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The House

Miss Emily's house is an important symbol in this story. (In general, old family homes are often
significant symbols in Gothic literature.) For most of the story, we, like the townspeople, only see Miss
Emily's house from the outside looking in. Let's look at the some of the descriptions we get of the
house:

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. (1.2)

The fact that the house was built in the 1870s tells us that Miss Emily's father must have been doing
pretty well for himself after the Civil War. The narrator's description of it as an "eyesore among
eyesores" is a double or even triple judgment. The narrator doesn't seem to approve of the urban
sprawl. We also speculate that the house is an emblem of money probably earned in large part
through the labors of slaves, or emancipated slaves. The final part of this judgment has to do with the
fact that the house was allowed to decay and disintegrate.

For an idea of the kind of house Miss Emily lived in, take a look at artist Theora Hamblett's house in
Mississippi, built, like Emily's, in the 1870. Now picture the lawn overgrown, maybe a broken window
or two, the paint worn and chipping and you have a the creepy house that Emily lived in, and which
the children of the "newer generation" probably ran past in a fright.

The house, as is often the case in scary stories, is also a symbol of the opposite of what it's supposed
to be. Like most humans, Emily wanted a house she could love someone in, and a house where she
could be free. She thought she might have this with Homer Barron, but something went terribly
wrong. This something turned her house into a virtual prison she had nowhere else to go but home,
and this home, with the corpse of Homer Barron rotting in an upstairs room, this home could never be
shared with others. The house is a huge symbol of Miss Emily's isolation.

The Pocket Watch, the Stationery, and the Hair

These are all symbols of time in the story. What's more, the struggle between the past and the future
threatens to rip the present to pieces. When members of the Board of Aldermen visit Emily to see
about the taxes a decade before her death, they hear her pocket watch ticking, hidden somewhere in
the folds of her clothing and her body. This is a signal to us that for Miss Emily time is both a
mysterious "invisible" force, and one of which she has always been acutely aware. With each tick of
the clock, her chance for happiness dwindles .

Another symbol of time is Emily's hair. The town tells time first by Emily's hair, and then when she
disappears into her house after her hair has turned "a vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active
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man" (4.6). When Emily no longer leaves the house, the town uses Tobe's hair to tell time, watching
as it too turns gray. The strand of Emily's hair found on the pillow next to Homer, is a time-teller too,
though precisely what time it tells is hard to say. The narrator tells us that Homer's final resting place
hadn't been opened in 40 years, which is exactly how long Homer Barron has been missing. But,
Emily's hair didn't turn "iron-gray" until approximately 1898, several years after Homer's death.

In "What's up With the Ending?" we suggest that the town knew they would find Homer Barron's dead
body in the room. But maybe what they didn't know was that she had lain next to the body at least
several years after its owner had departed it, but perhaps much more recently. Still, the townspeople
did have to break into the room. When and why it was locked up is probably only known by Emily
(who is dead, and wouldn't talk anyway) and Tobe (who has disappeared, and wouldn't talk anyway).

The stationery is also a symbol of time, but in a different way. The letter the town gets from Emily is
written "on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink" (1.4). Emily probably
doesn't write too many letters, so it's normal that she would be using stationery that's probably at
least 40 years old. The stationery is a symbol, and one that points back to the tensions between the
past, the present, and the future, which this story explores.

Lime and Arsenic

Lime and arsenic are some of the story's creepiest symbols. Lime is a white powder that's good at
covering the smell of decomposing bodies. Ironically, it seems that the lime was sprinkled in vain. The
smell of the rotting corpse of Homer Barron stopped wafting into the neighborhood of its own accord.
Or maybe the town just got used to the smell. The lime is a symbol of a fruitless attempt to hide
something embarrassing, and creepy. It's also a symbol of the way the town, in that generation, did
things.

We lump it together with arsenic because they are both symbols of getting rid of something that
smells, and in the case of "A Rose for Emily," it happens to be the very same thing. Remember what
the druggist writes on Emily's packet of arsenic, under the poison sign? "For rats." Faulkner himself
claims that Homer was probably not a nice guy. If Homer is planning to break a promise to marry
Emily, she, in the southern tradition, would most probably have considered him a rat.

The arsenic used to kill a stinky rat creates a foul stench, which the townspeople want to get rid of
with lime. (If you want to read more about arsenic, click here). We should also note that arsenic is a
favorite fictional murder weapon, due to its reputation for being odorless, colorless, and virtually
undetectable by the victim. Director Franz Capra's 1944 film Arsenic and Old Lace is good example of
this.

Death and Taxes

Notice how the first section of the story involves what Benjamin Franklin said were the only two
certain things in the world: death and taxes. Franklin was talking about the fact that even the U.S.
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Constitution would be subject to future change.

Miss Emily's death at the beginning of the story, and the narrators memory of the history of her tax
situation in Jefferson might be what Alfred Hitchcock called "macguffins." A macguffin is "an object,
event, or character in a film or story that serves to set and keep the plot in motion despite usually
lacking intrinsic importance" (source). Neither the funeral nor the tax issue seem to be about are all
that important to the tale of murder and insanity that follows.

Still, we should question whether or not they actually are macguffins.

The taxes are can be seen as symbols of death. The initial remission of Miss Emily taxes is a symbol
of the death of her father. It's also a symbol of the financial decline the proud man must have
experienced, but kept hidden from Emily and the town, until his death. Since the story isn't clear on
why Emily only got the house in the will, the taxes could also be a symbol of his continued control
over Emily from the grave. If he had money when he died, but left it to some mysterious entity, (the
story is unclear on this point), he would have denied Emily her independence.

Over 30 years after the initial remission of Miss Emily's taxes when the "newer generation" tries to
revoke the ancient deal they inherited, taxes are still a symbol of death, though this time, they
symbolize the death of Homer Barron.

As we argue in "What's Up With the Ending?", the town is probably already aware that she has a
rotting corpse upstairs. Maybe the taxes were just an excuse to definitively see what was going on at
the house. The next phase of their plan might well have been foreclosure. They could have used the
tax situation to remove Emily from the neighborhood, and to condemn her house. Perhaps they
wanted to remove the "eyesore," and to cover up everything Miss Emily says about the past and
present of the South.

The fact that they didn't do this might just turn the taxes into a symbol of compassion. Wasn't it out of
compassion that her taxes were initially remitted? That the "newer generation" decides to continue
the tradition also shows that some of the older ways might well have merit.

Setting

A creepy old house in Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, 1861-1933

(approximately)

Setting is usually pretty rich in Faulkner. SimCity-style, William Faulkner created his own Mississippi
County, Yoknapatawpha, as the setting for much of his fiction. This county comes complete with
several different families including the Grierson family. "A Rose for Emily" is set in the county seat of
Yoknapatawpha, Jefferson and as you know, focuses on Emily Grierson, the last living Grierson. For
a map and a detailed description of Yoknapatawpha, click here.
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OK, so the where is pretty easy. Though Jefferson and its inhabitants are unique, we can see their
town as any southern town during that period. The situations that arise in the story develop in large
part because many southerners who lived during the slavery era didn't know what to do when that
whole way of life ended. Imagine if suddenly you are told and shown that your whole way of life is a
sham, an atrocity, an evil. Then heap on a generous helping of southern pride, and you have
tragedies like this one. This story also explores how future generations deal with this legacy. To really
feel the movement of history in the story, and to understand the movements of Emily's life, it
important to pin down the chronology of events.

The dates we use, other than 1874, are just a little rough, but in the ballpark.

1861 Miss Emily Grierson is born.

1870s The Grierson house is built.
1893 Miss Emily's father dies.
1893 Miss Emily falls ill.
1893 Miss Emily's taxes are remitted (in December).
1894 Miss Emily meets Homer Barron (in the summer).
1895 Homer is last seen entering Miss Emily's house (Emily is "over thirty; we use thirty-three for
our calculations).
1895 The townspeople become concerned about the smell of the Grierson house and sprinkle lime
around Emily's place.
1895 Miss Emily stays in for six months.
1895-1898 Miss Emily emerges and her hair gradually turns gray.
1899 Miss Emily stops opening her door, and doesn't leave the house for about five years.
1904 Miss Emily emerges to give china-painting lessons for about seven years.
1911 Miss Emily stops giving painting lessons. Over ten years pass before she has any contact with
the town.
1925 They "newer generation" comes to ask about the taxes. This is thirty years after the business
with the lime. This is the last contact she has with the town before her death.
1935 Miss Emily dies at 74 years old. Tobe leaves the house. Two days later the funeral is held at
the Grierson house. At the funeral, the townspeople break down the door to the bridal chamber/crypt,
which no one has seen in 40 years.

This doesn't answer all the questions by any means. Since nobody in the town ever knew what was
really going on in Emily's house, there are numerous holes and gaps in this history. Still, you can use
this as a guide to help make sense of some of the confusing moments.

First Person (Peripheral Narrator)

The fascinating narrator of "A Rose for Emily" is more rightly called "first people" than "first person."
Usually referring to itself as "we," the narrator speaks sometimes for the men of Jefferson, sometimes
for the women, and often for both. It also spans three generations of Jeffersonians, including the
generation of Miss Emily's father, Miss Emily's generation, and the "newer generation," made up of
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the children of Miss Emily's contemporaries. The narrator is pretty hard on the first two generations,
and it's easy to see how their treatment of Miss Emily may have led to her downfall. This lends the
narrative a somewhat confessional feel.

While we are on the subject of "we," notice no one townsperson is completely responsible for what
happened to Emily. (It is fair to say, though that some are more responsible than others.) The
willingness of the town to now admit responsibility is a hopeful sign, and one that allows us to
envision a better future for generations to come. We discuss this further in "Tone," so check out that
section for more information.

Horror or Gothic Fiction, Southern Gothic, Literary Fiction, Tragedy, Modernism

Even before we see the forty-year-old corpse of Homer Barron rotting into the bed, the creepy house,
and the creepy Miss Emily let us know that we are in the realm of horror or Gothic fiction. Combine
that with a southern setting and we realize that it's not just Gothic, but Southern Gothic. The Southern
Gothic genre focuses sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly on slavery, or the aftermath of slavery
in the South. You can definitely see this in "A Rose for Emily."

Since author William Faulkner won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction twice (first in 1955 for A Fable, and
then in 1963 for The Reivers), and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1949) we'd also have to put it in the
category of "Literary Fiction."

Even if Faulkner hadn't won all those prizes, we'd still put "A Rose for Emily" in this category. The
story is masterfully told, and it's obvious that much care and skill went into it. It's also strikingly
original and experimental in terms of form. This is part of what makes it a classic Modernist text. The
Southern Gothic is a perfect field on which to perform a Modernist experiment. Modernist is all about
what happens when everything you thought was true is revealed to be false, resulting in shattered
identities. Modernism tries to make something constructive out of the pieces. We can see all that loud
and clear in "A Rose for Emily."

Ironic, Confessional, Gossipy, Angry, Hopeful

We can think of a bunch more adjectives to describe the tone of the story, these seems to be the
dominant emotional tones the narrator is expressing as Miss Emily's story is told. (Keep in mind that
it's also the town's story.)

The irony of the story is closely tied to the rose in the title, and to Williams Faulkner's explanation of it:

[The title] was an allegorical title; the meaning was, here was a woman who had had a tragedy, an
irrevocable tragedy and nothing could be done about it, and I pitied her and this was a saluteto a
woman you would hand a rose. (source)

It's ironic because in the story Miss Emily is continually handed thorns, not roses, and she herself
produces many thorns in return. This is where the "confessional" part comes in. Since the narrator is
a member of the town, and takes responsibility for all the townspeople's actions, the narrator is
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confessing the town's crimes against Emily.

Confession can be another word for gossip, especially when you are confessing the crimes of others.
(Here one of the big crimes is gossip.) The chilling first line of Section IV is a good representative of
the elements of tone we've been discussing so far: "So the next day we all said, 'She will kill herself';
and we said it would be the best thing." This is where the anger comes in. Because this makes us
angry, we feel that the narrator too is angry, particularly in this whole section. This leads us back to
confession and hopefulness.

The hopefulness of the town is the hardest for us to understand. It comes in part from the title again
if we can put ourselves in the same space as Faulkner and manage to give Emily a rose, to have
compassion for her even though she is a murderer, to recognize her tragedy for what it is, this might
allow us to build a more compassionate future for ourselves, a future where tragedies like Emily's
don't occur. This also entails taking off our "rose-colored glasses" (as we discuss in "What's Up With
the Title?") and facing the ugly truths of life, even confessing our shortcomings. Hopefully, we can
manage to take those glasses off before death takes them off for us.

Writing style

Lush

While Ernest Hemingway boils things down to the essentials, his friend William Faulkner lets the pot
boil over, spilling onto the stove, down onto the floor, and maybe somehow catching the kitchen on
fire.

With Faulkner we can feel the vines tangling, the magnolias blooming, the plants around Emily's
house breeding, helping to hide her from the harshness of the world she lives in, a world in which she
doesn't really belong. This tangling of blooming and breeding is replicated in the fancy words and
long, complicated sentences for which Faulkner is famous.

Part of lushness is that other side of nature, the side we might not want to look at, and the side that's
in store for everything in nature: death and decay. Faulkner never neglects this side (certainly not
here), and with every blooming rose, he gives us a rotting one, too.

The lushness is also ironic, and perhaps a reaction against a lack of lushness. We know that although
Emily's place was probably lush and overgrown, she never went outside to enjoy it, and only rarely
even let in the light from outside. The story not only celebrates a lush life, by representing its
opposite, but also cautions us against alienating others, against pushing others to hide from the light
of life.

Title

You probably noticed that there is no rose in the story, though we do find the word "rose" four times.
Check out the first two times the word is used:

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
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single sun-ray. (1.5)

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. (1.6)

These first two times "rose" (as you can see) is used as a verb, which is why we barely notice the
subtle echo of the "rose" in the title when we read. We are concentrating on the image, first, of the
inside of Miss Emily's lonely parlor, and then of Miss Emily herself. In both cases, the word "rose" is
working on us, maybe even subconsciously, to contribute to the image.

We have to look at a few more things before we can get at why these passages are significant.

First, let's consider the next two mentions of "rose," which occur at the very end of the story:

A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for
a bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the
dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man's toilet things backed with tarnished
silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured. (5.4)

Things are starting to make sense here we are talking about the color "rose" from the curtains to
the lampshades, rose was the dominant color of Miss Emily's bridal chamber. We've all heard about
the dangers of seeing through 'rose colored' glasses. This was a particular problem for people of Miss
Emily's generation in the South.

As we discuss in "Setting," Emily was born in the early 1860s, probably near the beginning of the Civil
War. Emily's father basically raised her to believe that nothing had really changed after the war. He
instilled in her that being part of the southern aristocracy (those who made money on backs of slaves)
was still something to be proud of, and that people like them were above the law.

But, in this moment, we realize just how rosy Miss Emily's glasses were, and that death trumps
glasses, rose colored or otherwise. The reality of death cannot be avoided. Now that the bridal
chamber has turned into a death chamber, the rose color is bathed in the hues of decay and death,
shaded by the "acrid pall as of the tomb." Which might make you wonder just what an "acrid pall" is.

"Acrid" is easy, it's used to refer to something that's nasty smelling. "Pall" is actually a pretty
interesting word, and one that isn't normally thrown around in conversation. It usually refers to some
kind of covering, like a cloak or a blanket draped over a coffin. We can see how the word works
literally and figuratively to thicken the atmosphere of death and decomposition. It works because even
if we don't know precisely what a "pall" is, we can hear the deathly, pale tones it holds.

Well, we're not quite done yet. Lucky for us, William Faulkner told an interviewer what he meant by
the title:
[The title] was an allegorical title; the meaning was, here was a woman who had had a tragedy, an
irrevocable tragedy and nothing could be done about it, and I pitied her and this was a saluteto a
woman you would hand a rose. (source)

We think this perspective is very important, not just because it provides a straightforward explanation,
but also because it persuades us to indulge in a more compassionate reading. It's easy to judge Miss
Emily, and maybe to forget she's a human being who has had a tragic life. For a look at how this
explanation exposes the story's irony, check out our discussion of "Writing Style." Needless to say,
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there are many possible interpretations of the title, "A Rose for Emily," and you can feel free to think
creatively when trying to

Ending

It's funny that a story as out of sequence as "A Rose for Emily" ends at the end with the discovery
of the forty-year-old corpse of Homer Barron. Readers and critics often feel that if the story were told
linearly, in sequence, it wouldn't be much of a story. Some people feel that all the power lies in the
discovery of the rotting corpse of this fellow.

We disagree with this opinion. For example, if we already knew that the corpse of Homer Barron was
up in the bedroom, we would have been creeped out to read that Emily was giving painting lessons to
kids in the parlor (or wherever such lessons are given). The story could have been just as creepy,
and just as tragic, if told linearly.

So maybe "A Rose for Emily" had to be told this way to mirror the experience of the town, to mirror
their surprise at finding the corpse. Obviously, the town didn't know about Homer Barron until Emily
died, otherwise, they sure as heck wouldn't have let their kids go to her house for painting lessons,
and they would arrested her for murder.

Or maybe not. Check out this moment from the ending:

Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty
years, and which would have to be forced. They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground
before they opened it. (5.3)

The town must have known all along. Maybe this is the real surprise of the ending, the realization that
the town has long ago pieced together the puzzle. While we can be fairly sure that most townspeople
had talked the matter to death and figured out what went on before the end of the story, we can't be
sure precisely when it became the consensus. Probably the night the lime was sprinkled (we're
talking about the white powder here, and not the citrus fruit!).

Thirty years later, those people's children had heard the story in bits and pieces (the way it's told to
us), all the while seeing her house grow more and more decayed, seeing her in the window, almost a
ghost already, wandering the halls of her haunted house. The town knew her story by heart, because
it was also their story, down to the last detail.

As such, the following passage takes on new significance:

Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of the town, and the painting pupils
grew up and fell away and did not send their children to her with boxes of color and tedious brushes
and pictures cut from the ladies' magazines. (4.8)

The "newer generation" wasn't going to charge in and arrest Miss Emily, but they weren't about to
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leave their kids with her. If they had arrested her, she probably would have ended up in an institution
or worse. And this is where the theme "Compassion and Forgiveness" comes into the picture. One
question the story asks is whether the town's hiding of Miss Emily's crime is an act of compassion, or
yet another crime against her.

To see how hard the question is, we can remember what we are told very early in the story, "Alive,
Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town"
(1.3). She is family. What would you do?

Plot Overview

The story is divided into five sections. In section I, the narrator recalls the time of Emily Griersons
death and how the entire town attended her funeral in her home, which no stranger had entered for
more than ten years. In a once-elegant, upscale neighborhood, Emilys house is the last vestige of
the grandeur of a lost era. Colonel Sartoris, the towns previous mayor, had suspended Emilys tax
responsibilities to the town after her fathers death, justifying the action by claiming that Mr. Grierson
had once lent the community a significant sum. As new town leaders take over, they make
unsuccessful attempts to get Emily to resume payments. When members of the Board of Aldermen
pay her a visit, in the dusty and antiquated parlor, Emily reasserts the fact that she is not required to
pay taxes in Jefferson and that the officials should talk to Colonel Sartoris about the matter. However,
at that point he has been dead for almost a decade. She asks her servant, Tobe, to show the men
out.

In section II, the narrator describes a time thirty years earlier when Emily resists another official
inquiry on behalf of the town leaders, when the townspeople detect a powerful odor emanating from
her property. Her father has just died, and Emily has been abandoned by the man whom the
townsfolk believed Emily was to marry. As complaints mount, Judge Stevens, the mayor at the time,
decides to have lime sprinkled along the foundation of the Grierson home in the middle of the night.
Within a couple of weeks, the odor subsides, but the townspeople begin to pity the increasingly
reclusive Emily, remembering how her great aunt had succumbed to insanity. The townspeople have
always believed that the Griersons thought too highly of themselves, with Emilys father driving off the
many suitors deemed not good enough to marry his daughter. With no offer of marriage in sight,
Emily is still single by the time she turns thirty.

The day after Mr. Griersons death, the women of the town call on Emily to offer their condolences.
Meeting them at the door, Emily states that her father is not dead, a charade that she keeps up for
three days. She finally turns her fathers body over for burial.

In section III, the narrator describes a long illness that Emily suffers after this incident. The summer
after her fathers death, the town contracts workers to pave the sidewalks, and a construction
company, under the direction of northerner Homer Barron, is awarded the job. Homer soon becomes
a popular figure in town and is seen taking Emily on buggy rides on Sunday afternoons, which
scandalizes the town and increases the condescension and pity they have for Emily. They feel that
she is forgetting her family pride and becoming involved with a man beneath her station.
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As the affair continues and Emilys reputation is further compromised, she goes to the drug store to
purchase arsenic, a powerful poison. She is required by law to reveal how she will use the arsenic.
She offers no explanation, and the package arrives at her house labeled For rats.

In section IV, the narrator describes the fear that some of the townspeople have that Emily will use
the poison to kill herself. Her potential marriage to Homer seems increasingly unlikely, despite their
continued Sunday ritual. The more outraged women of the town insist that the Baptist minister talk
with Emily. After his visit, he never speaks of what happened and swears that hell never go back. So
the ministers wife writes to Emilys two cousins in Alabama, who arrive for an extended stay.
Because Emily orders a silver toilet set monogrammed with Homers initials, talk of the couples
marriage resumes. Homer, absent from town, is believed to be preparing for Emilys move to the
North or avoiding Emilys intrusive relatives.

After the cousins departure, Homer enters the Grierson home one evening and then is never seen
again. Holed up in the house, Emily grows plump and gray. Despite the occasional lesson she gives
in china painting, her door remains closed to outsiders. In what becomes an annual ritual, Emily
refuses to acknowledge the tax bill. She eventually closes up the top floor of the house. Except for the
occasional glimpse of her in the window, nothing is heard from her until her death at age seventy-
four. Only the servant is seen going in and out of the house.

In section V, the narrator describes what happens after Emily dies. Emilys body is laid out in the
parlor, and the women, town elders, and two cousins attend the service. After some time has passed,
the door to a sealed upstairs room that had not been opened in forty years is broken down by the
townspeople. The room is frozen in time, with the items for an upcoming wedding and a mans suit
laid out. Homer Barrons body is stretched on the bed as well, in an advanced state of decay. The
onlookers then notice the indentation of a head in the pillow beside Homers body and a long strand
of Emilys gray hair on the pillow.

Plot analysis

Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict,
complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the
recipe and add some spice.

Initial Situation

Death and Taxes

As we discuss in "Symbols, Imagery, Allegory," Faulkner might be playing on the Benjamin Franklin
quote, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes," in this initial scene.
We move from a huge funeral attended by everybody in town, to this strange little story about taxes.

Conflict
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Taxes aren't the only thing that stinks.

The taxes seem tame compared to what comes next. In Section II, we learn lots of bizarre stuff about
Miss Emily: when her father died she refused to believe it (or let on she believed it) for four days
(counting the day he died); the summer after her father died, she finally gets a boyfriend (she's in her
thirties); when worried that her boyfriend might leave her, she bought some poison and her boyfriend
disappeared, but there was a bad smell around her house. We technically have enough information to
figure everything out right here, but we are thrown off by the issue of the taxes, and by the way in
which facts are jumbled together.

Complication

The Town's Conscience

For this stage it might be helpful to think of this story as the town's confession. This section is what
complicates things for the town's conscience. The town was horrible to Miss Emily when she started
dating Homer Barron. They wanted to hold her to the southern lady ideals her forbearers had mapped
out for her. She was finally able to break free when her father died, but the town won't let her do it.
When they can't stop her from dating Homer themselves, they sick the cousins on her.

Climax

"For Rats"

Even though this story seems all jumbled up chronologically, the climax comes roughly in the middle
of the story, lending the story a smooth, symmetrical feel. According to Faulkner, Homer probably
was a bit of a rat, one which noble Miss Emily would have felt perfectly in the right to exterminate.
Yet, she also wanted to hold tight to the dream that she might have a normal life, with love and a
family. When she sees that everybody the townspeople, the minister, her cousins, and even Homer
himself is bent on messing up her plans, she has an extreme reaction. That's why, for us, the climax
is encapsulated in the image of the skull and crossbones on the arsenic package and the warning,
"For rats."

Suspense

Deadly Gossip

As with the climax, Faulkner follows a traditional plot structure, at least in terms of the story of Emily
and Homer. Emily buys the arsenic, and at that moment the information is beamed into the brains of
the townspeople. This is one of the nastiest sections. The town is in suspense over whether they are
married, soon will be, or never will be. Their reactions range from murderous, to pitying, to downright
interference. We also learn that Homer Barron was last seen entering the residence of Miss Emily
Grierson on the night in question. So, we can be in suspense about what happened to him, though by
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the time we can appreciate that this is something to be suspenseful about, we already know what
happened.

Denouement

The Next 40 Years

At this point, we've already been given a rough outline of Emily's life, beginning with her funeral,
going back ten years to when the "newer generation" came to collect the taxes, and then back
another thirty some odd years to the death of Emily's father, the subsequent affair with Homer, and
the disappearance of Homer. The story winds down by filling us in on Miss Emily's goings on in the 40
years between Homer's disappearance and Emily's funeral. Other than the painting lessons, her life
during that time is a mystery, because she stayed inside

Conclusion

The Bed, the Rotting Corpse, and the Hair

Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of seven basic plot
structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy,
Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these structures fits this story like Cinderellas
slipper.

Plot Type :

Anticipation Stage

Meeting Homer Barron

Although she doesn't quite fit the profile a Booker tragic hero, Miss Emily has often been thought of
as a very special tragic case. We think that applying Booker to her presents an interesting
perspective on her story. That said, in this stage Emily finds an object of desire, as Booker says. In
Homer Barron, Emily sees the chance to have what her father kept from her while he was alive: a
romantic relationship, love, marriage, and happiness. Since nobody for miles around would stoop to a
relationship with Emily who at "over thirty" (3.6) was considered beyond marriageable age, and since
her father had run off any potential suitors, she had to pick somebody from out of town.

Dream Stage

Riding in the Buggy

For a while it looks like Emily's dream is coming true. She's spitting in the face of tradition by hanging
out with a man who is considered socially beneath her, and who her father undoubtedly would not
have approved of. She rides around with Homer in the buggy, not caring what anyone thinks.

Frustration Stage
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The Minister, the Cousins, and Other Meddlers

For the tragic hero in this stage, things start to go wrong. In this case, the town is vicious and
interfering, and will not let Emily have her little bit of happiness. On top of gossiping about Emily, they
first force the minister on her, and then write to her Alabama cousins, who are brought in to destroy
Emily's relationship with Homer. As Booker says, this kind of frustrating situation sometimes leads the
hero to commit dark deeds

Nightmare Stage

Arsenic, A Toilet Set, and New Clothes

The nightmare stage is one of the most confusing in this story. We don't know if Homer and Emily
ever agreed to marry. We do know she bought both the arsenic and the men's items while the
cousins were with her, and that she was seen with Homer during that period. We don't know why he
came to her house that final time, or why she didn't let him leave. Most critics, including Faulkner
himself, believe Homer wasn't a good guy; it seems he might have come back to Emily one last time
before dumping her. She managed to get the arsenic in him somehow or other.

Destruction or Death Wish Stage

Murder

This is where things really diverge from Booker's tragedy plot structure. For one thing, this stage
happens some 40 years before the story ends. In this stage, the tragic hero is supposed to die as a
result of her own folly. Emily dies at seventy-four of what appears to be all natural causes. Yet, in
some ways she was destroyed when she killed Homer Barron. The last thread of normalcy was
permanently severed in that moment. Even though she was able to give painting lessons for almost a
decade after the murder, eventually, when the town no longer trusted her with their children, and she
made a complete withdrawal into her home. Other than whatever interactions she had with Tobe she
was entirely cut off from the rest of the human race.

Three act plot analysis

For a three-act plot analysis, put on your screenwriters hat. Moviemakers know the formula well: at
the end of Act One, the main character is drawn in completely to a conflict. During Act Two, she is
farthest away from her goals. At the end of Act Three, the story is resolved.

Act I

The curtains open on the huge funeral of Miss Emily Grierson, which is taking place on the grounds of
a decrepit southern house. The fact that nobody in town has been in Emily's house for a decade
sends the narrator spinning backwards down memory lane, from the tax collection mission ten years
before, to the "smell" 30 years before that. This act ends with Emily reading the words "For Rats"
under the skull and crossbones on her package of arsenic.

Act II
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Act II begins with Emily and Homer riding through town in his buggy, and cycles through the town's
various interferences in their relationship, from the gossip to the preacher to the cousins, to the
moment when Homer disappears forever into Miss Emily's house.

Act III

The final act opens with Emily opening her door, and letting in the little painting students, some years
after the Homer Barron business. Then the door closes again. We see Tobe walking back and forth
from house to marker, his hair graying, and we get occasional glimpses of Miss Emily through
downstairs windows. Then we are back at the beginning at the funeral. Before we close the old
curtain for the last time, we have to come face to face with the rotting corpse of Homer Barron and
the telltale strand of iron-gray hair on the pillow next to him.

Character List
Emily Grierson - The object of fascination in the story. A eccentric recluse, Emily is a mysterious
figure who changes from a vibrant and hopeful young girl to a cloistered and secretive old woman.
Devastated and alone after her fathers death, she is an object of pity for the townspeople. After a life
of having potential suitors rejected by her father, she spends time after his death with a newcomer,
Homer Barron, although the chances of his marrying her decrease as the years pass. Bloated and
pallid in her later years, her hair turns steel gray. She ultimately poisons Homer and seals his corpse
into an upstairs room.

Homer Barron - A foreman from the North. Homer is a large man with a dark complexion, a booming
voice, and light-colored eyes. A gruff and demanding boss, he wins many admirers in Jefferson
because of his gregarious nature and good sense of humor. He develops an interest in Emily and
takes her for Sunday drives in a yellow-wheeled buggy. Despite his attributes, the townspeople view
him as a poor, if not scandalous, choice for a mate. He disappears in Emilys house and decomposes
in an attic bedroom after she kills him.
Judge Stevens - A mayor of Jefferson. Eighty years old, Judge Stevens attempts to delicately
handle the complaints about the smell emanating from the Grierson property. To be respectful of
Emilys pride and former position in the community, he and the aldermen decide to sprinkle lime on
the property in the middle of the night.
Mr. Grierson - Emilys father. Mr. Grierson is a controlling, looming presence even in death, and the
community clearly sees his lasting influence over Emily. He deliberately thwarts Emilys attempts to
find a husband in order to keep her under his control. We get glimpses of him in the story: in the
crayon portrait kept on the gilt-edged easel in the parlor, and silhouetted in the doorway, horsewhip in
hand, having chased off another of Emilys suitors.

Tobe - Emilys servant. Tobe, his voice supposedly rusty from lack of use, is the only lifeline that
Emily has to the outside world. For years, he dutifully cares for her and tends to her needs. Eventually
the townspeople stop grilling him for information about Emily. After Emilys death, he walks out the
back door and never returns.
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Colonel Sartoris - A former mayor of Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris absolves Emily of any tax burden
after the death of her father. His elaborate and benevolent gesture is not heeded by the succeeding
generation of town leaders.

Analysis of Major Characters

Emily Grierson

Emily is the classic outsider, controlling and limiting the towns access to her true identity by
remaining hidden. The house that shields Emily from the world suggests the mind of the woman who
inhabits it: shuttered, dusty, and dark. The object of the towns intense scrutiny, Emily is a muted and
mysterious figure. On one level, she exhibits the qualities of the stereotypical southern eccentric:
unbalanced, excessively tragic, and subject to bizarre behavior. Emily enforces her own sense of law
and conduct, such as when she refuses to pay her taxes or state her purpose for buying the poison.
Emily also skirts the law when she refuses to have numbers attached to her house when federal mail
service is instituted. Her dismissal of the law eventually takes on more sinister consequences, as she
takes the life of the man whom she refuses to allow to abandon her.

The narrator portrays Emily as a monument, but at the same time she is pitied and often irritating,
demanding to live life on her own terms. The subject of gossip and speculation, the townspeople
cluck their tongues at the fact that she accepts Homers attentions with no firm wedding plans. After
she purchases the poison, the townspeople conclude that she will kill herself. Emilys instabilities,
however, lead her in a different direction, and the final scene of the story suggests that she is a
necrophiliac. Necrophilia typically means a sexual attraction to dead bodies. In a broader sense, the
term also describes a powerful desire to control another, usually in the context of a romantic or deeply
personal relationship. Necrophiliacs tend to be so controlling in their relationships that they ultimately
resort to bonding with unresponsive entities with no resistance or willin other words, with dead
bodies. Mr. Grierson controlled Emily, and after his death, Emily temporarily controls him by refusing
to give up his dead body. She ultimately transfers this control to Homer, the object of her affection.
Unable to find a traditional way to express her desire to possess Homer, Emily takes his life to
achieve total power over him.

Homer Barron

Homer, much like Emily, is an outsider, a stranger in town who becomes the subject of gossip. Unlike
Emily, however, Homer swoops into town brimming with charm, and he initially becomes the center of
attention and the object of affection. Some townspeople distrust him because he is both a Northerner
and day laborer, and his Sunday outings with Emily are in many ways scandalous, because the
townspeople regard Emilydespite her eccentricitiesas being from a higher social class. Homers
failure to properly court and marry Emily prompts speculation and suspicion. He carouses with
younger men at the Elks Club, and the narrator portrays him as either a homosexual or simply an
eternal bachelor, dedicated to his single status and uninterested in marriage. Homer says only that he
is not a marrying man.

As the foreman of a company that has arrived in town to pave the sidewalks, Homer is an emblem of
the North and the changes that grip the once insular and genteel world of the South. With his
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machinery, Homer represents modernity and industrialization, the force of progress that is upending
traditional values and provoking resistance and alarm among traditionalists. Homer brings innovation
to the rapidly changing world of this Southern town, whose new leaders are themselves pursuing
more modern ideas. The change that Homer brings to Emilys life, as her first real lover, is equally
as profound and seals his grim fate as the victim of her plan to keep him permanently by her side.

Themes, Motifs, and Symbols

Themes

Tradition versus Change

Through the mysterious figure of Emily Grierson, Faulkner conveys the struggle that comes from
trying to maintain tradition in the face of widespread, radical change. Jefferson is at a crossroads,
embracing a modern, more commercial future while still perched on the edge of the past, from the
faded glory of the Grierson home to the town cemetery where anonymous Civil War soldiers have
been laid to rest. Emily herself is a tradition, steadfastly staying the same over the years despite
many changes in her community. She is in many ways a mixed blessing. As a living monument to the
past, she represents the traditions that people wish to respect and honor; however, she is also a
burden and entirely cut off from the outside world, nursing eccentricities that others cannot
understand.

Emily lives in a timeless vacuum and world of her own making. Refusing to have metallic numbers
affixed to the side of her house when the town receives modern mail service, she is out of touch with
the reality that constantly threatens to break through her carefully sealed perimeters. Garages and
cotton gins have replaced the grand antebellum homes. The aldermen try to break with the unofficial
agreement about taxes once forged between Colonel Sartoris and Emily. This new and younger
generation of leaders brings in Homers company to pave the sidewalks. Although Jefferson still
highly regards traditional notions of honor and reputation, the narrator is critical of the old men in their
Confederate uniforms who gather for Emilys funeral. For them as for her, time is relative. The past is
not a faint glimmer but an ever-present, idealized realm. Emilys macabre bridal chamber is an
extreme attempt to stop time and prevent change, although doing so comes at the expense of human
life.

The Power of Death

Death hangs over A Rose for Emily, from the narrators mention of Emilys death at the beginning of
the story through the description of Emilys death-haunted life to the foundering of tradition in the face
of modern changes. In every case, death prevails over every attempt to master it. Emily, a fixture in
the community, gives in to death slowly. The narrator compares her to a drowned woman, a bloated
and pale figure left too long in the water. In the same description, he refers to her small, spare
skeletonshe is practically dead on her feet. Emily stands as an emblem of the Old South, a grand
lady whose respectability and charm rapidly decline through the years, much like the outdated
sensibilities the Griersons represent. The death of the old social order will prevail, despite many
townspeoples attempts to stay true to the old ways.
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Emily attempts to exert power over death by denying the fact of death itself. Her bizarre relationship
to the dead bodies of the men she has lovedher necrophiliais revealed first when her father dies.
Unable to admit that he has died, Emily clings to the controlling paternal figure whose denial and
control became the onlyyet extremeform of love she knew. She gives up his body only
reluctantly. When Homer dies, Emily refuses to acknowledge it once againalthough this time, she
herself was responsible for bringing about the death. In killing Homer, she was able to keep him near
her. However, Homers lifelessness rendered him permanently distant. Emily and Homers grotesque
marriage reveals Emilys disturbing attempt to fuse life and death. However, death ultimately
triumphs.

Motifs

Watching

Emily is the subject of the intense, controlling gaze of the narrator and residents of Jefferson. In lieu
of an actual connection to Emily, the townspeople create subjective and often distorted interpretations
of the woman they know little about. They attend her funeral under the guise of respect and honor,
but they really want to satisfy their lurid curiosity about the towns most notable eccentric. One of the
ironic dimensions of the story is that for all the gossip and theorizing, no one guesses the perverse
extent of Emilys true nature.

For most of the story, Emily is seen only from a distance, by people who watch her through the
windows or who glimpse her in her doorway. The narrator refers to her as an objectan idol. This
pattern changes briefly during her courtship with Homer Barron, when she leaves her house and is
frequently out in the world. However, others spy on her just as avidly, and she is still relegated to the
role of object, a distant figure who takes on character according to the whims of those who watch her.
In this sense, the act of watching is powerful because it replaces an actual human presence with a
made-up narrative that changes depending on who is doing the watching. No one knows the Emily
that exists beyond what they can see, and her true self is visible to them only after she dies and her
secrets are revealed.

Dust

A pall of dust hangs over the story, underscoring the decay and decline that figure so prominently.
The dust throughout Emilys house is a fitting accompaniment to the faded lives within. When the
aldermen arrive to try and secure Emilys annual tax payment, the house smells of dust and disuse.
As they seat themselves, the movement stirs dust all around them, and it slowly rises, roiling about
their thighs and catching the slim beam of sunlight entering the room. The house is a place of stasis,
where regrets and memories have remained undisturbed. In a way, the dust is a protective presence;
the aldermen cannot penetrate Emilys murky relationship with reality. The layers of dust also suggest
the cloud of obscurity that hides Emilys true nature and the secrets her house contains. In the final
scene, the dust is an oppressive presence that seems to emanate from Homers dead body. The
dust, which is everywhere, seems even more horrible here.
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Symbols

Emilys House Emilys house, like Emily herself, is a monument, the only remaining emblem of a
dying world of Southern aristocracy. The outside of the large, square frame house is lavishly
decorated. The cupolas, spires, and scrolled balconies are the hallmarks of a decadent style of
architecture that became popular in the 1870s. By the time the story takes place, much has changed.
The street and neighborhood, at one time affluent, pristine, and privileged, have lost their standing as
the realm of the elite. The house is in some ways an extension of Emily: it bares its stubborn and
coquettish decay to the towns residents. It is a testament to the endurance and preservation of
tradition but now seems out of place among the cotton wagons, gasoline pumps, and other industrial
trappings that surround itjust as the Souths old values are out of place in a changing society.

Emilys house also represents alienation, mental illness, and death. It is a shrine to the living past,
and the sealed upstairs bedroom is her macabre trophy room where she preserves the man she
would not allow to leave her. As when the group of men sprinkled lime along the foundation to
counteract the stench of rotting flesh, the townspeople skulk along the edges of Emilys life and
property. The house, like its owner, is an object of fascination for them. They project their own lurid
fantasies and interpretations onto the crumbling edifice and mysterious figure inside. Emilys death is
a chance for them to gain access to this forbidden realm and confirm their wildest notions and most
sensationalistic suppositions about what had occurred on the inside.

The Strand of Hair

The strand of hair is a reminder of love lost and the often perverse things people do in their pursuit of
happiness. The strand of hair also reveals the inner life of a woman who, despite her eccentricities,
was committed to living life on her own terms and not submitting her behavior, no matter how
shocking, to the approval of others. Emily subscribes to her own moral code and occupies a world of
her own invention, where even murder is permissible. The narrator foreshadows the discovery of the
long strand of hair on the pillow when he describes the physical transformation that Emily undergoes
as she ages. Her hair grows more and more grizzled until it becomes a vigorous iron-gray. The
strand of hair ultimately stands as the last vestige of a life left to languish and decay, much like the
body of Emilys former lover.