Foreshadowing In A Rose For Emily

A Rose for Emily “A Rose for Emily” is a story about a lonely woman named Emily Grierson, it discusses the many events that took place throughout her life when her father passed away until the day she passes, the only reason anyone is interested in coming to her funeral is because they are curious as to what secrets Emily has kept locked away all those years she was hiding from the public eye. The story then goes on to foreshadow the life of Emily before she had passed, it starts with the board of Alderman coming to pay Emily a visit about restarting her payments for her taxes. This action upsets Emily and she reassures them they have made a mistake, according to Colonel Sartoris who has been dead for some ten years, her status of taxpayer …show more content…
Emily’s story, it switches back between the present day and foreshadowing some events that had happened during Emily’s life. Many of the townspeople thought Emily would kill herself with the arsenic she bought, but they forget this idea when it seemed like Emily and Homer would get married soon. Emily was seen buying a man’s toilet set, this caused the minister's wife to grow concerned upon the discovery of their marriage plans and contacted Emily’s relatives from Alabama to stay with her to convince her to not marry Homer. When the relatives arrived, Homer is seen leaving in a huff to stay away from her family. Once her cousins leave, Homer is seen by some townspeople sneaking in the back of her house but is never seen again. Many of the townspeople didn’t think anything of Homer’s whereabouts since every man in Emily’s life had always left her alone in the end. It wasn't until forty years later when she passed away that they finally discovered the truth about Homer’s whereabouts and the secret Emily had been keeping for forty years. In one of the rooms on the upstairs floor they discovered a room that had been boarded up, in this room they found Homer Barron in an advanced state of decay lying on the bed with a man's suit and other items to suggest a wedding was going to take place. The towns people noticed right next to his body was a second pillow with “the indention of a head, with a long strand of iron gray hair” (Faulkner 151). The prolonged suspense throughout the story made it even better because if it wasn’t for the foreshadowing of events in between the present day the story would have lacked the suspense and been too predictable. The result of Emily’s loneliness after her father passed away caused her to keep the one person she loved close to her where he could never abandon