"A Rose for Emily" opens with Miss Emily Grierson's funeral.

It then
goes back in time to show the reader Emily's childhood. As a girl,
Emily is cut off from most social contact by her father. When he dies,
she refuses to acknowledge his death for three days. After the
townspeople intervene and bury her father, Emily is further isolated by
a mysterious illness, possibly a mental breakdown.

Homer Barron’s crew comes to town to build sidewalks, and Emily is

seen with him. He tells his drinking buddies that he is not the marrying
kind. The townspeople consider their relationship improper because of
differences in values, social class, and regional background. Emily
buys arsenic and refuses to say why. The ladies in town convince the
Baptist minister to confront Emily and attempt to persuade her to
break off the relationship. When he refuses to discuss their
conversation or to try again to persuade Miss Emily, his wife writes to
Emily’s Alabama cousins. They come to Jefferson, but the
townspeople find them even more haughty and disagreeable than
Miss Emily. The cousins leave town.

Emily buys a men’s silver toiletry set, and the townspeople assume
marriage is imminent. Homer is seen entering the house at dusk one
day, but is never seen again. Shortly afterward, complaints about the
odor emanating from her house lead Jefferson’s aldermen to
surreptitiously spread lime around her yard, rather than confront
Emily, but they discover her openly watching them from a window of
her home.

Miss Emily’s servant, Tobe, seems the only one to enter and exit the
house. No one sees Emily for approximately six months. By this time
she is fat and her hair is short and graying. She refuses to set up a
mailbox and is denied postal delivery. Few people see inside her
house, though for six or seven years she gives china-painting lessons
to young women whose parents send them to her out of a sense of
duty.

The town mayor, Colonel Sartoris, tells Emily an implausible story

when she receives her first tax notice: The city of Jefferson is indebted
to her father, so Emily’s taxes are waived forever. However, a younger
generation of aldermen later confronts Miss Emily about her taxes,
and she tells them to see Colonel Sartoris (now long dead, though she
refuses to acknowledge his death). Intimidated by Emily and her
ticking watch, the aldermen leave, but they continue to send tax
notices every year, all of which are returned without comment.

In her later years, it appears that Emily lives only on the bottom floor
of her house. She is found dead there at the age of seventy-four. Her
Alabama cousins return to Jefferson for the funeral, which is attended
by the entire town out of duty and curiosity. Emily’s servant, Tobe,
opens the front door for them, then disappears out the back. After the
funeral, the townspeople break down a door in Emily’s house that, it
turns out, had been locked for forty years. They find a skeleton on a
bed, along with the remains of men’s clothes, a tarnished silver toiletry
set, and a pillow with an indentation and one long iron-gray hair.
Although an unnamed citizen of the small town of Jefferson, in
Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, tells the story of the aristocratic
Miss Emily Grierson in a complicated manner, shifting back and forth
in time without trying to make clear transitions, the story line itself is
quite simple. Miss Emily’s father dies when she is a little more than
thirty, in about 1882. For three days she prevents his burial, refusing
to accept his death. He had driven off all of her suitors; now she is
alone, a spinster, in a large house.

In the summer after the death of her father, Miss Emily meets Homer
Barron, the Yankee foreman of a crew contracted to pave the
sidewalks of Jefferson. They appear on the streets in a fancy buggy,
provoking gossip and resentment. Two female cousins come to town
from Alabama to attempt to persuade Miss Emily to behave in a more
respectable manner. Emily buys an outfit of man’s clothes and a silver
toilet set. To avoid the cousins, Homer leaves town. Miss Emily buys
rat poison from the druggist. The cousins leave. Homer returns; he is
never seen again.

A foul odor emanates from Miss Emily’s house. After midnight, four
citizens, responding to complaints made by neighbors to Judge
Stevens, the mayor, stealthily spread lime around the house and in
her cellar. In a week or so, the smell goes away.

In 1894, Colonel Sartoris, the mayor, remits Miss Emily’s taxes. For
about six or seven years, while in her forties, she gives china-painting
lessons to the young girls of the town. Then for many years she is
seen only at her window. Townspeople watch her black servant Tobe
going in and out on errands. A new generation comes to power; they
insist that Miss Emily pay taxes on her property. When she fails to
respond, a deputation calls on her, but she insists that she owes no
taxes, as Colonel Sartoris will tell them (he has been dead ten years).

In about 1925, Miss Emily dies. On the day of her funeral, the
townspeople, including some old Civil War veterans, invade the
house. Tobe leaves by the back door and is never seen again. One
group breaks into a locked room upstairs and discovers the corpse of
Homer Barron, which has moldered in the bed for forty years. On a
pillow beside him, they find “a long strand of iron-gray hair,” evidence
that Miss Emily had lain down beside him years after she poisoned
him.
“Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of
hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894…”
(Faulkner). A Rose for Emily expresses different uses of criticism.
Throughout the story the main character (Emily) struggles with the
loss of her father and the rejection of her sweetheart. These emotional
pains impact Emily’s actions negatively, and make her the center of
gossip. By focusing on the different strategies of the criticism readers
can infer the reasoning behind Emily’s actions. Using reader response
criticism, the reader can analyze William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily
through Action, Secrets, and Anthropology.
Readers can use Emily’s actions to analyze the William Faulkner’s
story. Miss Emily struggled with a loss, her dad died and “She told
them 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” (Faulkner). I can relate to Emily’s action
of not letting go of her father’s body after his death. She was upset
that her father died and believed that keeping his body kept him alive.
When my great grandmother died I was very upset , especially since
she was involved in my life; I didn’t keep her body but I was still in
shock that she was gone and believed that if I entered her home I
would still see her sitting in her chair. Another emotional struggle that
Miss Emily faced was when“…a short time after her sweetheart—the
one we believed would marry her –had deserted her” (Faulkner). I
have never had a boyfriend or a sweetheart; I also never had any one
close to me desert me; so I can’t relate to Emily’s pain when her
sweetheart left her. All in all, Emily’s actions can help readers analyze
the story.
Readers can also analyze A Rose for Emily through the secret and
hidden meanings. After the death of her father and the rejection of her
sweetheart people felt bad for Miss Emily, and began to question her
actions, especially when she said “I want some poison…I want the
best you have. I don’t care what kind…I want arsenic” (Faulkner). Miss
Emily’s desperation for poison informs readers that there is a secret
meaning behind the poison; its obvious Miss Emily wanted the poison
for the desire to kill. Thus, the poison was a hidden meaning for
someone’s death. William Faulkner also uses secret meanings when
quoted, “…and her hair was turning gray. During the next few years it
grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-
gray… Up to the day of her death at seventy-four it was still that
vigorous iron-gray” (Faulkner). By placing emphasis on the characters
graying hair, William is hinting a secret meaning behind just hair,
readers can infer that Miss Emily’s hair must have significance in the
story, and in the end the hair’s significance is that it helped identify the
killer of Homer Brown. The poison was a clue to the fact that Miss
Emily was planning a killing, and the gray hair that was found next to
Homer Brown indicates that Miss Emily was the murderer. Therefore,
by using the hidden and secret meanings readers can identify the
conclusion of the story.
Readers can also use anthropology to analyze A Rose for Emily. In
the story characters refer to a man by his race, “They were admitted
by the old Negro…the Negro led them into the parlor...When the
Negro opened…” (Faulkner). The usage of the word Negro to identify
a person instead of using their name expresses the use of
anthropology. Also In the story, anthropology was used in the line
“Only a man of Colonel Sartoris’ generation and thought could have
invented it, and only a woman could have believed it” (Faulkner). This
line shows the different statuses of opposite genders. For instance,
the quote uses anthropology when it hints that while men are sneaky
women are very naive. In conclusion, readers can infer the different
stereotypes in the story from the uses of anthropology.
All in all, readers can analyze the story A Rose for Emily, by using
different types of reader response criticism including, character action,
secret meanings, and anthropology. From reading the story readers
can relate to the different emotions Miss Emily felt after being left
behind. Readers can also analyze the different actions of Miss Emily,
and by using reader response criticism infer the meaning behind her
actions. A Rose for Emily shows the significance of the different uses
of criticism and how they relate to our every-day life.
Literary Criticism of William Faulkner's A Rose for
Emily

In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," Emily

becomes a minor legend during her lifetime. After
her death, when her secret is revealed, hers becomes
a story that no one can forget. "A Rose for Emily" is
the story of the old maid who fell in love with a
northerner, but resisted being jilted once too often.
And only after her death, "When the curious towns
people were able to enter her house at last, did they
discover that she had kept her dead lover in the bed
where she had killed him after their last embrace."
(Kazin 162) . "In her bedroom, Emily and the dead
Homer have remained together as though not even
death could separate them."(Kazin 162) . Even
though her lover had …show more content…
"Stories that show all too clearly how airily Faulkner can reproduce the manipulation of the
reader's emotions is the real aim of the commercial short story. (Kazin 162) . "The total story says
what has been said in so much successful literature." (Lewis 157) . "Man's plight is tragic, but that
there is heroism in an attempt to rise above it."(Lewis 157) . Emily Grierson for years has slept
beside the physical remains of her dead lover and is sadly a victim of a father who dominated her
for years, and drove away suitors.
She is victimized also by a lover who would leave her, and by a passion, which would murder
rather than let him go. "The incestuous image of the father and daughter that suggests the corrupt
nature of the new south, is a Faulknerian concern."(Pierce 1362) . When love is gone, and the lover
is killed, Miss Emily clings to the illusion of love. For forty years Emily Grierson has slept beside
the physical remains of her dead lover. "In her bedroom, Emily and the dead Homer have remained
together as though not even death could separate them."(Kazin 162) ."She is also a victim of her
lover who would leave her", but she is driven "by her passion which would kill him rather then let
him leave."(Pierce 1362) ."When his love is gone, and she has killed him, she holds on to her
illusion of their love."( Pierce 1362) . "But even in the story, the intended gothic touch