A Rose For Emily South Analysis

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Underlying Conflicts of the South in “A Rose for Emily” The South is rooted with strong belief systems, social hierarchies, and an expectation of exemplary behavior. William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” mocks the importance of these Southern attributes through the hidden ironies of his characters’ actions. Although times were changing, Emily was immortalized as a figure of what the town had once been. Faulkner uses the southern archetype of the reclusive spinster to signify the repression of living within a specific social caste. The complications in “A Rose for Emily” arise when the townspeople choose Southern etiquette over dealing with Emily like any other person in town. Emily begins to feel like she is above the rules of her community and is left to her own devices. William Faulkner utilizes “A Rose for Emily” to set the traditions of the…show more content…
Faulkner expresses this twice in “A Rose for Emily”; it is first mentioned when her father dies, “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. She did that for three days” (Faulkner 93). The second time Faulkner exposes Emily’s necrophilia is upon the discovery of her husband Homer Barron’s “rotted” body (Faulkner 96). The townspeople had ignored the “gross” smell that had developed, and even attributed it to her inability to keep house. Faulkner illustrates Miss Emily’s power over the town’s folk during her transaction to purchase the arsenic; the druggist demands she tell him what the poison is needed for, but, “Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up” (Faulkner 94). The residents of the small town must accept some responsibility for Miss Emily’s actions due to their continuous enabling of her

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