Expanation of a Rose for Emily

“A Rose for Emily” William Faulkner wrote the short story “A Rose for Emily”. It was published in 1930. The story was set in the Deep South, Jefferson to be precise. The time period was from 1884 to 1920. Emily Grierson was the main character in the story. Faulkner uses characterization to revel the character of Emily, he expresses the content of her character through physical description, through her actions, words, and feelings, through a narrator’s direct comments about the character’s nature and through the actions, words, and feelings of other characters. In the story “A Rose for Emily”, the main conflict was an external one, it was Emily Grierson versus society. The protagonist in the story was the town in which Emily lived in. Society expected her to behave in a certain way; like a lady because of the family background she came from. She apparently was raised in a wealthy family. The town saw Emily as “a fallen monument” after her death (414). When she was alive, the town thought of her as “a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town”(414). The town had no chose but to deal with Emily. When the town started to change Emily refused to do so and it was apparent that the town saw her house as “an eyesore among eyesores”(414). The town was very interested in her relationship with Homer Barron a foreman that was working on the contract for paving the sidewalks in the town. They were pleased at first but later they kind of had mixed feelings saying that she as “a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer”(417). Emily is the antagonist in the story, she is stuck in time, she absolutely refuses to change despite the fact that society was changing around her. She lives as a recluse for many years “No visitor had passed since she ceased giving china painting lessons eight or then years