Ridgeway, Ashley Enc 1102, Mon 6:30PM Ehrlich 2/11/13

A Rose for Miss Emily

The scream, Its Homers corpse! could be heard more than half a block away from the now vacant home of Miss Emily Grierson, an elderly Southern spinster that had recently passed away. A Rose for Miss Emily is a recounting of the life of the last remaining member of a family originating in Southern aristocracy.

The narrator of the story is the voice of the town rather than a specific person. The views of the old vs. the new south bring to light pre and post civil war ways of thinking. It is a study in contrasts. The ways of life in the south had changed dramatically after the war. Before the war wealthy southerners were allowed to own slaves to work their plantations. Faulkner uses the behavior of the characters in the story to represent the old and new south. In the beginning, Miss Emilys father passed away. Because he was such a highly regarded man, his death illustrates how the old south is dying. After his death, Miss Emily tried to keep his body in the house, not wanting to admit to the world that he was dead. She is trying to hold on to the old south and wants things to remain the same. Miss Emilys house is used to represent the old south. It was formerly a large beautiful plantation. As the south begins to change, so does her house. Miss Emilys heath is also symbolically linked to the health of the south. All of these have dramatically changed with the passage of time. The attempt on the part of the townspeople to break old habits and get Miss Emily to pay her taxes represents the new south.

The author uses different characterizations to represent events that occurred during the course of the story. Miss Emily was once a young woman who never experienced being with a man. Her father felt no one was ever good enough for his daughter, which depicts the thinking of the old south. After her father died, Emily rarely left her house. She wanted to keep the atmosphere of the old south alive. She also wanted to keep the house young, as she used to be. Her house was a shrine to the living past. The townsfolk that represented the new south that came to take her taxes, let her get away with not paying them.I have no taxes in Jefferson (Faulkner, 1931, p. 288). They felt pity for her and the way she lived. Tobe, her live-in servant, only occasionally left to go to the market. He probably felt obliged to remain with Miss Emily, due to her loneliness. Homer, the man Miss Emily fell in love with, was murdered because he had left her. She stored his body in the bed she slept in every night. The smell imitating from the sealed upstairs bedroom was the stench of his rotting flesh. Tobe must have had some idea of this, for he was living in the same house. Her house was likely the only home he had ever known. He didnt say a word. The corpse laying in the bed and the head imprint left in the pillow are symbolic of the loved ones many had lost during the war. The grey hair represents a onesided and ill-fated love gone tragically wrong. Faulkners symbols are found within the adversity the characters struggled to overcome. In the old south the wealthy were arrogant and held high values on their land, slaves, appearances, and the status they held in society. After the war, these once arrogant, wealthy, selfassured land owners had to go home broke and wounded without a clue how to support themselves or provide for their families. The coming of the slaves freedom meant these people now had to learn how to take care of themselves as well. This was a rude awakening to be sure. Faulkner uses symbolism to portray the changing of the old south to the new south with the main

character Miss Emily. In the beginning she was a beautiful lady with a protective father, a good name and plenty of money, which symbolizes the old south before the war. As the story progresses, Miss Emily becomes ill which symbolizes the south during the war. Toward the end of the story, Miss Emily is old, ill and still has delusions of grandeur. This symbolizes the new south attempting to recover from the impact of war. Faulkner uses symbolism to address the theme by using Miss Emilys decline as the decline of the old south and the value and traditions it once held. As Miss Emily was once great, so was the south. As she declines, so does the south until they both become icons and symbols of bygone days filled with pride, honor and memories.

In conclusion, the older generation in this story represents the old south, and the new generation represents the new south. Faulkner creates this atmosphere by making Miss Emily the link between the old and new south. The narrator admires her ability to use her aristocratic bearing in order to vanquish the members of the city council or to buy poison. The narrator also admires her aristocratic aloofness, especially in her disdain of such common matters as paying taxes or associating with lower-class people. Miss Emily came from an old southern family of wealth and status. After the death of her father, who had been the perfect example of an old southern gentleman, she had to be forced to turn over his body. Faulkner uses her fathers death to illustrate the death of an era in which money and the power of a family name had been held in high regard. Following his death the town took pity on Miss Emily. Poor Emily. Her kinsfolk should come to her (Faulkner, 1931. P. 290). She was the last of a dying breed of southern belles, unwilling to change with the times. When the town tries to collect taxes from Miss Emily, which she hadnt paid since her fathers death, it shows how the south is trying to progress forward into the new south by not allowing preferential treatment. Miss Emily is symbolic of the

many old southerners against the changes that occurred at the end of the civil war. With the acceptance of change, progress can begin.

The narrator now, having grown old with her, is presenting her with a "rose" by sympathetically telling her story. The now infamous scream occurred after what is now a part of Jefferson, Mississippi history. The end of an era. The life and funeral of one of the last southern belles, Miss Emily Grierson.