In a "A Rose for Emily" the author, William Faulkner, symbolizes the state of the post civil war south in the story of Miss Emily Grieson. This leads Miss Emily to be the center of the tale, a woman sheltered by her father as a girl and betrayed by her lover as a woman. The setting for "A Rose for Miss Emily" is in a post civil war era in the town of Jefferson, an imaginary town used by Faulkner in his stories, a south becoming aware of its role in a nation. In a way the whole story is symbolic of change in the town's life, or the south, through out Miss Emily's life. The symbolism in the decaying house coincides with the emotional and physical status of Miss Emily; the house needs the love and care it never gets; so does Miss Emily throughout her childhood and her adult life. The relation can be shown by the various use of symbolism set in the story by Faulkner; as an example, the house used to be in a good neighborhood which has decayed, as in Faulkner's words " It was a big squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires" ( 75), and then the vivid transformation of the house to " coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps- an eyesore among eyesores" (75). The narrator being unknown to us, who is assumed to be the town, gives a sense of grandeur to Miss Emily, as if she were one of the town's monuments, something beautiful and worth caring for. " Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care" ( 75), which gives Miss Emily a sense of beauty --" Miss Emily a slender figure in white" (77), which in turn decays into being obese and bloated-- " she looked fat and bloated like a body long submerged in motionless water" ( 75). The fall of Miss Emily is symbolized through her relation with Homer Barron, who in a way
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