Analysis Of Emily Grierson's 'Change Over Time'
This isn't your typical everyday reading material, this is a short story that is told in five sections that is filled with death and the hopelessness to accept change over time and to adapt the effective coping mechanisms for everyday life. Everyone, should be familiar with the old saying, "The only thing that is continuous is change."
The story takes us back to the South during the Reconstruction period, directly following the Civil War. The beginning of the end of an era for Emily Grierson knew all too well. As changes begin to occur and society made advances, Emily did not; she refused to change and refused to accept that her way of life was changing.
Emily’s house represented stability when everything around her was unstable. The world around Emily was changing, but she, …show more content…
Grierson, the mayor Colonel Sartoris, suspended the families tax responsibility because of Mr. Grierson once lent the community a significant sum of money. At the end of section I, we see that the new towns people set out to collect taxes from Emily. After several failed attempts, a special meeting was called. A police officer was sent to her house where no one had occupied it for the past 10 years. Emily spoke to him and referred him to speak to Colonel Sartoris, which at this time he had been dead for nearly 10 years. This is another prime example that Miss Emily had not accepted the death of the former mayor.
It took Emily nearly three days before she was able to turn over the body of her deceased father. When the community caught word of Mr. Grierson passing, they all prepared to send their condolences to Miss Emily, only to discover that she claims her father isn't dead. All while this was occurring there was an unimaginable smell coming from the house, that the townspeople spread lye around her property. She was so stubborn and so unwilling to accept the fact that her father had passed she tolerated the stench of decay and death, day in and out for three
The story takes us back to the South during the Reconstruction period, directly following the Civil War. The beginning of the end of an era for Emily Grierson knew all too well. As changes begin to occur and society made advances, Emily did not; she refused to change and refused to accept that her way of life was changing.
Emily’s house represented stability when everything around her was unstable. The world around Emily was changing, but she, …show more content…
Grierson, the mayor Colonel Sartoris, suspended the families tax responsibility because of Mr. Grierson once lent the community a significant sum of money. At the end of section I, we see that the new towns people set out to collect taxes from Emily. After several failed attempts, a special meeting was called. A police officer was sent to her house where no one had occupied it for the past 10 years. Emily spoke to him and referred him to speak to Colonel Sartoris, which at this time he had been dead for nearly 10 years. This is another prime example that Miss Emily had not accepted the death of the former mayor.
It took Emily nearly three days before she was able to turn over the body of her deceased father. When the community caught word of Mr. Grierson passing, they all prepared to send their condolences to Miss Emily, only to discover that she claims her father isn't dead. All while this was occurring there was an unimaginable smell coming from the house, that the townspeople spread lye around her property. She was so stubborn and so unwilling to accept the fact that her father had passed she tolerated the stench of decay and death, day in and out for three