? If not, what makes it accessible for you?
7. What do you think happened to Miss Emily's house after the townspeople find the body? Do you think the town made
Homer's death a matter of record?
8. Is it significant that Emily is the last Grierson? Why or why not?
Biography
William Faulkner (1897-1962), who came from an old southern family, grew up in Oxford, Mississippi. He joined the
Canadian, and later the British, Royal Air Force during the First World War, studied for a while at the University of
Mississippi, and temporarily worked for a New York bookstore and a New Orleans newspaper. Except for some trips
to Europe and Asia, and a few brief stays in Hollywood as a scriptwriter, he worked on his novels and short stories
on a farm in Oxford.
In an attempt to create a saga of his own, Faulkner has invented a host of characters typical of the historical growth
and subsequent decadence of the South. The human drama in Faulkner's novels is then built on the model of the
actual, historical drama extending over almost a century and a half Each story and each novel contributes to the construction of a
whole, which is the imaginary Yoknapatawpha County and its inhabitants. Their theme is the decay of the old South, as represented
by the Sartoris and Compson families, and the emergence of ruthless and brash newcomers, the Snopeses. Theme and technique the distortion of time through the use of the inner monologue are fused particularly successfully in The Sound and the Fury (1929),
the downfall of the Compson family seen through the minds of several characters. The novel Sanctuary (1931) is about the
degeneration of Temple Drake, a young girl from a distinguished southern family. Its sequel, Requiem For A Nun (1951), written
partly as a drama, centered on the courtroom trial of a Negro woman who had once been a party to Temple Drake's debauchery. In
Light in August (1932), prejudice is shown to be most destructive when it is internalized, as in Joe Christmas, who believes, though
there is no proof of it, that one of his parents was a Negro. The theme of racial prejudice is brought up again in Absalom, Absalom!
(1936), in which a young man is rejected by his father and brother because of his mixed blood. Faulkner's most outspoken moral
evaluation of the relationship and the problems between Negroes and whites is to be found in Intruder In the Dust (1948).
In 1940, Faulkner published the first volume of the Snopes trilogy, The Hamlet, to be followed by two volumes, The Town (1957)
and The Mansion (1959), all of them tracing the rise of the insidious Snopes family to positions of power and wealth in the
community. The reivers, his last - and most humorous - work, with great many similarities to Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn,
appeared in 1962, the year of Faulkner's death.
From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later
edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
William Faulkner died on July 6, 1962.
William Faulkner speaks on "A Rose for Emily" in 1955:
I feel sorry for Emily's tragedy; her tragedy was, she was an only child, an only daughter. At first when she could have found a
husband, could have had a life of her own, there was probably some one, her father, who said, "No, you must stay here and take
care of me." And then when she found a man, she had had no experience in people. She picked out probably a bad one, who was
about to desert her. And when she lost him she could see that for her that was the end of life, there was nothing left, except to grow
older, alone, solitary; she had had something and she wanted to keep it, which is badto go to any length to keep something; but I
pity Emily. I don't know whether I would have liked her or not, I might have been afraid of her. Not of her, but of anyone who had
suffered, had been warped, as her life had been probably warped by a selfish father . . . .
[The title] was an allegorical title; the meaning was, here was a woman who had had a tragedy, an irrevocable tragedy and nothing
could be done about it, and I pitied her and this was a salute . . . to a woman you would hand a rose.
From Faulkner at Nagano, ed. Robert Jelliffe (Tokyo: Kenkyusha Ltd., 1956), pp. 7071.