William Faulkner's dark sultry tale, A Rose for Emily, relies heavily on foreshadowing to relay its overall theme. Society's tendency to allow special civil liberties to those with wealth or power is a valuable theme presented in this story. Faulkner's old southern town is a societal microcosm that lives oblivious to the odd behaviors and ulterior motives of Miss Emily Grierson. Simultaneously and subconsciously, they manage to maintain the hierarchy of noblesse oblige, because that is all they know. How Emily and her southern aristocratic family socially interact with the town is a fine example of this, and several events foreshadow the impending climax of the story. When Emily's father died, officials had to take the body by force from her home, and for three days, she claimed he was not dead. She bought arsenic at the local drug store, and later had an odd odor coming from her home. In addition, every person in the town knew of her family's mentally unstable history, yet even until the end, they never suspected her of murder.
             Upon hearing the news of Mr.Grierson's death, women went to console Emily, and were greeted thusly: "She told them 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. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly.
             We did not say she was crazy then."(p76;ch.2). This event gives the reader an important look at how much Emily's father was the only thing she had. His death devastated her to the point of hysteria, yet the whole town knew how her father had taken many men out of her life, so they dismissed the odd behavior as grabbing on to what ruined her life. This event, foreshadowing Emily's actions of killing and then not letting go of Homer's body, was an obvious cry for he...