A Rose For Emily Butler Essay

In William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily”, the butler is directly related to the traditional values in the older generation. Because of his status and race the butler is not allowed to openly express his ideals like Emily is allowed to. The butler’s role is to display the traditions of the older southern generation. The butler serves his role thorough this story by being excessively loyal and protective of Emily, by fulfilling his duty as a servant, and by being racial discriminated against from people in the town. It is evident in the first few scenes of the story that the butler is a loyal confidant of Emily. He is the only person that knows of what is happening in the house and he keeps Emily’s secrets as if they were his

This shows that many of the townspeople still see divisions in race. For example, the reader never learns the butler’s real name because the narrator calls him a reoccurring degrading name rather than his real name. On page 301 when Judge Stevens is discussing the strange smell from Emily’s house he states that the smell could have been coming from, “that nigger of hers.” The comment Judge Stevens made here represents how white people from the older generation look down on black people. Since the butler is a symbol of the traditions of the older south, he does not fight or complain about the way he is treated because he has been experiencing this injustice throughout his whole life. Being an older black man during the story, probably assumes that the butler grew up as a slave. Those older traditions of white people being above and being better than black people have been engraved in his head. Maybe the butler was owned by Emily’s family so thats why he has this sense of loyalty for her. Another assumption could be that Emily and the butler grew up together and thats why they share the same mindset of keeping the older traditions thriving. This could also be why Emily never refers to the butler as a degrading name like other characters in the story do. Even as an old man he continues to carry the basket with groceries. Also he only uses the back door because he has been taught to only let white people in the front door and he was told to always go out the