Emily Grierson Influence

““I want arsenic.” The druggist looked down at her. She looked back at him, erect, her face like a strained flag. "Why, of course," the druggist said. "If that's what you want. But the law requires you to tell what you are going to use it for." Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up.” (Faulkner, 4) This scene from William Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily” gives a little look into the strange mind of Emily Grierson. Miss Emily didn’t believe it when her father died, her father who was always there to shelter her from the rest of the world, the father who influenced her seclusion from the rest of the town. Maybe this is why she
The writer Faulkner and his influence in Southern writing prompted him to write the story of “A Rose for Emily.” Therefore, this setting takes place in the deep south of Mississippi during the Post Civil War days in a small town named Jefferson. Setting his story in this geographic area gives the reader a better understanding and background of the characters values and beliefs in the setting of Southern culture during this time
To support the insight of Faulkner’s use of Southern setting and Emily’s social struggles, the following quotes are given: “…Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps, an eyesore among eyesores.”(Faulkner, 1) This clearly shows the decline of the home, which is part of the setting that represents her social and personal decline. Miss Emily becomes reclusive and introverted after the death of her father and the estrangement from the Yankee, Homer Barron. “…after her father’s death and a short time her sweetheart, the one we believed would marry her, had deserted her. After her father’s death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all.”(Faulkner,