Rose For Emily Change

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Change is imperative to an individual and society for a healthy growth. Although human beings are reluctant to accept new norms or traditions, this process of adaptation leads to a unify society. In “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner uses setting, characterization, and symbolism to demonstrate the struggles of a women who was caged within her inner turmoil. The story takes place in the town of Jefferson in the early 1900s where there were many changes that were occurring within the community and a society as a whole. Miss Emily Grierson is very delusional and reluctant about change. The town is heading in a direction of modern change and steering away from tradition. In the story how Miss Emily is not accepting of the changes that were occurring …show more content…
The town’s men attended her funeral as a form of respect to a “fallen monument,” Miss Emily represented the old southern tradition and old lifestyle the town of Jefferson was evolving from. Miss Emily was the person everyone in the town would look up as the old traditional way of living. Not only she was this fallen monumental, but her old and dusty house represented the old ways of housing tradition in the south. Also, the arsenic Miss Emily purchases “for rats,” symbolized how that was the way she saw Homer. To her he was a rat for not wanting to commit to her and for not living a more traditional way just as she was raised. This would never be a title she would express for herself, but for the man she could not control who lived a life full of sin and no regrets. The arsenic she bought from the druggist was the way she killed Homer. Lastly, “the long strand of iron-grey hair,” represented the dominion she had over Homer and her persistent to keep him under her control. Iron is define as strong and hard magnetic grey metal. This is a great representation her unyielding power over those around her and over Homer. Not only did this show her strong manipulating way of ultimately taking the life of Homer, but it also shows how she develop mental illness over the

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