M. Thomas Inge (ed). William Faulkner: A Rose for Emily. Merill Literary Casebook Ser. 1970.

The seminar started with two good presentations, one on The Great Gatsby, which we would return to the next day, and one on "A Rose for Emily". The student cleverly identified time and perspective as central issues in the short story.

It is in Jefferson, the Southern town in Yoknapathapwa county that Faulkner often used as the setting of his novels.

Both the description of the town and the house indicate that the place is going through a process of transformation from old-style Southern aristocracy to a modern industrial town, with all the changes that come with it in terms of social codes and conventions.

The issue of the failed tax collection is a case in point. Emily is the remainding symbol of this older society and must be respected still. When Emily says: "See Sartoris", it need not necessarily mean that she thinks he is still alive. It may be a subtle way of saying that Sartoris remitted the taxes and it cannot be undone.

First person narrator, a witness narrative.We readers in a sense join the «

A Modernist ploy, fragmentation of the events. The narrator tries to pull the fragments together into a coherent narrative, but there is much s/he does not know. The impossibility of complete knowledge.

1894 Emily is alone with her servant. The smell and p.52 Thirty years before the spreading of lime. tax claim and two years after her father’s death

1924 The tax collectors visit Emily p.50

Some topics in this essay:
Colonel Sartoris, Barron Yankee, Warren Emily, Emily Sartoris, Jefferson Southern, Rose Emily», Emily Grierson, Penn Warren, Homer Barron, Homer Emily, tax claim, rose emily, plot structure, impossibility complete knowledge, complete knowledge, short story, homer barron, servant seen, painting classes, «a rose emily», impossibility complete, father’s death,