A Rose For Emily

3 Pages 699 Words

“A Rose for Emily”
In William Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily”, we are introduced to a multitude of characters. Our main character in the story is Miss Emily Grierson. As we read the story we get an insight into her life as a young woman up until her death. How from her early years as a young lady she has lived under the rule of her father and then after his death becomes a surrogate child of the town of Jefferson. But what is it that has driven Miss Emily to commit the murder of Homer Barron. What does the town of Jefferson do, if anything, that allows her to do this and what influence her father had on it.
Miss Emily lived under the strict rule of her father up until his death. He did not allow her to live or enjoy life as she would please, he “had robbed her” (Faulkner 624) of all the “young men” (624) in her life. Her family was of great importance to the town of Jefferson, so important in fact that upon the death of her father the mayor of Jefferson, Colonel Sartoris, “remitted her taxes…into perpetuity” (622). This act was the beginning of the “foster care” it would extend to Miss Emily. We learn years later that the Board of Aldermen tries, without much success, to get Miss Emily to pay her taxes. After sending out the tax notice they would wait until “February came, and there was no reply” (622). The mayor “wrote her himself” (622) and offered “to call or to send his car for her” (622) but all attempts had gone ignored.
Miss Emily’s neighbors did not have much luck with her either. They had noticed a “smell” (623) protruding from her residence and requested that Judge Stevens, the current mayor of Jefferson, speak to her about it but none of the “noble” gentlemen of the Board of Aldermen could bring themselves to confront Miss Emily and “accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad” (623). In order to correct the problem it was decided that at night “after midnight”...