In the story “A Rose for Emily”, by William Faulkner, Emily Grierson lived her later years in life as a social outcast due to her personality. Growing up near Jefferson, Mississippi following the Civil War, she belonged to the upper class and seemed to easily pick up the behavior that came along with being born into a wealthy family. As time went on, her life began to go downhill, especially after the death of her father. Throughout Faulkner’s story, Emily’s delusional and stubborn traits caused her to be separated from society.
At first, Emily’s actions were viewed as strange by the townspeople. A lot of people in town seemed to be confused by her the way she handled things. This really began to show when her father died. People would come over to the Grierson house to console “poor Emily”, but only got to the front door to hear Emily say her father was not dead. It alm
ost took law enforcement to get in the house and bury the now three-day-old corpse. Emily’s life was then proved to be delusional several days after her death. When a locked room upstairs was opened for the first time, it showed she had been sleeping with her lover Homer Barron, who unfortunately had been dead for thirty years.
In conclusion, Emily Grierson didn’t really fit in society from the beginning. It seemed like when it came to some things in life, she just didn’t know any better. Her past seemed so restricted and lonely that she didn’t really know how to live in a society later in life. She lived her own life, and had unique qualities that weren’t really accepted with the rest of the people, so much in fact that when she died, the townspeople were so curious to what the house looked like inside. In the end, Emily’s separation from the rest of the town actually caused people to pay more at
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