Dust In A Rose For Emily

Everyone holds on to bits and pieces of the past, which is understandable. People are obviously going miss what they leave behind. After all, these pieces of the past are what shape people into who they are as individuals. However William Faulkner twists this feeling of nostalgia into a horror story in his short story “A Rose for Emily”. The story takes place in Jefferson City and revolves around Miss Emily Grierson, an upper-class woman deeply admired and beloved by her community. However it becomes apparent to everyone that Miss Emily is more of a fallen monument as time moves on. Her head is stuck in the past while everyone moves on around her. Eventually she becomes so crazy and kills her lover whom she believes will leave her. Faulkner

used many symbols in his short story to try and convey his theme. Mainly William Faulkner uses both the dust and Emily’s house in order to suggest the theme that people must embrace change or else the past becomes a burden and disease to everyday living.
The dust is a symbol of masking the past.

The dust which remained untouched by anyone held the many regrets and memories of Emily. The dust after all had been adding up over the years concealing everything what lay beneath, after all Emily’s house is described as “filled with dust and shadows”. This description provides us with a visual representation of the everlasting control Emily’s father had over his daughter. The dust gathering in every nook and cranny of the house creates many disturbances much like life. When Emily’s father dies it cause her to self destruct. Her father’s actions before he died left her all alone, and totally broke. All she was left with was an old house. Furthermore, the dust’s characterization of being “patient and biding” suggests it is obscuring the past. Such as it does with Homer Barron. He is covered in an “even coating of the patient and biding dust” when found by the townspeople. They had previously thought he was together with Emily, however because of her inability to let go she killed him in an attempt to stay with him forever. Homer Barron’s murder is concealed by secrecy and false assumptions. Like the dust, the past is always there waiting to be remembered and

uncovered.
Emily’s home is symbolic of alienation leading to mental illness and distress.

Her house is basically a replica of the past. Her house never changes even though time moves on, and so it becomes grimy, smelly, and dust fills it as seen in the description “It smelled of dust and disuse--a close, dank smell…When the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray.”(pg 2) Faulkner's description of the decomposing house, match with Miss Emily's physical and emotional lose. Both, Emily and the house, are lacking vigor and are empty on the inside. Furthermore the fact that Emily’s house is more scary than beautiful, what it’s supposed to be, leads the reader to suspect that the house is more like a prison than a home. As stated before the house is grimy, smelly, and filled with dust, not to mention that the outside is “lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay” meaning her house is old and unpleasant, extremely ugly compared to the new and modern things around it. Opposite of what it’s supposed to be. Emily’s house should be one that she wants to be in and where she can be free. Emily just wanted to love someone in this house and she thought she could have this with her lover Homer Barron. However everything goes awry, turning her home into her own personal prison. This home, with the corpse of Homer Barron was not one meant to

be shared.
By using the symbols of the dust and Emily’s home, William Faulkner tries to push people to embrace change, because without change