Rose For Emily
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Escaping Loneliness
In “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkners use of setting and characterization foreshadows and builds up to the climax of the story. His use of metaphors prepares the reader for the bittersweet ending. A theme of respectability and the loss of, is threaded throughout the story. Appropriately, the story begins with death, flashes back to the past and hints towards the demise of a woman and the traditions of the past she personifies. Faulkner has carefully crafted a multi-layered masterpiece, and he uses setting, characterization, and theme to move it along.
Miss Emilys house as the setting of the story is a perfect metaphor for the events occurring during that time period. It portrays the decay of Miss Emilys life and values and of the southern way of life and their clash with the newer generations. The house is situated in what was once a prominent neighborhood that has now deteriorated. Miss Emilys “big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies of an earlier time,” now looked awkward surrounded by “cotton wagons” and “gasoline pumps.” The townspeople consider it “an eyesore among eyesores.” Time has taken a similar role with Miss Emily altering her appearance from that of a “slender figure in white” (624) to that of “a small, fat woman in black” (622). The setting of Faulkners story defines Miss Emilys tight grasp of ante-bellum ways and unchanging demeanor.. Through her refusal to put “metal numbers above her door and attach a mail box” to her house she is refusing to change with society. Miss Emilys attitude towards change is reflected in a personification of her house with “its stubborn and coquettish decay.” Just as the house seems to reject progress and updating, so does Miss Emily, until inevitably both of them become decaying symbols of their dying generation. While the outside of her house mirrors her physical decay the interior of the house allows the reader a glimpse into her mental and emotional state. Even though the outside may still be somewhat beautiful and dominating with its classic structure, the inside of the house smelling “of dust and disuse” and with furniture in which “the leather was cracked” (622)shows that the admirable elegance Miss Emily portrays is just a faÐ*ade. From the “tarnished gilt easel” holding her fathers picture and the “tarnished gold head” of her cane to the “dim hall from which a staircase mounted into still more shadow” Faulkner uses the interiorof her house to allude to Miss Emilys flawed, dark and decaying mind. Miss Emilys appearance on her deathbed with “her gray head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight” (627) not only resembles the objects in her house covered in dust but also prepares the reader for the climax of the story. In the final scene when the townspeople find Homer in the room with “curtains of faded rose-color” and “rose colored lights” (627), the dark side of Miss Emilys rose-colored world is unveiled. Her obvious loneliness, recorded by the indention on the pillow next to Homers body, makes her sin almost forgivable.
Whereas the past was focused in class structure and respect, the new generation was only focused on “the books.” An example of this clash is evident in Miss Emilys tax situation. Colonel Sartoris, assuming she couldnt afford them, remitted her taxes after her father died because it was impolite to speak to a southern woman about finances. Knowing a prideful southern belle would not accept charity, Colonel Sartoris concocted “an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emilys father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this way of repaying” (622). However, their agreement took place during the time when a persons word was as good as gold. When the younger generation took over with their modern ideas, and there was no written agreement or proof as to her and Colonel Sartoris arrangement, they tried unsuccessfully to make her pay her taxes. Another example of the younger generations lack of respect is when Miss Emilys house began to smell. The younger alderman had no qualms with sending her word to have her place cleaned up but Judge Stevens, who was “eighty years old” (623), held to the traditional southern elegance by saying “will you tell a lady to her face of smelling bad?” (623) So instead of harassing and defacing Miss Emily they took the courtesy to rid her house of the fouls odors themselves. Even though the townspeople “believed that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were” they still treated Miss Emily with the kind of respect reserved for a person of royalty. When she went to the drugstore to purchase poison she considered herself above the law as “she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity” (625) and used her social statue to buy poison without declaring her purpose. When the druggist asked Miss Emily of her intention for the poison she used her “cold, haughty black eyes” to stare at him “until he just looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up” (625).
Emily lived