A Rose For Emily Essay

William Faulkner is an American writer, who was born in Oxford, Mississippi. Living in the South gave Faulkner a direct report of the conflict that some people had with letting go of the past and trying to move forward. He also saw the problems that people who surrounded him were facing: the struggle with trying to make ends meet, the struggle to be treated just like everyone else, and the struggle with trying to let go of the past and move on to a new beginning. Faulkner truly did bring all these factors to life in “A Rose for Emily .” This very gothic short story tells a very interesting tale about an elderly woman, who goes by the name of Emily Grierson, that is clinging to her past with much desperation, while the world around her is moving

Faulkner begins the short story by describing Emily’s home. “ It was a big squarish house that had once been white…”(Faulkner 146). The house itself represents the old South. It is aged and outdated, and instead of it being rebuilt and improved upon like the rest of the South, it has remained unchanged for many years. As the narrator goes on to explain Emily’s life, it is obvious that her bloodline is very respected. Although she is respected, when her and Homer are seen out together, then town becomes enraged. Because Emily is not a married woman, it is an old custom for her to be chaperoned when out with a man. But to Jefferson’s dismay, Emily does not care whether she has a chaperon or not, and she also doesn’t care who is bothered by it. This event brings a theme of hypocrisy in the story, because the town wants Emily to let go of her old southern ways, but wants her to also go by old southern rules. Thomas Argiro also makes some good points about Homer, he stated, “ During the story’s era a white man with a dark complexion was an unsettling subject in the South, and that Homer’s eyes are lighter than his face indicates his countenance is noticeably darker than typical”. Meaning that maybe the town was so outraged at the relationship between Homer and Emily because Homer is actually mixed. It is possible that Miss Emily was finally trying to break out of the old south values by dating who she