Isolation In A Rose For Emily

The short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner is set in the small southern town of Jefferson. The story reveals the peculiar and bizarre events of Miss Emily Grierson’s life. Miss Emily, a supposed monument in the town, lives an unusual life. She comes from a well-respected family and is the last Grierson of her town. The mysterious Miss Emily embodies the Old South. Miss Emily holds onto the ways of the Old South and cannot come to terms with the New South. Miss Emily’s resistance to change her pitiful ways and the narration of the story show how Emily is isolated from the rest of the community. Miss Emily Grierson is without a doubt a product of Old Southern upbringing. She is stuck in the old ways of the South and refuses to move on. She does
not deal with money or do her own shopping, which is why the town has such a difficult time dealing with her about her unpaid taxes and why she has a servant.
When the city authorities come to tell her that she can no longer be remitted from her taxes, she sends them off by saying, "See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson" (35). Emily continues to insist on an agreement she had with Colonel Sartoris remitting her from paying her taxes, even after the Colonel has been dead for ten years. The people in this small town put her on a pedestal instead of throwing her in jail where she actually belongs. The loneliness of Miss Emily is what makes the town pity her, and is also what makes the town see her as an innocent old lady. The people hold her to high standards, though those standards no longer exist. The folks in town, are unknowingly manipulated, and have become the accessories to Miss Emily’s immoral behavior. When Miss Emily
passes away, the townspeople come to pay their respects, not out of authentic sadness, but more due to, “a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument” (33). Miss Emily is a fallen monument because like her old ways, a monument is dead or lifeless. Emily is someone from the past who does not accept change, like an old monument that is always present but immovable and steady in its spot. Emily symbolizes tradition and a stubborn clinging to the past, no matter what progress or changes occur. The world has changed all around Miss Emily, but she clings to her traditions and makes a memorial out of herself. Emily’s house, like Emily herself, is a relic of southern ways. It is a shrine to the living past. In the older days Emily’s house stood as wealth and pride. However, as time passed, her house faded and deteriorated. As said, “Miss Emily’s house was left lifting its stubborn and coquettish, decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps” (page 34). Just as time has done away with the Old South, time has withered the once prominent home of Emily. Miss Emily’s house is in the midst of the industrialized South. Even though the world around her house is changing and improving every day with things like gas stations and cotton gins, Emily holds firmly to her traditional beliefs. Just as the South’s old values are out of place in a changing society, her home no longer fits in. Her house is an unpleasant sight to the people of the town as the narrator describes her home as, “an eyesore among eyesores”. Not only is her house an eyesore because of the appearance, but it is an ugly reminder of the old south. The wealth of her family was probably built on the back of slave labor. The street and neighborhood, at one time affluent and privileged, lost their standing. Miss Emily’s house shows her refusal to modernize and change with society. She insisted on being a sheltered woman. Miss Emily is obviously alienated and pitied by the town because of her lifestyle choices and habits. In the story, the narrator often refers to itself as “we”, and seems to represent the townspeople both male and female. By using his narrator, Faulkner certainly isolates Miss Emily from everyone else. The narrator does not know her mindset or feelings. On the other hand, the narrator seems to know everything from the point of view of the community. The narrator knows what women think about Emily and knows that people in the community are going to ask her to pay her taxes. The narration of the story truly shows how different Miss Emily is from the rest of the community. In a whole town of people and she is the only one that is excluded. The narrator is present for all of the scenes that take place in the story, but does not play any role in the events and speaks for the town as a whole. Just a few of the only times, the narrator uses “they” instead of “we” is when talking about how the community gossiped about Miss Emily. The narrator seems neutral or even slightly sympathetic toward her, and does not pass judgment on her life or her mistakes. The narrator distances himself from the actions of the town, as though they act in a way he cannot support. The narrator’s transition from a non-participant to a participant narrator shows that he or she sincerely felt sorry for Emily.