In the short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, the southern post war setting helps emit the meaning in Faulkner’s theme. In this short story the main character, Emily Grierson, has a plethora of reasons for being anti-social. The judging ways of the small town of Jefferson, helps fuel the disassociation between Miss Emily and the town. Miss Emily’s kryptonite is time, but the post-civil era was a time of change for everyone. Isolation and pity is ultimately the major themes in Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily.”
With the setting in “A Rose for Emily” being set back to the early 1900s during the post-civil war era, America during this period known as the reconstruction era. According to the Gilder Lehrman Institute, “The most …show more content…
Although the people of Jefferson had not seen Miss Emily in years, they still payed homage to her. The women mostly came out of curiosity, to see the inside of Miss Emily’s home which had not been seen in at least ten years. Miss Emily is depicted as a “fallen monument” to whom which the town’s people pitied. In other words, she represented the traditional old ways of how the town used to be. Miss Emily’s fear for change isolate’s her to being confined in her house until her death. Her isolation towards the town in return kept the town’s curiosity at bay enough for her to have the little privacy she had.
As “A Rose for Emily unveils itself, it becomes more apparent that Miss Emily’s reason for isolation was not only self-inflicted, but a learned behavior also. Miss Emily’s father served as an absent presence throughout the short story. Denying her father’s death, “dressed as usual with no trace of grief on her face,” Miss Emily was still not deemed crazy by the town. Once Miss Emily finally let the coroner take her father away for him to be laid to rest, she broke down. Reflecting on how her father had driven away all of the possible suitors, the town empathized with Miss
With the setting in “A Rose for Emily” being set back to the early 1900s during the post-civil war era, America during this period known as the reconstruction era. According to the Gilder Lehrman Institute, “The most …show more content…
Although the people of Jefferson had not seen Miss Emily in years, they still payed homage to her. The women mostly came out of curiosity, to see the inside of Miss Emily’s home which had not been seen in at least ten years. Miss Emily is depicted as a “fallen monument” to whom which the town’s people pitied. In other words, she represented the traditional old ways of how the town used to be. Miss Emily’s fear for change isolate’s her to being confined in her house until her death. Her isolation towards the town in return kept the town’s curiosity at bay enough for her to have the little privacy she had.
As “A Rose for Emily unveils itself, it becomes more apparent that Miss Emily’s reason for isolation was not only self-inflicted, but a learned behavior also. Miss Emily’s father served as an absent presence throughout the short story. Denying her father’s death, “dressed as usual with no trace of grief on her face,” Miss Emily was still not deemed crazy by the town. Once Miss Emily finally let the coroner take her father away for him to be laid to rest, she broke down. Reflecting on how her father had driven away all of the possible suitors, the town empathized with Miss