A Rose for Emily By William Faulkner :: essays research papers

The spirit levels opening lines announce the funeral of missy Emily, to be held in her business firmnot in a churchand the reasons for the entire towns attending-the men out of respect for a Southern lady, the women to snoop inner(a) her house. Her death symbolizes the passing of a genteel way of life, which is replaced by a untried generations crass way of doing things. The narrators description of the Grierson house reinforces the disparity between the past and the present formerly a place of splendor, now modern encroachmentsgas pumps and cotton wagons pour down most of the neighborhood and leave untouched only Miss Emilys house, with its stubborn and coquettish decay.This clash between the past and the present is evidence by the different approaches that each generation takes concerning Miss Emilys taxes. In the past, Colonel Sartoris had remitted them for her, believing it uncivilized to remind a Southern woman to carry taxes, which Miss Emily does not do after her fath er dies. But the succeeding(prenominal) generation, with its more modern ideas, holds her responsible for them. Miss Emily, however, returns the tax notice that the new aldermen send to her when the young men call upon her, she vanquishes them, saying, I have no taxes in Jefferson and See Colonel Sartoris, who has been dead for at least ten years. cardinal of the most striking contrasts presented in this first section entails the narrators portrayal of Miss Emilys physical fashion and her house. Descriptive phrases take on terms that add to the gothic quality of the story She is dressed in black and leans on a cane her skeleton is small and she looks bloated, with a pallid hue. But Faulkner doesnt say outright that she looks much bid a dead person, for it is only in retrospect that we realize that the dead-looking Miss Emily has been sleeping with the very dead Homer Barron.Miss Emilys decaying appearance matches not only the rotting exterior of the house, but the interior as we ll. For example, the crayon, pastel, picture mentioned prior to the narrators description of Miss Emily is back up by a tarnished stand, and Miss Emily supports herself by leaning on the tarnished underwrite of her cane.