A ROSE FOR EMILY

By: William Cuthbert Faulkner

AUTHOR’S BACKROUND:
William Cuthbert Faulkner (/ˈfɔːknər/; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was
an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner wrote novels,
short stories, screenplays, poetry, essays, and a play. He is primarily known for his novels
and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County,
Mississippi, where he spent most of his life.[3]
Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers in American literature generally and Southern
literature specifically. Though his work was published as early as 1919 and largely during
the 1920s and 1930s, Faulkner's renown reached its peak upon the publication of Malcolm
Cowley's The Portable Faulkner and his 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the
only Mississippi-born Nobel winner. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and his last novel The
Reivers (1962), each won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[4] In 1998, the Modern Library ranked
his 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury sixth on its list of the 100 best English-language
novels of the 20th century; also on the list were As I Lay Dying (1930) and Light in
August (1932). Absalom, Absalom! (1936) appears on similar lists.

CHARACTERS:
*Emily Grierson
-also referred to Miss Emily in the text, is the main character of the short story "A Rose for
Emily" by William Faulkner. Miss Emily is described as “a small, fat woman” who lived within
a modernizing town full of people who saw her as a very cold, very distant woman who lived
in her past.
*Homer Barron

-Homer, much like Emily, is an outsider, a stranger in town who becomes the subject of

gossip. Unlike Emily, however, Homer swoops into town brimming with charm, and he

initially becomes the center of attention and the object of affection. Some townspeople

distrust him because he is both a Northerner and day laborer, and his Sunday outings with

Emily are in many ways scandalous, because the townspeople regard Emily—despite her

eccentricities—as being from a higher social class. Homer’s failure to properly court and

marry Emily prompts speculation and suspicion. He carouses with younger men at the Elks

Club, and the narrator portrays him as either a homosexual or simply an eternal bachelor,

dedicated to his single status and uninterested in marriage. Homer says only that he is “not

a marrying man.”
*Judge Stevens

-A mayor of Jefferson. Eighty years old, Judge Stevens attempts to delicately handle the

complaints about the smell emanating from the Grierson property. To be respectful of Emily’s

pride and former position in the community, he and the aldermen decide to sprinkle lime on

the property in the middle of the night.

*Mr. Grierson

-Emily’s father. Mr. Grierson is a controlling, looming presence even in death, and the

community clearly sees his lasting influence over Emily. He deliberately thwarts Emily’s

attempts to find a husband in order to keep her under his control. We get glimpses of him in

the story: in the crayon portrait kept on the gilt-edged easel in the parlor, and silhouetted in

the doorway, horsewhip in hand, having chased off another of Emily’s suitors.

*Tobe

-Emily’s servant. Tobe, his voice supposedly rusty from lack of use, is the only lifeline that

Emily has to the outside world. For years, he dutifully cares for her and tends to her needs.

Eventually the townspeople stop grilling him for information about Emily. After Emily’s

death, he walks out the back door and never returns.

*Colonel Sartoris - A former mayor of Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris absolves Emily of any tax

burden after the death of her father. His elaborate and benevolent gesture is not heeded by

the succeeding generation of town leaders.

SETTING:

The setting, or location, of William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily is a small town in the

South. The story takes place in the town of Jefferson, Mississippi. ... Like A Rose for Emily,

most of Faulkner's works are set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, of which Jefferson

is the county seat.

SUMMARY/PLOT:

The story then shifts into the past and tells the story of Emily’s life. Section one reveals that
Emily was raised by a controlling father who drove away all of her suitors, believing that
none of them were good enough for his daughter. After her father died, Emily was left a
destitute spinster. As a show of respect for her aristocratic status, Colonel Sartoris, the
mayor of Jefferson at the time, remitted Emily's taxes. He did so by fabricating a story about
Emily’s father having given a large amount of money to the town. Years later, when the
younger generation of politicians began attempting to get Emily to pay her taxes, she refused,
telling them to “see Colonel Sartoris.” However, Colonel Sartoris had been dead for ten years
by that point.

Section two details an incident from two years after Emily’s father’s death. Shortly after
Emily’s sweetheart abandoned her, a smell began emanating from her house. The neighbors
asked old Judge Stevens to talk to her about it. However, Judge Stevens scolded them for
even considering confronting a woman of Emily’s status about smelling bad. So, late one
night, a group of men snuck onto Emily’s estate and sprinkled lime around the house to
combat the smell. Around that time, the townspeople began to speculate that Emily was
“crazy,” citing her reaction to her father’s death as additional evidence....

CONFLICT:

-There are three major conflicts in“A Rose for Emily:” man vs. man, man vs. society, man vs.

self and man vs. supernatural. The first conflict involves man vs. man. This conflict occurs

between Homer Barron and Miss Emily. Because she was unable to let go of her father's

death, Emily falls in love with Homer Barron.

THEME:
At a Glance

Major themes in "A Rose for Emily" include death, isolation, and the decline of the Old South.
Of these, death takes center stage, with the skeleton in Emily's bed thematically reflecting
the decay of the Old South.

Emily's isolation fuels the curiosity of the townspeople, who paradoxically become more
interested in her as she becomes more and more withdrawn.

Generational divisions arise when Homer arrives in town. The older generation disapproves of
his relationship with Emily, a woman of a much higher social station than him. The younger
generation doesn't have a problem with it.