How Is Miss Emily Grierson And A Good Man Is Hard To Find

In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”, the protagonist, the elderly Miss Emily Grierson, is a living monument. Although her town is modernizing, she refuses the new ways of life. In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the Grandmother wants to revisit places from her past. She constantly refers to things as they were in her time. Miss Emily is portrayed as the victim while the grandmother is seen as being nagging. Miss Emily kills to get what she wants while the grandmother manipulates. William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor both present the notions of past, present, and refusal to change in the excerpts of their stories.
Faulkner writes “A Rose for Emily” in the view of a memory, the people of the towns’ memory. The story goes back and forth like memories do and the reader is not exactly told whom the narrator is. This style of writing contributes to the notions Faulkner gives off during the story about Miss Emily’s past, present, and her refusal to modernize with the rest of her town. The town of Jefferson is at a turning point, embracing the more modern future while still at the edge of the past. Garages and cotton gins are replacing the elegant southern homes. Miss Emily herself is a living southern tradition. She stays the same over the years despite many changes in her community. Even though Miss Emily is a living monument, she is also seen as a burden to the town. Refusing to have numbers affixed to the side of her house when the town receives modern mail service and not paying her taxes, she is out of touch with reality. The younger generation of leaders brings in Homer’s company to pave the sidewalks. The past is not a faint glimmer but an ever-present, idealized realm. Emily’s morbid bridal ...

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...ered children and both parents seem to ignore it. The grandmother recalls, “In my time… children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then,” (187). The grandmother is implying that people back then were well mannered and did better things than compared to the people of the newer generation.
William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor imply the notions of the present, past, and refusal to change in their stories. While Faulkner does this in a more gruesome way, O’Connor has the grandmother recollect her memories and compare them to her present day. While Miss Emily kills and keeps Homer to have someone to love, The Misfit shoots the grandmother after trying to tell him that he was her child. Both of the protagonists refuse to change their ways from the past, causing problems for them in their present.