A Rose for Emily

             Everyone talks how the world has changed since they were young, how everything is now faster, and more complicated, and less friendly. In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," Miss Emily sees these changes occur around her yet she resists them.
             The Civil War came and went, and Miss Emily still lived in that same house "set on what had once been the most select street," "lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps." Miss Emily had once belonged to the most select class, and still stubbornly maintained the image, even though she and her entire town knew the truth to be otherwise. She remained a stubborn product of her times, keeping a manservant who most likely had been with her since he had been a slave, and had stayed out of loyalty to her. She continually refused progress, not allowing them to "fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it" when the town finally got postal service. Time continued ticking on, and yet Miss Emily refused to acknowledge it. She firmly entrenched herself in denial when her father died, telling the townspeople "that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body." Finally, she admits that her father is in fact gone, and allows the officials to bury him. She does not have an easy time adapting, which is understandable. Her entire life, she has been stuck in that house with her father, probably has never left the town, and apparently had no friends to keep her company. Nothing has ever really changed for her, and so she has never had to deal with change.
             The narrator, a random townsperson, illustrates very well the awe and fear the town held for Miss Emily. To them, she portrayed everything that they wished they could be, and all that they were glad not to be. They held a twisted form of respect for her. When she ...

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A Rose for Emily. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 06:21, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/98281.html