Southern Values in A Rose For Emily Essay

Making a Case for Emily Griersons Representation of Old Southern Values A Study of Faulkners A Rose for Emily

William Faulkners A Rose for Emily focuses on a character named Emily Grierson and how she lived and symbolized herself with many of the old southern values. The highest point in the story was when the narrator explained how Miss Emily ended up being the type of person she was before she died and how she became that way. After Miss Emily father had died she felt as if she had nothing or no one. So those made her become a bitter old lady. Although Miss Emily well represented old southern values others thought she made it seem different than it really was.

A Rose for Emily is a story that someone is narrating about how this woman by the name of Emily Grierson died. The narrator let us know how Miss Emily represents old southern values. Miss Emily lived in It was a big squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies.(243). Before Miss Emily died she was a tradition, duty and a care towards the town. According to the narrator after Miss Emily father died she became this bitter, mean, and careless person. The Board of Aldermen called this meeting at Miss Emily house to try and get her to file her taxes but she refuse to do so. They raised when she entereda small fat woman in black with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt leaning on and ebony cane with a tarnished gold head.(244).

Along in the story Miss Emily met this man named Homer Barron. Soon after her father died he left her also. So again she believed she was only left with nothing but the house itself. Miss Emily couldnt go to any of her family because her father and other family member had a big disagreement before he passed away. But there where these two cousins that often came by to see her but after awhile her two cousins stopped coming by too. In the story many people thought Miss Emily wasnt going to take Homer very seriously because he was a Northerners. But Miss Emily took him very seriously because soon Homer and Miss Emily became very close and started seeing each other every Sunday. Miss Emily even had a vision of marrying Homer in the story. Later on in the story Miss Emily wanted to buy some poison to kill some rats. But everyone in the town thought maybe she wanted to kill herself or Homer. So a couple of years went by with this Negro going in and out of Miss Emilys house and so she died.

Miss Emily representations to old southern values are very clear. Between the things were done back then to they way things are done today are very different. Miss Emily lived in a big squarish house that had once been white and made in the style of the seventies. Many big houses today have like three garage doors funny made stairs and all type of expensive thing in it. There are not many houses around made in the seventies style anymore. In the old day if you were spending time with a male you would eventually end up marrying him. But in todays time people get married so young and so quick without thinking about how long they have been dating. Back in the 1950s the Southern ladies were the last of the women raised with the true old fashioned southern values. You had to come from a respectable family that was highly financially stable. Miss Emily representation was slightly different. In this story Miss Emily southern values were coming from a wealthy family living in a big house and being raised with all those other southern values. But there is one reason she is slightly different because she was mean and many people thought she was insane or something.

Old Southern values from back in the older years suggested that young southerners often wanted adulthood to be lengthy and more than the young southerners today. Southern boys and girls enforced their privileges and was the first to reject then to put off and finally accepted more than less of their responsibilities. Young women in the old south were both critical to and critical of their culture and their place in it. This gave them the ability to comment, to challenge, and to change the American south narrow definition of southern womanhood.(p. 7 36). Some Southern girls began their gender training at a young age. Children had some freedom but at teenagers they started practicing ladylike behavior as in dressing in dresses and hairstyles. During the Civil War southern women took on public roles, acted independently, got involved in politics, became self reliant, gained confidence and found paid work to support themselves and their families.

The newer southern values of Southern ladies today are often struggle because of the lack of college training. Now days once some of these ladies get to college some often get homesick and that sometimes causes them to be much unfocused in the classrooms. But many adjusted to the college life and started studying more with open minds and participating in campus activities. Also some Southern Ladies today return back home after graduating college whether married or single. Many of the young ladies today are having babies after babies without even graduating high school first. Theres a big difference between the old southern values and the much newer southern values that Miss Emily represents in the story also.

Miss Emily represented the Old South in many different ways in the story.

Her representations of the old southern values of the old southern values were living in the big squarish house with balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, coming from a very wealthy family. When she met Homer she had vision of becoming married to him she went out and brought him a suit and a wedding dress as if she knew he was going to marry her. She even had bathroom materials with his initials engraved into them made.

Although there is much more in this story that can relate to southern values. Miss Emily was a very strange character to me in the story she handled some situations very differently but much like back how it would be handled in the Old South. When A Rose for Emily was written in 1930 and compared to many of Faulkners stories he was a southern writer and like writing stories related to the Old South and it values it has offer. At the end of the story where they found her dead in the inside of her house makes you think of how people from the Old south didnt know how to let go of people that well.