The New Vs. The Old in "A Rose for Emily" and "Barn Burning"
             William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" and "Barn Burning" both are an imaginary fiction of a Mississippi country in Yoknapatawpha. Each story is symbolic of the changes in the South during the representative period.
             In "A Rose for Emily," Faulkner contrasted the past with the present era. The past was represented in Emily herself, in Colonel Sartor is, in the old Negro servant, and in the Board of Alderman who accepted the Colonel's attitude toward Emily and rescinded her taxes. Miss Emily was referred to as a "fallen monument" in the story. She was a "monument" of Southern gentility, an ideal of past values but fallen because she had shown herself susceptible to death and decay. By the time the representatives of the new, progressive Board of Aldermen waited on her concerning her delinquent taxes, she had already completely retreated to her world in the past. Just as Emily refused to acknowledge the death of her father, she also refused to recognize the death of colonel Sartoris, who had died ten years ago. He had given his word and according to the traditional view of that time, his word knew no death. When Emily was threatened with the desertion and disgrace, she not only took refuge in the world of the past but also took Homer with her in the only manner possible, which is death. Emily's room above the stairs was a timeless meadow. In it, the living Emily and the dead Homer remained together as though not even death could separate them. In the simplest scene, the story says that death conquers all. However, in the setting of this story, it is the past of the South in which the retrospective survivors of the Civil War deny changing the customs and the passage of time. Emily conquered time, but only briefly and by retreating into her "rose-tinted' world of the past. Such ret...