A Rose For Emily

WHEN Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of
respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of
her house, which no one save an old man-servant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in
at least ten years.
It was a 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, set on what had once
been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even
the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and
coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among
eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names
where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of
Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.
Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon
the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor--he who fathered the
edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron-remitted her taxes,
the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity. Not that Miss Emily
would have accepted charity. Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss
Emily's father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred
this way of repaying. Only a man of Colonel Sartoris' generation and thought could have
invented it, and only a woman could have believed it.
When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, this
arrangement created some little dissatisfaction. On the first of the year they mailed her a tax
notice. February came, and there was no reply. They wrote her a formal letter, asking her to call
at the sheriff's office at her convenience. A week later the mayor wrote her himself, offering to
call or to send his car for her, and received in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a
thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink, to the effect that she no longer went out at all. The tax
notice was also enclosed, without comment.
They called a special meeting of the Board of Aldermen. A deputation waited upon her, knocked
at the door through which no visitor had passed since she ceased giving china-painting lessons

eight or ten years earlier. They were admitted by the old Negro into a dim hall from which a
stairway mounted into still more shadow. It smelled of dust and disuse--a close, dank smell. The
Negro led them into the parlor. It was furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture. When the
Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when
they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the
single sun-ray. On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss
Emily's father.
They rose when she entered--a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to
her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her
skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness
in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless
water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small
pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the
visitors stated their errand.
She did not ask them to sit. She just stood in the door and listened quietly until the spokesman
came to a stumbling halt. Then they could hear the invisible watch ticking at the end of the gold
chain.
Her voice was dry and cold. "I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me.
Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy yourselves.""But we have.
We are the city authorities, Miss Emily. Didn't you get a notice from the sheriff, signed by him?""I
received a paper, yes," Miss Emily said. "Perhaps he considers himself the sheriff . . . I have no
taxes in Jefferson.""But there is nothing on the books to show that, you see We must go by
the--""See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson.""But, Miss Emily--"

Settings:
Faulkner portrays the townspeople and Emily in the southern town of Jefferson during the late
1800's to early 1900's. The town is more than just the setting in the story; it takes on its own
characterization alongside Emily the main character. It is the main reasoning behind Emily's
attitude and actions. It gives the reader an easier understanding into why Emily makes the
decisions she does as the story unwinds. The town of Jefferson was deeply indirectly involved in
the life of Emily Grierson. They watched and debated her every move, being her analyst, they
wondering why she did certain things. They had their own idea of who she was and what they

wanted her to be. The reason being was that the aristocratic Grierson family that her father
headed was very highly recognized in the past era of the Confederacy. Her father had much
power and was close to a very popular mayor named Colonel Sartoris.
The power Emily's father has over Emily can be seen in a portrait of the two that the narrator
describes: "Emily a slender woman in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette
in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip." (141) He does in fact control her
like a horse, never allowing her to date anyone. And until his death she indeed does not.
After Emily's father dies, we find her becoming involved with a gay man named Homer Baron
who she probably believes she will eventually marry. It is her continual relying on a male figure
that gets Emily into this situation. It is the setting in which she lye that has this impact on her
thought and understanding.
We eventually find out in the end that Emily kills Homer. She does this not do this out anger or
hatred toward this man. It is the belief on her part, that a man has to play a significant role in her
life that drives Emily to do this unbelievable act of violence. In her mind this was not a crazy
thing to do. Her intention was to be able to hold on to the male figure that she needed in her life.

PLOT:
William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is a classic short story; while the plot can be
summarized in just a few words, this will not capture the feeling of the selection. The story is told
in five parts, beginning with the end of the story: Miss Emily is dead.A young woman, Miss Emily
Grierson, lives with her father (her mother is dead) in the South. Both of them are what is
referred to as "Old South," believing in the old-fashioned mores and customs of the era before
the Civil War. Ladies and gentlemen do not discuss money or anything else which might be
considered common or dirty, and ladies certainly had to have the approval of their fathers before
they could [Link] for Miss Emily, her father never thoguht any of his daughter's
suitors were good enough for her, so she never married. After her father died, Emily kept his
dead body with her in the house, refusing to let anyone come take him for three [Link] Emily
lives alone in the house except for a Negro servant Tobe, but after the War she met a man from
the North, a carpetbagger who came to the South to help with the reconstruction. Homer Barron
and Miss Emily developed a rather scandalous relationship, but something odd happens when it
appears Homer is preparing to leave Miss Emily and the South for [Link] Emily buys rat
poison and a mirror/brush set with Homer's initials on them. Not long after that, the people in

town notice a terrible smell emanating from Miss Emily's house. Because of who she is, the
town council (or at least the older members of it) cannot possibly talk to her about it, so one
night they sneak over and sprinkle lime around the foundation of the [Link] years pass,
rather [Link], monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow grayer and more stooped,
going in and out with the market basket. Each December we sent her a tax notice, which would
be returned by the post office a week later, unclaimed. Now and then we would see her in one
of the downstairs windows--she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house--like the carven
torso of an idol in a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which. Thus she
passed

from

generation

to

generation--dear, inescapable,

impervious,

tranquil,

and

[Link] so she died. Fell ill in the house filled with dust and shadows, with only a
doddering Negro man to wait on [Link] the people enter Miss Emily's house after her death
(for everyone is curious about what has been behind her closed doors for so many years), they
discover a decayed corpse lying peacefully on the bed in the upstairs bedroom. It is evident that
Miss Emily, at least sometimes, slept next to the remains of her former lover, Homer Barron.

Characters:
Miss Emily Grierson
Miss Emily is an old-school southern belle trapped in a society bent on forcing her to stay in her
role. She clings to the old ways even as she tries to break free. When she's not even forty,
she's...
Tobe
Tobe, first described as "an old man-servant a combined gardener and cook" (1.1). He is an
even more mysterious character than Emily, and, ironically, probably the only one who knows
the an...
Homer Barron
Homer is the man Emily murderers. Yet, somehow, the focus of the tragedy is on Emily. Given
the information we know about Homer, he isn't a very sympathetic character. This is partly
because the to...

Miss Emily's Father

Emily's father is the guy with the gigantic horsewhip. He's only referred to as "Emily's father."
Faulkner himself didn't approve of the man at all. In an interview, Faulkner expounds on this
chara...
Colonel Sartoris
The Colonel is the guy who initially dreamed up the scheme to relieve Emily of her tax
obligations when her father died. That was a nice thing to do. But, this same Colonel, the mayor,
"who," we ar...
Judge Stevens
Judge Stevens gets one of the best lines in the story: "Dammit, sir, will you accuse a lady to her
face of smelling bad?" (2.9) Given everything the town knows at this point, the smell should
have...
Old Lady Wyatt
Old lady Wyatt is Emily's great-aunt (on her father's side, we believe). Before her death,
according to the townspeople, old lady Wyatt is "completely crazy" (2.11). She seems to be in
the story to...
The Cousins
The town thinks Miss Emily's "two female cousins are even more Grierson than Miss Emily had
ever been" (4.4). That is definitely not a compliment. These cousins from Alabama are relatives
of old la...

Summary:
As a child, Miss Emily Grierson had been cut off from most social contact and all
courtship by her father. When he dies, she refuses to acknowledge his death for three days.
After the townspeople intervene and bury her father, Emily is further isolated by a mysterious
illness, possibly a mental breakdown.
Homer Barrons crew comes to town to build sidewalks, and Emily is seen with him. He tells his
drinking buddies that he is not the marrying kind. The townspeople consider their relationship

improper because of differences in values, social class, and regional background. Emily buys
arsenic and refuses to say why. The ladies in town convince the Baptist minister to confront
Emily and attempt to persuade her to break off the relationship. When he refuses to discuss
their conversation or to try again to persuade Miss Emily, his wife writes to Emilys Alabama
cousins. They come to Jefferson, but the townspeople find them even more haughty and
disagreeable than Miss Emily. The cousins leave town.
Emily buys a mens silver toiletry set, and the townspeople assume marriage is imminent.
Homer is seen entering the house at dusk one day, but is never seen again. Shortly afterward,
complaints about the odor emanating from her house lead Jeffersons aldermen to
surreptitiously spread lime around her yard, rather than confront Emily, but they discover her
openly watching them from a window of her home.
Miss Emilys servant, Tobe, seems the only one to enter and exit the house. No one sees Emily
for approximately six months. By this time she is fat and her hair is short and graying. She
refuses to set up a mailbox and is denied postal delivery. Few people see inside her house,
though for six or seven years she gives china-painting lessons to young women whose parents
send them to her out of a sense of duty.
The town mayor, Colonel Sartoris, tells Emily an implausible story when she receives her first
tax notice: The city of Jefferson is indebted to her father, so Emilys taxes are waived forever.
However, a younger generation of aldermen later confronts Miss Emily about her taxes, and she
tells them to see Colonel Sartoris (now long dead, though she refuses to acknowledge his
death). Intimidated by Emily and her ticking watch, the aldermen leave, but they continue to
send tax notices every year, all of which are returned without comment.
In her later years, it appears that Emily lives only on the bottom floor of her house. She is found
dead there at the age of seventy-four. Her Alabama cousins return to Jefferson for the funeral,
which is attended by the entire town out of duty and curiosity. Emilys servant, Tobe, opens the
front door for them, then disappears out the back. After the funeral, the townspeople break down
a door in Emilys house that, it turns out, had been locked for forty years. They find a skeleton
on a bed, along with the remains of mens clothes, a tarnished silver toiletry set, and a pillow
with an indentation and one long iron-gray hair.