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What Is The Setting Of A Rose For Emily

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The short story by William Faulkner entitled “A Rose for Emily” is the best short story from the reading assignments this week due to the authors use of characters, setting, plot, and symbolism in a manner that draws the reader in and makes you want to know more about the events leading up to the death and funeral of Emily Grierson (Kirszner and Mandell, 2012). As a reader you want to understand the sequence of occurrences that lead us to this event and since the events are not communicated in chronological order, the reader is forced to try to put the events together in a way that makes sense. Drawn in from the beginning, I wanted to know more about what got us to this place and the people and factors that result in this story standing the …show more content…

143). The setting supports the lifestyle and actions of the characters in the time period around the mid 1860’s when it was perfectly acceptable to keep a Negro manservant. It was also a time when city officials might consider the sensibilities of a southern lady and not want to take action that offends Emily. Rather than “accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad” the men of the town went to the home in the dead of night and sprinkled lime to counteract the offensive smell (Kirszner and Mandell, 2012, p. 146). Set in “the pre-Civil War South” the reader gets a sense of the norms and expectations of a lady in the south and there is evidence of chivalrous behavior on the part of Mayor Colonel Sartoris who allows Emily Grierson to not pay taxes from the time her father dies on into perpetuity (Kirszner and Mandell, 2012, p. 143). The Grierson home is in disrepair and decay as is the southern way of life in relation to the Civil War. We enter a house in a town that is decaying just like the body of Homer Barron in the bridal chamber of the Grierson home. The way of life in the community is decaying as reconstruction and the end of slavery is the emerging way in the new

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