Underlying Meanings In “A Rose For Emily”

Most stories, even books for younger audiences, have some sort of underlying meaning. All that this means is that generally there is more that just a story, rather the story is a tool used to get a different point across. Beneath the surface of William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," it tells a story of the Old South’s lingering presence in a more modern time.

After being the only man in her life, by not allowing any man to have a relationship with her, Emily's father died and naturally she found it difficult to let go (love). Emily was raised during the pre-Civil War era and carries an out of date view of society like her father once did. Emily possessed a stubborn outlook towards life, and refused to change. In the story, Emily’s views are used to represent the Old South, as well as set up other situations in which change has not occurred. She represented the ideas and mores of a society that was crushed by both the war and its eventual defeat for example when Miss Emily is referred to as a “Fallen Monument”(p87) representing the falling of a part of the old southern culture (A Rose for Emily). This story, on the exterior appears to be little more than a horror story

Emily personified a way of living, a society that was slowly being dismissed by advances in society and changing views. Examples of her clinging to the old ways of the South are evident throughout the story. One example can be found in this short excerpt from the story.

Faulkner's style is quite difficult because it isn't written in chronological order rather he moves between the past and present to distinguish between the differences in the changes that society has taken. It begins by telling about Emily's past and her family history. This information helps us to understand her future actions and opinions. The structure is fairly advanced, but soon leads to a greater understanding of the passage because it sets the mood of that specific time. "And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at battle of Jefferson," (p88). She was an anachronistic figure in the new south that formed after the Civil War. She was a person in a time that pushed her and her beliefs aside in order to progress.

When Miss Emily Grierson died, it marked the death of an era, at least in Jefferson that is. She was the last, living in her “squarish” (p87) frame house which had once been on the most select street in the town. The uncovering of Homer in the shut off room “In that shut off region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which w

Some topics in this essay:
Miss Emily, Rose Emily, Colonel Sartoris’, Colonel Sartoris, Emily Grierson, Rose Emily”, Homer Yankee--a, Union Confederate, miss emily, Civil War, Underlying Meanings, tax notice, colonel sartoris, rose emily, colonel sartoris’, moves past,