A Rose For Emily By William Faulkner

             I would like to comment about A Rose for Emily written       by   Wiliam Faulkner. This story is about the fate of a southern woman   about relationship with a man. The story starts with the death of Emily Grierson, the subject of the story. The description of her death and the house is obviously the exposition of the story.            

           The first character would be Emily Grierson.In this short story, I will describe why Emily’s character is that of static and round in nature. The reason Emily is a static character is because she and her family, “held themselves a little too high for what they really were.” She seems to have a stubborn and stuck up attitude. The reason for that attitude was due to her father, who had given a substantial amount of money to the town and the compensation was understood that Emily would live tax free. Throughout the story she is continually felt sorry for by the townspeople, yet never lost her attitude. As it states, “She carried her head high enough-even when we believed that she was fallen.” Miss Emily is a round character because at the end her personality of a loveless shut in is transformed into a sympathetic adorer. The relationship she had with her boyfriend was never clear amongst the town rumors. In the end, we find the treatment from her father while she was growing up molded her into the person the town had believed her to be. She actually was a woman with a deep heart who did not want the love of her life to disappear as all had done in the past.        

              As for Homer Barron, he is a flat character because it’s not stated in this story what type of person he is. Homer Barron is the Yankee construction foreman who becomes Emily Grierson’s first lover. His relationship with Emily is considered shocking because he is a Northerner and because it doesn’t appear as if they will ever be married. In fact, it is known that he drinks with younger men in the Elks’ Club and he has remarked that he is not a marrying man. They ignore the gossip of the town until Emily’s two female cousins from Alabama arrive. Homer leaves town for several days until the cousins go back to Alabama. Meanwhile, Emily purchases arsenic, a monogrammed toilet set with the initials H.B., and men’s clothing. Homer returns to Jefferson three days after Emily’s cousins leave and he is seen entering her home. He is never seen again.       

            The narrator tells the story using the first person point of view which causes the reader to misunderstand Emily. “A Rose for Emily” is about a person in a small southern town that describes the events of the life of Emily, the sole survivor of the town’s last noble family. The narrator’s conflicting feelings of pity and respect lead to a lack of relationship and cause the reader to misunderstand her character. Additionally, Emily’s father chased away all the young men that wanted to marry her. When her father dies, the narrator pities her because he had left her alone. When the town offers condolences for his death, Emily meets and said that her father had not died.  Rather than believing that she was “crazy,” the narrator feels pity because Emily’s father had left her with nothing. The next summer, Emily begins to be seen with Homer Barron, a man below her status.  The town members were glad Emily would have an interest but they believed “she would not think seriously of a Northerner.”  When Homer disappears, the narrator believes that Emily has bought arsenic to kill herself because Homer had left her alone and the narrator pities her. When Emily finally dies, the town comes to her funeral and act as if they had once courted and danced with her to show their respect for her because she will always be their “idol.”