A Rose for Emily
“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, is a story that follows the life of Emily Grierson, an old lady whose funeral the entire is obligated to go to. The story takes the reader from the life of the main character and the events that took place in her life before her death. Emily is portrayed as an affluent lady whose father limited her choice for suitors. Eventually, Emily seems to have found a man, Homer Barron, and the prospects of marriage are in the offing. Homer appears to be from a lower social class from Emily, and there are doubts about whether the marriage will take place. Towards the end of her life, Emily is no longer seen in public, and Homer seems to have disappeared in the house. When Emily dies, the townspeople found a room that may have stopped in time with the apparent arrangements for a wedding and a dead Homer on the bed.
The story is an allegory from the beginning since it seems to have a hidden meaning. The story is set in the South, and the main character is a southerner. These aspects have significant symbolism to the happenings in the South, especially after the Civil War. Throughout Faulkner’s story, the main character lives in a dilapidated mansion that is symbolic of the Old South. She hails from a once affluent family with plantations in a prestigious street in Jefferson. In the first section, the writer described Emily as a “fallen monument” after her death. This description is symbolic of the fall of the South after the Civil War.
Faulkner also describes how the people of Jefferson pretend to be oblivious of the happenings around them. Instead, they give excuses for the events instead of facing the facts. For example, when Emily’s father dies, she refutes the claim and even denies to give him away for burial for three days. Eventually, the townspeople convince her that she has nothing to cling on, and giving him up is something she has to do. Additionally, the people do not question the fact that Emily buys the arsenic when her house starts to smell, and Homer Barron disappears. This state of oblivion can be likened to the state of denial in which the Old Southerners lived that allowed the Confederates to keep up with racism long after the end of the Civil War. The old southerners also believed that the South would rise again. The people are holed up in the belief that they still held a critical position in the Confederacy.
The coming of Homer Barron into the life of Emily Grierson is also allegorical of the arrival of the northern business interests to the South. Notably, Barron is a northerner who comes as the leader of a team carrying out a road construction project in the town. However, their love seems to be faced with several challenges, and they eventually do not get their marriage. One of the challenges is the fact that he is gay. This fact implies that the two individuals did not seem to want the same thing, and the marriage may not have worked. This can be likened to the futile attempts of the Confederates to forge a relationship with the Union. The fact that they did not seem to agree on particular issues such as slavery and the integrity of the Union eventually led to the Civil War.
“A Rose for Emily” is a story that is an allegory from the title. The main character never got to experience love besides that of her father. All the events of her life can be compared to the happenings in the South around the time of the Civil War.