Interpreting A Rose For Emily

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Interpreting A Rose For Emily

William Faulkner (1897-1962) is known for his portrayals of the tragic conflict between the old and the new South. The majority of Faulkner's works are centered on his hometown of Oxford, in Lafayette County, Mississippi. In his works of fiction, his hometown is used, but is renamed to Jefferson, in Yoknapatawpha County. This author's fiction recreates more than a century of life in the town of Jefferson a few years before, during and after the Civil War. Many different types of people come into focus in his literature. A Rose for Emily easily fits into Faulkner’s pattern of fiction writing. The present, or “new south” agenda was expressed several ways in A Rose for Emily; through the words of the narrator, the new Board of Aldermen, Homer Barron (the Yankee), and in what was called “the next generation with its more modern ideas” (354). This technique is not unusual for Faulkner. It is present in many of his works and that is why A Rose for Emily is easily interpreted. In A Rose for Emily, Faulkner discussed those conflicting values of the past and present and point out those values that are misrepresented and those that continue to have meaning for today by contrasting the past with the present era as he descriptively portrayed unusual characters.

In A Rose for Emily, the past was represented in Emily. Miss Emily was referred to as a "fallen monument" in the story (353). She and her antiquated home were almost a shrine to Southern gentility and an ideal of past values. She and her home were depicted as susceptible to death and decay. Through this imagery Faulkner was symbolizing the demise of the way of life of the old, pre-industrial, pre-civil war south. The description of he...

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...f the narrator, the new Board of Aldermen, Homer Barron (the Yankee), and in what was called “the next generation with its more modern ideas” is contrasted with Emily and all those who could not accept the loss of the Civil War and the beginning of new ways ( 354). Emily, and the old south in general did conquer time briefly by retreating into the "rose-tinted" world of the past. This sort of retreat is hopeless since everyone, even Emily, was finally vulnerable to death and to the invasion by the inhabitants of the world of the present. Faulkner expressed this inevitable invasion at the very beginning of the story when the narrator claims, “When Miss Emily died, [the] whole town went to her funeral” ( 353). The whole town of Jefferson eventually must lay to rest the ways of the past and Miss Emily’s funeral is the perfect setting for a collection of outdated values.

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