taken loose
"A Rose for Emily" is one of Faulkner's most controversial stories. In this short story, the main character Emily Grierson shuts herself away and is aided by townspeople in not following the rules of our society. When she dies, the reader and townspeople discover that many years ago, she killed her love and has slept with his corpse every night. In this way, acceding to critic Peter Swiggart, this setting "serves as a vehicle for moral and social commentary, enabling Faulkner to explain the South's tragic failure" (Swiggart 9). Faulkner does use this story and Emily in particular as a symbol of the failure of the South to accept change.
After the Civil War, many Southerners denied that their lives had changed. They were unwilling to accept new ways and tended to cling to the past, or actually the romanticized image of what was the past. In "A Rose for Emily," everything about Emily is kind of a last hold out of the old ways of the South. In the beginning of the story, even her house is a hold-out. "Only now Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and gasoline pump-a eyesore among eyesores" (Faulkner). This clearly tells the reader that the old South is relished without the new technology or new changes. In "A Rose for Emily," Emily begins to fade after her father's death. She acts like nothing tragic has happened in her life when people come to pay respects. She closes the door or symbolically "stops time" and stays inside. When she won't pay her taxes and angrily refers people to a man who died ten years ago, the townspeople overlook this. She does not go to jail. The townspeople overlook things like this because Emily is a symbol of their romanticized past, and they cannot bear to let to of the view of their former glory, even if it is crumbling. When mailboxes and house
Numbers are being implemented in town; Emily refuses to have either a mailbox or a house number. Of the changes in town, Faulkner writes
After the Civil War, many Southerners denied that their lives had changed. They were unwilling to accept new ways and tended to cling to the past, or actually the romanticized image of what was the past. In "A Rose for Emily," everything about Emily is kind of a last hold out of the old ways of the South. In the beginning of the story, even her house is a hold-out. "Only now Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and gasoline pump-a eyesore among eyesores" (Faulkner). This clearly tells the reader that the old South is relished without the new technology or new changes. In "A Rose for Emily," Emily begins to fade after her father's death. She acts like nothing tragic has happened in her life when people come to pay respects. She closes the door or symbolically "stops time" and stays inside. When she won't pay her taxes and angrily refers people to a man who died ten years ago, the townspeople overlook this. She does not go to jail. The townspeople overlook things like this because Emily is a symbol of their romanticized past, and they cannot bear to let to of the view of their former glory, even if it is crumbling. When mailboxes and house
Numbers are being implemented in town; Emily refuses to have either a mailbox or a house number. Of the changes in town, Faulkner writes