Theme Of Death In A Rose For Emily

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Change is a difficult thing to accept, we often cling to age old traditions refusing to accept the new. Miss Emily Grierson of the short story, “A Rose for Emily,” is a monument to conservative values of the deep south of the nineteenth century. She lived her whole life grasping to the fallen ideals of the past and died refusing to allow herself to succumb to change. She clings to her old values to an extreme, hiding away in her decrepit home remaining as a focal point for gossip and intrigue for the small town of Jefferson.
The story begins with the citizens of the town going to Emily’s funeral and the narrator describing the death of Emily’s father. The local townsfolk then started to comfort Emily for her loss. However, she was becoming …show more content…

Death plays a major role in the development of the story and many of the story’s themes revolve around it. Death in the story, as it does in life, signifies the end of something. Emily’s father’s death ends her old way of life and the death of Emily herself symbolizes the end of deep southern tradition in the eyes of the townsfolk who call her a monument. Death also serves as a means to prevent change. Emily’s murder of her former beau, Homer, is Emily’s way of keeping with the tradition of marriage and the deep south’s idea of …show more content…

Such as how death takes an important role in the basis of the story and how it can change people. Miss Emily Grierson definitely fell victim to this idea, and death changed Miss Emily into a self-centered person with a twisted sense of right and wrong. The sweet lady the townsfolk once new, was now mentally ill, creating a good amount controversy around the town. However, Miss Emily 's estranged mind was not caused by disease, but by the way she was raised and events that transpired around her. When Emily only saw things through rose colored glasses, her mind became corrupted with only what she thought was good. What she thought was right in her twisted view of morality was poisoning the man she loved with arsenic and trapping him with her forever in the hope of maintaining the southern tradition of

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