Rose For Emily Outline

Introduction:
Topic Sentence: In William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily”, townspeople become intrigued with Miss Emily Grierson’s isolation and curious of her secret life behind closed doors.
Thesis: Unseen from the outside world most of her life, this mysterious and reserved woman’s secret life is unraveling just as she does.
I. Background/History
A. Emily had grown up in a controlling household, her father with the upper hand.
1. Her father disapproved every man for his daughter in order to maintain his control over her.
a. He still manages to imprint himself in Emily’s mind.
b. Therefore she still is all alone and destroyed on the inside and on the outside.
B. Her Great Aunt, old lady Wyatt, became delirious.
1. They believed

Emily was too good for anyone and townspeople thought that the family viewed themselves greater than how they truly were perceived.
a.

“…even with insanity in the family she wouldn’t have turned down all of the chances if they had really materialized.” (Faulkner 123).
C. Miss Emily, when alive, was a custom to this town.
1. Although every citizen must pay taxes, Colonel Sartoris nixed her requirement as to compensate her father’s lending of money back to them.
a. However, Colonel Sartoris died and the request for her to pay taxes came about, she still refuses to pay them and never will.
2. Throughout the years, people had always felt empathy towards her.
a. Her father had died and she wasn’t married, she was destined to be lonely.
II. Homer/Rat Poison/Gray Hair
A. In the summer, a foreman named Homer Barron became adored by all the townspeople.
1. Emily and Homer had been seen together late Sundays and people were happy for her, hoping that it was true.
a. They had begun saying they would marry but Homer had been fond of men as he had once said.
b. We are left with whether or not he is homosexual or just not the marrying type.
B. Emily goes to the store and asks for poison, insisting on the best one they have.
1. People had assumed that buying the poison meant she was planning on killing herself.
a. They said that would be a better idea for her

anyhow.
C. Her hair was getting much worse, turning grayer as time went on.
1. Her hair color weakening symbolizes her life; gray, dull, and at its breaking point.
a. Emily’s hair is a key element in her secret that will soon unfold.
III. Death/Secrets
A. Miss Emily eventually died at the age of seventy-four, in the enclosed darkness of her home.
1.

Earlier in the story it mentioned she was sick for quite some time but the townspeople had not known this.
a. “Fell ill in the house filled with dust and shadows, with only a doddering Negro man to wait on her.” (Faulkner 125).
b. She had died lonely just as people expected her to but maybe in her mind, that wasn’t the case.
B. It was known that there was a room that hadn’t been seen by anyone before and with Emily’s death, it was time to open the door.
1. Opening up the door, opened up Miss Emily’s dark secret.
a. There, lying in the bed, was a lifeless, still man. Homer Barron.
C. Emily had killed Homer but from the looks of it, she still had laid with him.
1. A piece of her gray hair was right on the pillow next to his cold, stiff body.
Conclusion: As her life unraveled just as her secret did, I knew the ending result would be death. Although I knew death was inevitable, I did not expect the death of Homer in the story. The mentioning of taxes made me compare the two, taxes and death; because I have always been told that those are the only things in life you can’t avoid. Emily was not compelled into paying her taxes until the new generation came about insisting that she did. Although she never paid them, they came back to haunt her just as death would. Faulkner’s intention was the reader to expect death, but to expect it of Emily as it says in the title “A Rose for Emily”. The author was successful with his intention due to his misleading ideas, making the ending more

shocking.