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William Faulkner's short story, "Rose for Emily" offers two radical different depictions of the South. On the one hand, the South is depicted as a place that is steeped in tradition and traditional approaches to things and to virtue. Indeed, this sort of traditional aspect is embodied by such characters as Emily, herself, and Colonel Sartoris, who represent an older and more traditional order. Secondly, Faulkner depicts a new and developing group of Southerners that re more interested in modernization. In the final twist of his story, Faulkner parodies the tendency of the older generation of Southerners to keep latching on to outmoded values that are "dead" or decaying.
One of the ways that Faulkner depicts the South is as a place that is very much married to tradition and he uses Emily herself as an example of Southern tradition. As an institution of sorts in this small town she represents traditional southern attitudes and the values of the Old South that still existed...
For this reason, Faulkner literally lists Miss Emily as a tradition, herself:
Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor -- he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron -- remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity.
Faulkner)
Indeed, here Miss Emily is literally supported by the town as an institution that subsists upon the public coffers. Thus, despite her own isolation, she literally is publicly supported by the town as if she were either a charity or a historic landmark that required continual upkeep.
Faulkner also depicts the change in the South, however, and how this change in the social order of the South comes to conflict with the more traditional…
Bibliography
Faulkner, William. "Rose for Emily." May 19, 2003. http://www.online- library.org/fictions/emily.html>
Furthermore, Emily's inability to have a romantic relationship with Homer once again calls attention to the disconnect between Emily's south and Homer's. Instead of becoming one with Homer's new south, Emily kills him and keeps him in her own personal sanctuary in an attempt to preserve not only him, but also life as she thought it should be. Thus, neither as an institution nor as a personal refuge can
Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" William Faulkner's 1930 short story "A Rose for Emily" is about the sudden death of a town's most prominent old woman; the last remaining person who had experienced the American South before the American Civil War. She had the memories within her of a period of white domination and black subjection, which is mirrored in the relationship she had with her handyman. Money was power. Even
Along with her psychological behavior, her social behavior was also completely absurd and she proved this when she poisoned Mr. Homer Barron, a Yankee with whom she started dating after Mr. Giererson's death. Faulkner has emphasized on racism and addressed Homer as "a big, dark, ready man with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face," in other words he was a nigger. Emily was aware of the
Moreover, according to William T. Going "The treatment of the surface chronology of a Rose for Emily is not mere perversity or purposeful blurring; it points up the elusive, illusive quality of time that lies at the heart of the story; it is at once the simplest and subtlest of Faulkner's achievements in one of his best stories" (53). Other critics have observed that several times in the narrative, time
Rose for Emily Emily as a Symbol of the South in Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is a complex short story that investigates the conflicted nature of the post-War South. Emily Grierson represents the Old World aristocracy, refined in its manners and in its dignity. She represents the glory of the South. And yet the South is fallen; defeated by the Union, it has lost is
William Faulkner A renowned novelist, William Cuthbert Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi in 1897 (The Columbia Encyclopedia). Eight years prior to his birth, his grandfather was killed by an ex-partner in business. William Faulkner was the eldest of the siblings. During his school life, William loved sports and was a quarterback in the football team and his passion for writing poetry existed since he was only 13 years old.