Foreshadowing "Rose for Emily" Foreshadowing in William

Foreshadowing "Rose for Emily" Foreshadowing in William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" has a horrifying, macabre ending: at the death of one of the most prominent figures in a small southern town, it is discovered that Miss Emily kept the corpse of the man who jilted her many years ago after she murdered him. She slept beside him every night until her own death. This ending sounds unbelievable in the extreme as a plot point.

However, because of Faulkner's use of foreshadowing, regarding Emily's character as well as her actions, the ending seems consistent. The beginning of the story portrays Emily, now an old woman, as faded and "a tradition, a duty, and a care" to the town (Faulkner 1). She refuses to pay taxes, because her father Colonel Sartoris claimed he did not need to pay taxes because he had made a loan to the town.

This was a lie, but Emily is so blinded by tradition and her belief that both she and her father are a kind of Southern aristocracy, that she stubbornly continues with her nonpayment, flying in the face of all reason. Emily's self-perception as an old woman is also warped. Although she is overweight and unattractive, she still regards herself as a great lady, and the beauty she once was in her youth. She acts as if her father is still alive.

"See Colonel Sartoris.' (Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years)" she says when pressed for payment (Faulkner 1). Her denial of reality is so utterly inflexible she is unable to admit that her father is dead and mourn for him. "She told them that her father was not dead," and had to be forced to allow him to be buried. (Faulkner 4). Throughout the story, Emily is also shown to be worshipful in her attitude towards her father, not only when he was dead, but also when he was alive.

She regarded him with fear and apparently obeyed his will without question. However, although the persona of the Colonel may have protected Miss Emily from taxes, it also prevented her from finding a suitable match when she was young and beautiful. By the time she was thirty, she was still a spinster, which was considered to be of advanced age for an eligible young woman of the time. "None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such" (Faulkner 4).

On a more practical and physical level, the demise of Homer Barron is foreshadowed by the unpleasant smell wafting around Miss Emily's house. The smell is first attributed to the fact that Emily only has a male house servant, who cannot keep the place properly. She is not interrogated because the rules of Southern gentility forbid it. "Dammit, sir,' Judge Stevens said, 'will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?'" (Faulkner 3).

Rather than attempt to find the real cause of the smell, the town simply spreads lime around the area. The fact that Emily only has a single servant who is a member of an oppressed minority makes it easier for her to conceal the truth as well -- he can say nothing, and the conventions of white Southern gentility protect Emily. In retrospect, Emily's crime seems very obvious. "I want the best you have. I don't care what kind," she says, presumably to kill herself when Homer leaves her (Faulkner 6).

However, Emily does not play the role of the sorrowful, delicate maiden. Emily refuses to tell the druggist why she wants the poison, yet.