Letting Go in A Rose for Emily

Letting Go in A Rose for Emily

Many people hate to let things go. People find security and comfort in their

possessions and the company they keep. If all this is ripped away from a person, it can

have a very negative effect on that person’s life. In Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily,” everything that a person knows is gradually taken away from her gradually

leading to her madness.

Miss Emily, the main character in this short story, is an example of a time that

once was. “Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary

obligation upon the town”(362). Not only is her appearance a symbol of the past but the

place that she called home is also very old fashioned. “Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline bumps-an eyesore among eyesores”(362). Miss Emily stays the same while “the next generation,

with its more prominent ideas”(362) are becoming more visible and established.

Miss Emily not only has a hard time of letting material things go, but she also has a tough ti...