A Rose for Emily~ Unit 2

In the story, A Rose for Emily, William Faulkner recreated a tragic piece that portrayed the connection between strong family values and resisting change in an evolving society.
This piece starts with the death of Emily Grierson and proceeds with a microscopic view of Emily’s life through the lens of the townspeople. Using this distinct writing style, Faulkner successfully created a story that provokes his readers to dig deeper into the text to find out what type of woman Emily was. The fact that this story is told from the townspeople’s point of view, this piece was written from a bias perspective against an aristocratic family. They spoke about Miss Emily’s controlling father and how he had chased every man away because he felt no one was good enough for his daughter. After Miss Emily’s father had passed away, she appeared to be in denial about his death and refused to give his body over to the officials for a proper burial. “We knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will” (208). Miss Emily secluded herself from the view of the townspeople, but this only heightened their interest in her life. “Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows. Thus she passed from generation to generation- dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse” (211).
The story concludes with the assumption that Miss Emily poisoned her husband and had concealed his body in a room upstairs. Although a motive is not clear, I believe that Miss Emily wanted to respect the ideals upheld by her father and those of the Old South generation. “She carried her head high enough... It was as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson” (206). She continued to refuse to pay her taxes and even, “refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it” (211). I feel that, in the end, Miss Emily fell in love with a common laborer and in order to keep her secret safe, she poisoned the man she loved as means of saving the family name and preserving the love she had for her husband forever.