A Rose for the South.

A Rose for the South

A Rose for Emily takes place after the Civil War and into the 1900’s in the town of Jefferson, Mississippi—a town very similar to the one in which William Faulkner spent most of his life. He grew up in Oxford, Mississippi and was the great-grandson of a Civil War hero, which I believe greatly influenced him to write about the South’s civil war and post-civil war days. A Rose for Emily is a story of the conflict between the old and the new South, the past and the present—with Emily and the things around her consistently representing the dying old traditions of the post-civil war South. The present South and old North is expressed mostly through the words of the narrator but also through Homer Barron and the new Board of Aldermen.

In Part I, Faulkner refers to Emily as a "fallen monument", a monument to the southern elegance that existed before the Civil War. As Cox says “As the Civil War came to an end people north and south became concerned about "what to do with the Negro." Some went so far as to predict his extinction” (Cox 57). This is why she was a fallen monument because people didn’t know what to do with her as Cox says. Colored people in the South went from being slaves to being free from slavery. The people in the South didn’t know how to handle this. Emily was from a privileged family though so I don’t believe she was ever a slave.

Her house is described as having once been white—the color of youth, innocence and purity. The house stands between the cotton wagons representing the past and the gasoline pumps representing the present. The narrator describes it as an "eyesore among eyesores". I believe this eyesore

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among eyesores is being related to the South because after the war the South was worn down from the constant battles of the war.

This is a preview of the whole essay

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among eyesores is being related to the South because after the war the South was worn down from the constant battles of the war.

Emily comes from an upper class family and grew up privileged and protected by her father. An agreement between her father and Colonel Sartoris, a character we assume was a veteran of the Civil War and who also represented the old South with his edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron, exempted her from paying taxes. Col. Satoris invented a tale that her father had loaned money to the town and this was the way that the town would repay the debt. The authorities decide to pay Emily a visit to try to collect the taxes due the town. When we are introduced to Emily, she is described as

being in black—the color of death—and her eyes are lifeless…"two small pieces of coal". I thought of a corpse when reading that "she looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue" – representing the dying, old traditions in the South. The tarnished gold head on her black cane is the one reminder of her affluent, upper class position of years ago. When asked if she got the tax notice from the sheriff, Emily claims she has no taxes to pay and refers them to Colonel Sartoris who has been dead for ten years – another indication of Emily’s living in the past.

In Part 2, Emily’s father dies. When he was alive, he took care of all of her economic needs. She refuses to accept the fact that he has passed on. She hangs onto him for three days after his passing and tells visitors that he is not dead. She finally breaks down and allows the body to be taken away for burial. I

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believe this shows how the South, in general, is having a hard time letting go of the losses they suffered in the war – not just the battles, but the loss of their family members and the economic suffering felt during that time.

The "only sign of life" in Emily's home after her father’s death is the young Negro servant who gardens and cooks for her. In fact, it is apparent that Emily would have died years earlier if he had not taken care of her. To me, Faulkner is suggesting that the South will die, or certainly not progress, unless its culture changes and it accepts the Negro as a vital part of society.

While Emily has been hiding in her house after her father’s death, a construction company comes into Jefferson to pave the sidewalks, and the

crew's boss begins courting her. He is Homer Barron, a Yankee, described as a big, dark man who drank with the young men (the new generation). Homer represents the Yankee attitudes of the time. But Faulkner also places Homer in a buggy with yellow wheels, and even though he carries a whip like Emily’s father did, he wears yellow gloves. I believe the author’s intent here, by using the yellow color of cowardice, was to illustrate that Homer was afraid of marrying Emily. Faulkner is trying to show that the North is afraid of trusting the South. If I were a Yankee coming into the South to help with reconstruction I would have trouble trusting the Southerners too because of the war they just came from.

The town pitied "poor Emily," thinking she was going crazy, seeing a Yankee and forgetting about proper behavior fitting a lady that grew up in the South. A year after she starts a relationship with Homer, she asks the druggist

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for the best poison he has – arsenic, which is the color gray in its most common form. Gray, like the Confederate uniform. When the druggist looks at Emily, she stands erect and looks back at him with "her face like a strained flag". I believe Faulkner is referring to the Confederate flag and that Emily's face looked like a strained flag during a battle in the Civil War. He is also using the poison to describe a Confederate’s weapon to kill a Yankee just like the weapon (arsenic) she is going to use it to kill Homer Barron (who represents the North).

Emily disappears for some time after the last time we see Homer Barron, and when we see her again, Faulkner effectively uses the color gray to describe her. "When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning

gray. During the next few years it grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray, when it ceased turning. Up to the day of her death at seventy-four it was still that vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man." I believe Faulkner has strengthened his symbolic reference to the South and by comparing her gray hair to that of an active man, he is even suggesting a Confederate soldier. The gray used throughout the story could also represent aging and eventual death.

The old men who come to Emily's funeral dress in their Confederate uniforms. They, too, are living in the past. But unlike Emily, who totally retreated to the past, theirs is separated by the most recent decade, described as a "narrow bottle-neck" – progress is slow in Jefferson, and the past won't be forgotten, but change will come.

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When the authorities break into the locked upstairs room, they discover the skeleton of Homer Barron lying on the bed. The bedroom is decorated in rose, the color of blood, but everything is covered with dust. I believe that the rose pedals represent the blood that was shed by the soldiers of the North and South in the Civil War, which are represented by both Emily and Homer. The dust on top of the roses represents the battlegrounds today. The blood that was once there has been covered up by new soil because the war was so long ago. Just like when they find Emily and Homer dead in her house, they had been dead for a long time, like the soldiers of the war. The rose-colored room could also

represent optimism. Perhaps Faulkner is suggesting that the old attitudes of both the North and the South must die in order for the two to be one. This is supported by the fact that the old Negro servant disappears upon Emily's death and after the new generation has entered the house.

Faulkner’s play on words throughout this story depict conflict of the old and new South. Emily definitely represented the dying old traditions of the post-civil war South. Only after her death did the “new generation” begin to prosper and change.