A Rose For Emily

Title	A Rose For Emily
# of Words	1317
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	5.27

A Rose For Emily

Word Count: 1296

William Faulker's " A Rose for Emily" tells the story of a young
woman who is violated by her father's strict mentality. After being the only
man in her life Emily's father dies and she finds it hard to let go. Emily
was raised in the ante-bellum period before the Civil War. This story takes
place in the Reconstruction Era after the war when the North takes control of
the South. Like her father, Miss Emily possesses a stubborn outlook towards
life and refuses to change. This short story explains Emily, her mystified
ways and the townsfolk's sympathetic curiosity.
        The plot of the story is mainly about Miss Emily's attitude about
change. "On the first of the year they mailed her a tax notice. February came
and there was no reply. They wrote her a formal letter asking her to call the
sheriff's office at her convenience. A week later the mayor wrote her
herself, offering to call or to send his car for her, and received in reply a
note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded
ink, to the effect that's he no longer went out at all. The tax notice was
enclosed, without comment." (189). Miss Emily was convinced that she had no
taxes in Jefferson because before the Civil War the South didn't have to pay
taxes and since her father had made a contribution to the town of a generous
amount, Colonel Sartoris, mayor at that time had remitted her taxes, she felt
that that promise or rather gift still stood good. "After her father's death
she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw
her at all."(190). Miss Emily might have stayed out the public eye after
those two deaths because she was finally alone, something she in her life was
not used to. Emily's father never let her alone and when he died Homer Baron
was a treat she was never allowed to have. Miss Emily's stubborn attitude
definitely came from her father's strict teachings.
        The characters of this story are very briefly mentioned, Miss Emily
and Mr. Homer Barron are the two main characters described. Miss Emily was
described as a short, fat, aged and mysterious women during her later years.
Miss Emily had been through much and had seen many generations grow before
and around her. This brings to reason her strong Confederate beliefs. Homer
Barron; on the other hand was quite the opposite, "A Yankee-a big, dark,
ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face,"(191). Homer
described himself as man who couldn't be tied down. This had to be a terrible
opposition for Miss Emily. Towards the end of the story Emily seems to prove
him wrong.
        The setting of this passage is highly essential because it defines
Miss Emily's grasp of ante-bellum ways. This story take place throughout the
Reconstruction Era from the late 1800's to the early 1900's in Jefferson,
Mississippi. Jefferson was just one of the many Southern towns which was
reformed by Northern reconstruction. The confederate quickly deteriorated
without free labor to aid their farms and plantations. Miss Emily refused to
allow modern change into her desolate life. For example she refused to let
the newer generation fasten metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox
when Jefferson got free mail service. This reflects Miss Emily's unyielding
persona caused by her father's treatment when she was young. When Miss
Emily's death occurred the newer Jefferson generations were left without an
ante-bellum perspective.
        "A Rose for Emily" is told through the eyes of the townspeople which
is an example of limited omniscient; a narrator inside the work telling the
story. Faulkner expressed a lot of the resident's opinions towards Emily and
her family's history. They mention old lady Wyatt, her great aunt who had
gone compl...

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