William Faulkners story A Rose For Emily, is a tragic story about a young lady by the name of Miss Emily Grierson. Emily came from a well to do family, that had allot of history in the town they lived in. The Grierson’s were so powerful, that they did not have to pay any taxes. The whole town seemed to think that the Grierson’s were snobby because in Emily’s fathers eyes, none of the men where quite good enough for Emily. Unfortunately, Emily turned out an old maid because of her father. By the age of 30, the whole town felt sorry for Emily because they knew that she would not be getting married.
The death of Emily’s father displayed a different side of Emily. Since there were rumors of insanity in her family, Emily’s denial of her father death portrayed just that. Soon after, Emily came back to reality and grieved her fathers’ death. No one seemed to see much of Emily after the death of her father. The only person they would see was her butler. To everyone’s surprise, Emily did meet a man a few years later, by the name of Homer Barron. The two would ride down the street on Sundays in a buggy. The town hoped that this would be Emily’s opportunity to wed. Time passed, and the town no longer saw Homer come around any more.
The last time the town saw Homer, he had gone into Emily’s home through the kitchen door for supper. Never the less, it finally came time for Emily to pay taxes. The older town people from her father’s generation were all gone, and her family’s reputation had no merit with the newer generation of authorities. These authorities started to trouble Emily. If it was not a letter of collection that the mayor sent to Emily, it was a complaint of a foul smell coming from Emily’s home. The mayor even sprayed lime around Emily’s home to fight the awful smell of dead animal.
Emily paid no mind, she was old, gray haired, and demented. Finally, Emily died in her in her bed at age seventy. The weird circumstance about her death was that along with her body lying in a bed, the authorities also found the cadaver of Homer Barron. The bones laid at rest in a bedroom in Emily’s house. Homers’ arms were in an everlasting embrace. On the pillow next to him, authorities found a hair strand from Emily’s head. Poor Emily had to kill Homer Barron in order to keep him in her life forever. I loved the ending to this story, because I would have never thought that Emily would have killed Homer.
I wonder what was going through Emily’s mind before she killed Homer. I bet it must have been pretty lonely for Emily. I also loved the way the narrator spoke from the towns’ people point of view, because it helped me to project an image of Emily. The foreshadowing given to me about the murder of Homer, made me laugh. I did not notice the foreshadowing until I read about the discovery of Homers body. I really enjoyed reading this story. A Rose For Emily, by William Faulkner, ended up being a story about a woman who did not let herself become an old maid. Emily kept her Homer with her forever.
