A Rose for Emily, by William Faulkner

In the short story, “A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner, the reader recognizes the harsh reality of a woman’s inability to open up to a new and ever changing world. Emily Grierson is a lonely, mysterious woman, who lives with her father in a large, post civil war era home. Emily’s father was a controlling man and sent away each man that tried to court Emily. All Emily inherited after her father’s death was the house. However the town thought she had the right to “cling to that which had robbed her.”(Faulkner 311) Things started to look better for Emily when she met a handsome northerner.

Homer Barron was the head of a work crew from the North. The crew was hired to pave the sidewalks in Jefferson. Homer and Emily begin to see each other on Sundays, driving around in a “yellow-wheeled buggy.”(Faulkner 311) Homer seems to be light and hardy. His interest in Miss. Emily is odd because her personality and his are exceedingly different. “Pretty soon he knew everybody in town. Whenever you heard a lot of laughing anywhere about the square, Homer Barron would be in the center of the group.”(Faulkner 311) Homer makes friends easily and enjoys being at the center of attention. The town gossiped about marriage between the Northerner and Miss. Emily. One day Miss. Emily went to the general store to buy some poison. Many believed she was going to commit suicide. Homer is then seen going into Emily’s house late one night and is never seen again. Everyone in the town assumed that Homer had left Emily and returned to the North. After that, Emily stays in her home and is not seen often. Emily grows old with time and dies. At her funeral, the curious towns people find the decayed body of Homer Barron in a upstairs bed and a long strand of...

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...rectly fit in with the good side of humanism when she finally was humanized after her father died. Although Emily seems to be reclusive and stubborn, she takes on a whole new character after the story is finished. “We did not say she was crazy then.”(Faulkner 311) The author basically says that Emily was not considered crazy until Homer Barron’s dead body was found in her upstairs bed. The realization occurs that something was considerably wrong with Emily. Connecting the dots, the reader can find that Miss. Emily was mentally unstable. Emily’s general raising for tradition, her father’s controlling behavior and her inability to become self sufficient and deal with death leads to her mental instability.

Works Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "A Rose for Emily.“ The Norton Introduction to Literature. 5th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2011. 308-315pg. Print.