Figurative Language In A Rose For Emily

The opening of “A Rose for Emily” begins with not the life but the death of the main character, which I found interesting. Most stories began with the life of the protagonist and not the death. The opening of the story, as well as the figurative language that was used by the author to describe the town and the characters leads me to believe that this story wasn’t only about the life of Emily but rather the last generation of tradition that was dyeing with her. As everything around Emily’s house changes with time, her house doesn’t. When the next generation of majors and aldermen came into power they had to talk with Emily because her pardon given by Colonel Sartoris were no longer going to be in effect. The issue was that Colonel Sartoris’s …show more content…
When she didn’t pay her taxes they didn’t curse her and throw her in jail, when her father died and she wanted to pretend nothing had happened they didn’t forcefully take the dead body away, even though it was not safe to let her keep the body there, and when they sprinkled lime in her house because of the smell because the townspeople were too afraid to tell her to her face (Faulkner). This respect comes from many different sources, one being that they felt sorry for her never being able to marry and second because she was the last of a generation, an elder that should be respected. In a sense it’s almost as if Emily could get away with anything she wanted. She didn’t pay taxes, she didn’t obey basic health and human laws, and she doesn’t take care of her property so that it doesn’t become an issue with other residents of the town. The townspeople felt sorry for her “being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized, now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less” (Faulkner 207). Her father who is now passed, had chased away boys that wanted to date her so she never got married furthering their empathy towards