Summary of a Rose for Emily

“A Rose for Emily” begins with the death of Miss Emily Grierson, respectfully referred
to by the nameless narrator of the story, as well as by the people of Jefferson—the town in which
the story takes place—as Miss Emily. The narrator of the story tells how the whole town
attended Miss Emily’s funeral—the men, out of respect for a “fallen monument,” and the women
“out of curiosity to see the inside of her house.” The narrator goes on to describe Miss Emily’s
“big, squarish frame house that had once been white” but had become, by the time of her death,
“an eyesore among eyesores.” In the years leading up to Miss Emily’s death, only Miss Emily’s
Negro manservant, whom will be later identified as Tobe, had seen the inside of the house,
which had once been considered one of the nicest houses situated on one of the most select
streets in the town. Over the years, however, the house had grown into disrepair, and garages and
cotton gins had been built up around the street, adding to its garishness.
Miss Emily had grown to become a town legend by the time of her death. In 1894, the
then mayor Colonel Sartoris remitted Miss Emily’s taxes “in perpetuity” for reasons never made
clear. But over time, as a new generation of civic leaders arose, the town began to question Miss
Emily’s privileged status. After the new mayor was unsuccessful in collecting taxes from her
through the mail, the Board of Alderman sent a deputation to her house to meet with her. Miss
Emily, “a small, fat woman in black,” met them at the door, and she told them that she had no
taxes in Jefferson. “Colonel Sartoris explained it to me,” she told the group in a voice that “was
dry and cold.” When the deputation continued to press Miss Emily, she responded by saying in a
matter-of-fact tone, “See Colonel Sartoris,” even though the Colonel had been dead almost ten
years.
Miss Emily sends the deputation away, just as she had sent a similar party away thirty
years earlier when neighbors had begun to complain to the town about a “smell” that had risen
from Miss Emily’s property. The smell was noticed two years after Miss Emily’s father’s death,
and a short time after Miss Emily’s “sweetheart went away.”
Eighty-year-old Judge Stevens was approached by neighbors about the smell, but he
didn’t want to “accuse a lady to her face” about such a problem. So instead of confronting Miss
Emily directly, four men sneak onto Miss Emily's property after midnight to spread lime around
her house and in her cellar. After a couple of weeks, the smell went away, and the town went
along with its business as usual.
It was with the onset of the smell that the townspeople had begun to feel sorry for Miss
Emily, as they recalled how Miss Emily’s great-aunt, old lady Wyatt, had gone crazy. Miss
Emily had always received more than her share of attention from the town, due to her unusual
status. Although a good looking, slender woman, Miss Emily was never married; for a long time,
the town believed that the Griersons felt themselves superior to the rest of the town, but when
Miss Emily turned thirty without being married, the townspeople realized that Miss Emily wasn’t
simply turning suitors away, as they had thought, but that she was most likely not receiving any
viable offers of marriage at all.
 When Miss Emily’s father died, and it came out that all he had left his daughter was the
house, effectively leaving her a pauper, the town was “glad” and could at last pity Miss Emily.
When townspeople came to call on Miss Emily, “she met them at the door, dressed as usual and
with no trace of grief on her face.” Miss Emily went on to explain to her callers that her father
was not dead, and it took three full days before the minister and the doctors could persuade Miss
Emily to let them dispose of her father’s body properly.
After her father’s death, Miss Emily disappeared from public site for a long time, and
when she reemerged, Jefferson had just started paving its sidewalks. Homer Barron, a “Yankee,”
is a foreman for one of the crews working on the contract, and soon he would be seen by the
town escorting Miss Emily on Sunday afternoons. The townspeople began expressing pity for
Miss Emily; Homer, being a Northerner, is not considered a proper match for a Southern woman
such as Miss Emily. But about a year after the two started appearing in public, Miss Emily
ordered arsenic from the local druggist. Despite being asked by the druggist what the poison is
for, Miss Emily refuses to tell. The box has a skull and bones on it, with the caption, “For rats.”
After Miss Emily had requested rat poison from the druggist, the town assumed that she
was planning her own suicide. The facts of her relationship with Homer Barron, a Northerner,
was too great a disgrace in the town’s eyes, and suicide seemed a viable option. Although Miss
Emily and Homer were seen regularly on Sunday afternoons, the town was uncertain that Miss
Emily would be able to convince Barron, who admitted that he was “not a marrying man,” to
marry her, and Miss Emily could not continue with such a public relationship without losing face.
The town was concerned about the example Miss Emily was setting, and it went so far as
to send a Baptist minister to meet with her, but to no avail. When Miss Emily ordered a silver
toilet set with Barron’s initials, along with a man’s suit, the town became convinced that the two
would soon be married. Barron disappeared for three days, long enough for Miss Emily's cousins,
who had been called in out of concern for Miss Emily, to leave. The town assumed that upon
Barron’s return, the two would wed, but shortly after his reappearance in the town, he
disappeared, never to be seen again by anyone.
Once Barron disappeared for the last time, the town saw less and less of Miss Emily, and
when she did show herself again, she had grown fat and gray. Except for a period of six or seven
years in her forties when she gave china-painting lessons to the children of the town, Miss Emily
effectively removed herself from all public appearances and interactions. Only Tobe, Miss
Emily’s manservant, was seen on his regular shopping excursions, and even he was steadily
growing “grayer and more stooped.…” Although there were attempts at extracting information
from Tobe, Tobe refused to answer any questions about Miss Emily, and eventually the town
stopped trying. Then one day without any warning, Miss Emily died.
When news of Miss Emily’s death spreads, a group of ladies from the town arrives at
Miss Emily’s door and is briefly greeted by Tobe, who lets them in and immediately proceeds to
walk out the back door, never to be seen again. A funeral is held two days later, with several of
the men wearing their newly brushed Confederate uniforms.
 After Miss Emily was placed “decently in the ground,” a room above the stairs at Miss
Emily’s, which has not been opened for years, is forced open. An “acrid pall as of the tomb”
seemed to lie on everything in the room, including “upon the delicate array of crystal and the
man’s toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was
obscured,” as well as upon a man’s suit of clothes.
And on the bed was “the man himself,” with a “profound and fleshless grin.” Although
never mentioned by name, the fleshless skeleton, in the position of an endless embrace, is that of
Homer Barron. Next to his head is a second pillow, with the “indentation of another head,” and
on it is a “long strand of iron-gray hair.”
A Rose for Emily is one of William Faulkner's most studied short stories. It was written
in 1930 and published in The Collected Stories of William Faulkner in (1950). It is a gothic story
about the mysterious life of Miss. Emily Grierson. It skillfully represents the numerous conflicts
in the main character's life, illustrating the effect of social change on the individual and how her
tragedy is rooted in her southern identity.
The story illustrates Miss. Emily's miserable life from the town people's perspective. The
third-person plural narrator represents the voice of the whole town. The story is known to all:
men and women. They go to her funeral, 'men through a sort of respectful affection' and women
'out of curiosity to see the inside of her house which no one…had seen in the last ten years.' The
unnamed narrator provides details about the mysterious life of Miss Emily: the archaic house,
Colonel Sartoris remitting her taxes, new generation demanding tax payment, the nasty smell
coming from the house, peculiar relationship with father and later with lover, keeping father's
corpse for three days inside the house, and keeping homer's corpse for nearly forty years in one
of the upstairs rooms. After her death, the town's people 'noticed that in the second pillow was
the indentation of a head…we saw a long strand of iron-grey hair.' This suggests she was
sleeping with the corpse after she had poisoned him with arsenic.
Moreover, the text lends itself to different interpretations and themes: Miss Emily's tragic
life, father-daughter relationship, southern identity, north and south, love and marriage, old
generation and new generation, change in the American south and its negative effect on Miss.
Emily, past and present, racism, slavery, social norms and time and its effect on the main
character.

Literary Luminaries
There are quotations that very significant related to the story “A Rose for Emily”
1. In section I
“Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation
upon the town… “
In the sentence above we can take note that in her life Emily has been taken care by her father
and by the town after her father died. The background of the story is before the civil war and
 at that time social status was determined by money, and since Emily’s father was able to loan
the town money, she became a well-respected person in the town, even after his death. Having
money also means that Emily should have acted a certain way. She should have kept her head
up high and moved on after her dad’s death instead of continuing to be sheltered.

2. In section III
“When we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl, with a vague
resemblance to those angels in colored church windows—sort of tragic and serene”
After her father death she chose to not come out of her house for long periods of time. When
the people in the town finally saw her she looked very different. Emily tried to pull herself
together eventually and attempted to move on. Many found it tragic because they knew she
had set herself up for failure. It is impossible to go from a completely sheltered life to
independent in such a short time. The hard expectations of women of that time period gave no
support in helping Emily adapt to change.

3. In section V
“…upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights,…”
Looking at the phrases above it makes us to remember that there is a quote that says “you see
life through a rose-colored glass.” And when someone says this they mean that someone does
not see the reality of life. In the story Emily had so many problems seeing reality. She kept
dead bodies in the house and lived as if no one had ever passed away. The use of the word
rose is meant to say that her house is as fake as the way she sees things. She believes life is
perfect and it will always be that way. Obviously life is never going to be perfect. The
author’s word choice relays the message of what is going through Emily’s mind and why she
has trouble changing

4. In section V
“Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted
something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the
nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.”
After Emily’s funeral when the townspeople went to her house to see what was inside they
found Homer’s dead body lying in the bed. They found an unexpected surprise that Homer
was poisoned by Miss Emily so that he would never be able to leave her. By sleeping next to
him every night, it showed that should was resisting change and acted as if he was still alive.
The people in someone’s life have a big impact on how they turn out.
Connectors
The connection between the story and the reality that found in the story are:
1. Social status
In the story it’s clearly stated that Miss Emily is came from an aristocrat family, and at that
time if you came from an upper class family people or government won’t bother you with
taxes and you’re respected by the society even though you’re going bankrupt. But nowadays
there is equality in law, so it doesn’t matter what is your social status you still have to pay
your taxes to the government.
2. Secret
There are so many secrets that being hide by Miss Emily from her house that prohibited to
anyone except her manservant, the way when he buy arsenic, etc. In reality there also a lot of
people who have secrets in their life. To some sense it’s understandable, everyone has some
days where they don’t fell like explaining themselves or talking to people, but in Miss Emily
cases her secrets imply that something bad is happened.
3. Slavery
The slavery in that time when this story took place is a common thing and the object of
slavery is the Negro. Nowadays slavery is prohibited because it is breaking the law related to
human right.
4. Homosexuality
In the story told that Homer Barron had remarked-he liked men, and it was known that he
drank with the young men in the Elk's club-that he is not a marrying man. It is imply that
Homer actually a homosexual, and in the American society at that time period being a
homosexual is wrong and homosexuality is a taboo topic to be talk. But now, people are
more open about homosexual and it’s not a taboo topic to be talk in the public. Even some
countries were legalize the marriage between homosexual.