Theme Of A Rose For Emily By William Faulkner

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“Universal truths: love and horror and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.” These are the words of the author for “A Rose for Emily”, William Faulkner. The human life is filled with all of the universal truths William Faulkner says. They are never filled with the same amount of one thing in everyone. There is always either more love and sacrifice or horror and pride. Emily was dealt a tragic hand in life. Miss Emily is pushed to her breaking point mentally by how her family treated her, how her love life was spiraling away, and how the town treated her. Emily is being pushed to her mental breaking point by her very own family from the very beginning to be the pride of the South. Growing up, Miss Emily was not close to her kin family …show more content…

Emily was not someone who dated many men throughout her life. After her father past away, the man everyone in town thought would marry her had deserted her, “-the one we believed would marry her had deserted her” (Faulkner 222). This just adds to her mental state as a person. Later on, she meets a worker from the north, Homer Barron. He was the kind of man that everyone in town thought Miss Emily would usually stay away from. They seemed to be very happy together. In the end people figured that they were to get married, “She will marry him” (Faulkner 224). Later, Homer states that her likes men. This seems to be one of the things that make Emily snap. Judith Caesar talks about how her and many others also believe that Homer is gay. Today people use a more modern look at the topic unlike how things would have been taken when the story takes place (Caesar). She just lost her second fiancé. Miss Emily’s love life keeps getting more and more …show more content…

They were all thankful to her father from the old days that they took away their taxes. After the town had new people take over, they started to ask for Emily to pay taxes once again. Miss Emily could only say, “I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me. Perhaps one of you can access to the city records and satisfy yourself” (Faulkner 221). The taxes were not the only thing that the town had problems with when it came to Miss Emily. People started to complain about a horrible smell coming from her yard. They wished to tell her to clean up in a certain amount of time, but they took it upon themselves to do something about it themselves. “’It’s simple enough,’ he said. ‘Send her word to have cleaned up. Give her a certain time to do it in, and if she don’t…’” (Faulkner 222). The town as a whole did not help Emily in any way after her fathers passing. They started to treat her differently causing her to become more and more

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