A Rose For Emily

The author continuously uses symbolism in the story. When the deputation came to her house for her taxes, Faulkner describes how the house and Ms. Emily looks. "only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores", this statement explains how the house gives off such a depressing mood. "Her skeleton was small and spare;", this line shows us how her appearance showcases death also.

Perhaps, the most enticing word for Emily isn't "sick". Demented and perpetually disturbed appears more appealing to a novice that does not understand the true depth of Emily's nature. The narrator that speaks of this story has a personality that of the old with an age of the young. Whether it may be girl or boy, the rose symbolizes kudos to Emily as a maverick in early women's movement. The type of person Emily is wholly due to the men that have left a drastic yet resonating impact on her life; them being her father and Homer Barron. And with their coexistence in her life, she became the women that she is at the end from their impact and the town's comments.

Borne into a family of great wealth with a well pronounced rich lineage; a duty of any woman of her age was supposed to follow, was expected to be followed and with exact precision. But with Emily being highly concealed by her father, she had to live with many restrictions of life, resulting in a pronounced backlash and profuse alteration of her personality. Giving the reader a limited impression that as a character, she is shown with excessive pride, leaving an enduring imagination to readers, as to what she was as an adolescent; but imagination does permit us to consider her as any young child; easily manipulative. Yet as a person Emily reacts to her situation in her youth filled years like any child would during this time; reserved, complacent and with the utmost respect, as could be seen in the following excerpt "So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly..."; although this does not state and show her obedience it bluntly, as it does imply that although she had wonderful suitors and her father sent them away she did nothing to stop it; clearly sending the message that she is a acquiescent child.

Her father however there is no imagination needed for; from context we can plainly see that he is a powerful man with much character. Nevertheless his impressionable nature has been left to us in the very beginning of the story where it is shown to the reader from the thoughts of the town as such "Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette with foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip..." It is this image that offers this lingering image of a demonizing man with intimidation as his most favored pass time. We can tell he is clearly successful with such a trait for when he died "Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead...Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly."

Yet the damage had been done; she quickly grew into the one that she is late in life after her father's death. And having been a women of immense prestigious lineage; she began to look at the world in a condescending manner. To her those in the "ordinary" or "lower class" men were something she was not only used to but abhorred. After some time she reemerged as what the people of the town would say "a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows-- sort of tragic and serene." It is this image that shows the reader that her father's death was a catalyst in changing her yet again-- this time into an independent woman dependent