In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," we see how past events affect the life of the main character Miss Emily, especially her inability to accept change. Throughout the story Miss Emily goes to extreme measures to protect her social status. Miss Emily lives in the past to shield herself from a future that holds no promises and no guarantees. William Faulkner illustrates Miss Emily's inability to accept change through the physical, social and historical settings, all of which are intimately related to the Grierson house. The Grierson house is a physical reminder of Miss Emily's reluctance to change. The "big squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and scrolled balconies in the heavenly lightsome style of the seventies (236)" was located on one of the most prominent and prestigious neighborhoods in the town of Jefferson. However, times changed and new generations replaced the old ones and the town moved on towards the future. The houses were replaced by cotton gins and auto garages until only Miss Emily's house was left. The Grierson house is a visible reminder that Miss Emily can not accept change. Miss Emily refuses to change with the town because her family once dominated it, and change means her family may not be the center of attention anymore. Even the interior of the house provides evidence of her lack of progression. "It smelled of dust and disuse (237)." The leather of the furniture was cracked, and when the chairs were sat upon, "a faint dust rose about [the] thighs (237)." Miss Emily, like the Grierson house, seems to be submerged in the shadows of time and refuses to let the light of the future through. The Grierson name was b... ... middle of paper ... ...s to ignore time so that the Grierson name will always be important to the town of Jefferson and she can continue to live a secure life. The physical, historical and social settings are linked through the Grierson house in unique ways that highlight Miss Emily's reluctance to change with her surrounding environment. Throughout her life Miss Emily is determined to control the thoughts of the townspeople in order to protect the status of her family name. Miss Emily's social prestige is the highlight of her life and in order to protect this she has to live her life in the past. Upon her death, however, the town learns about Miss Emily's secrets and the life she really lived. Miss Emily's attempts may have worked, at least in her mind, but now the town of Jefferson will not remember the Grierson family as one of high social status, but rather as one of insanity.
Because of the way she is raised, Miss Emily sees herself as "high society," and looks down upon those who she thinks of as commoners. This places her under the harsh scrutiny of the townspeople who keep her under a watchful eye. The only others who see Miss Emily as she sees herself are the Mayor Colonel Sartoris, and Judge Stevens.
If Emily carried her head a little bit lower and spent time looking at people around her, she could find a reliable listener to help her escape from the isolation. According to people in Jefferson town, the Grierson was really a monument, although this monument was fallen, they considered Emily, the last Grierson, an example to the young people. As a result of that, townspeople, especially some of the ladies, began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people.
The slow-moving, old-fashioned, chivalric south has become the setting of the story. Miss Emily’s house is one dating back to the 1870s, and it is designed with “cupolas ad squires and scrolled balconies." The house rests on town’s “most select street”. Miss Emily surrounding house was taken over by garages and cotton gins. The rest of the town became more of a working class area than it once was. Emily’s house
The narrator tells us the Griersons had always had always thought too highly of themselves and no doubt Miss Emily shared this opinion with her belated family. After her father's death she was the last of the Griersons. Therefore the responsibility of upholding the family name now lay with Miss Emily. Although her father left her with nothing but the house, Miss Emily did her best to keep up her appearan...
The town of Jefferson was deeply indirectly involved in the life of Emily Grierson. They watched and debated her every move, being her analyst, they wondering why she did certain things. They had their own idea of who she was and what they wanted her to be. The reason being was that the aristocratic Grierson family that her father headed was very highly recognized in the past era of the Confederacy. Her father had much power and was close to a very popular mayor named Colonel Sartoris.
Their behavior is adaptive to their purpose, but Emily’s behavior is not. The town reputation and community was threatening by Emily’s behavior and this is why they protect her as well as the town. Emily tries to keep her true identity by remaining hidden. It states that in the beginning of the story they see Emily as a “fallen monument”(book pg). Her is valued as a valuable asset to this community and town and that is what they want to keep it that way. The townspeople say “Alive. Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation of the town(pg). This quotes are explained by “The complex figure of Emily Grierson casts a long shadow in the town of Jefferson. The members of the community assume a proprietary relationship to her, extolling the image of a grand lady whose family history and reputation warranted great respect. At the same time, the townspeople criticize her unconventional life and relationship with Homer Barron. Emily is an object of fascination. Many people feel compelled to protect her, whereas others feel free to monitor her every move, hovering at the edges of her life. Emily is the last representative of a once great Jefferson family, and the townspeople feel that they have
The time frame of Miss Emily Grierson to her was the greatest time era, which was the "Old South';. How do we know that she wanted to stay in the time era of the "Old South'; is when the new generation moved into Jefferson and asked Emily for taxes. When they did this she ranted and raved that Colonel Sartoris has written her a letter in which relieves her of any taxes. She told the tax collectors "See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson.'; The fact that the tax collectors could not see Colonel Sartoris is because Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years. Even the furniture that she had was not updated. Emily's parlor was furnished with heavy, leather-covered furniture that was cracked from not being used. She had been trapped in the ways "Old South';, and did not care to change as time went by.
Historically, the Grierson name was one of the most respected names in Jefferson. Throughout his lifetime, Mr. Grierson played various roles in the community to further the reputation of his name and to earn his family a great deal of honor. He also, however, had and air of superiority about him. His attitude toward women, as evident in the treatment of his daughter, reflects his old-fashioned ways and his inability, or his lack of desire, to move on into the future. Throughout Miss Emily’s childhood, her father believed that “none of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily.” Mr. Grierson did not allow his grown daughter, even at the age of thirty, to
She is found dead there at the age of seventy-four. Her Alabama cousins return to Jefferson for the funeral, which is attended by the entire town out of duty and curiosity. Emily's servant, Tobe, opens the front door for them, then disappears out the back. After the funeral, the townspeople break down a door in Emily's house that, it turns out, had been locked for forty years. They find a skeleton on a bed, along with the remains of men's clothes, a tarnished silver toiletry set, and a pillow with an indentation and one long iron-gray hair.Although an unnamed citizen of the small town of Jefferson, in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, tells the story of the aristocratic Miss Emily Grierson in a complicated manner, shifting back and forth in time without trying to make clear transitions, the story line itself is quite simple. Miss Emily's father dies when she is a little more than thirty, in about 1882. For three days she prevents his burial, refusing to accept his death. He had driven off all of her suitors; now she is alone, a spinster, in a large house.
The fall of the Grierson family name comes about primarily because of their high moral standards. Since the Grierson family have had its roots well established since the town’s founding, they tend to firmly believe in their “Southern heritage” (Harris 171). This belief causes Emily’s father to strictly inspect anyone who shows an interest in his daughter. Mr. Grierson’s turns away any man whom he thinks to be inadequate because “none of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily”(Beers and Odell 723). The townspeople begin to murmur when Emily turns thirty years of age and has still not married for they believe that surely she has not turned everyone down (Beers and Odell 723). After her father’s death, Emily locks herself inside of her own home.
Throughout this story, the Townspeople of Jefferson exhibit negative and judgmental attitudes and actions toward the Grierson family. They “believed that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were” (54). This was because Mr. Grierson viewed everyone else as beneath him and Emily and was under the impression that they were of a higher status. The external conflict between the Griersons and the people of the town is primarily shown through their
Even the casual reader of William Faulkner will recognize the element of time as a crucial one in much of the writer's work, and the critical attention given to the subject of time in Faulkner most certainly fills many pages of criticism. A goodly number of those pages of criticism deal with the well-known short story, "A Rose for Emily." Several scholars, most notably Paul McGlynn, have worked to untangle the confusing chronology of this work (461-62). Others have given a variety of symbolic and psychological reasons for Emily Grierson's inability (or refusal) to acknowledge the passage of time. Yet in all of this careful literary analysis, no one has discussed one troubling and therefore highly significant detail. When we first meet Miss Emily, she carries in a pocket somewhere within her clothing an "invisible watch ticking at the end of [a] gold chain" (Faulkner 121). What would a woman like Emily Grierson, who seems to us fixed in the past and oblivious to any passing of time, need with a watch? An awareness of the significance of this watch, however, is crucial for a clear understanding of Miss Emily herself. The watch's placement in her pocket, its unusually loud ticking, and the chain to which it is attached illustrate both her attempts to control the passage of the years and the consequences of such an ultimately futile effort.
The theme of "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner is that people should let go of the past, moving on with the present so that they can prepare to welcome their future. Emily was the proof of a person who always lived on the shadow of the past; she clung into it and was afraid of changing. The first evident that shows to the readers right on the description of Grierson's house "it was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street." The society was changing every minutes but still, Emily's house was still remained like a symbol of seventieth century. The second evident show in the first flashback of the story, the event that Miss Emily declined to pay taxes. In her mind, her family was a powerful family and they didn't have to pay any taxes in the town of Jefferson. She even didn't believe the sheriff in front of her is the "real" sheriff, so that she talked to him as talk to the Colonel who has died for almost ten years "See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson." Third evident was the fact that Miss Emily had kept her father's death body inside the house and didn't allow burying him. She has lived under his control for so long, now all of sudden he left her, she was left all by herself, she felt lost and alone, so that she wants to keep him with her in order to think he's still living with her and continued controlling her life. The fourth evident and also the most interesting of this story, the discovery of Homer Barron's skeleton in the secret room. The arrangement inside the room showing obviously that Miss Emily has slept with the death body day by day, until all remained later was just a skeleton, she's still sleeping with it, clutching on it every night. The action of killing Homer Barron can be understood that Miss Emily was afraid that he would leave her, afraid of letting him go, so she decided to kill him, so that she doesn't have to afraid of losing him, of changing, Homer Barron would still stay with her forever.
Faulkner then shifts the story toward explaining what Emily’s house had once looked like. It was a big grim house that was once white. “It was a big, squarish frame house that has once been white, decorated with cupolus and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies”(542). It was the only one left on the street and many believes that it was an abomination to the community. “set on what had once been our most select s...
Emily was kept confined from all that surrounded her. Her father had given the town folks a large amount of money which caused Emily and her father to feel superior to others. “Grierson’s held themselves a little too high for what they really were” (Faulkner). Emily’s attitude had developed as a stuck-up and stubborn girl and her father was to blame for this attitude. Emily was a normal girl with aspirations of growing up and finding a mate that she could soon marry and start a family, but this was all impossible because of her father. The father believed that, “none of the younger man were quite good enough for Miss Emily,” because of this Miss Emily was alone. Emily was in her father’s shadow for a very long time. She lived her li...