A Rose for Emily Written by William Faulkner

A Rose for Emily written by William Faulkner has been a story I've read before, but it appears that with each reading different parts and aspects of the story seem to stand out and/or become more significant. Parts that I didn't understand so well the first time I read seem to make more since, logically, the second and third time around. However, this story is still not a simple story to understand, even the best of critics I must assume have numerous questions about the premise, and the content. I don't think the story is solely about the creepy and crazy woman Emily, as much as the reason for why she became crazy. Its clear, the life she didn't live and the life she was forced to accept as her own, drove her to the brink of insanity. We are only given one life and her father ruined hers. Its definitely a story of pity.

There were some passages and small details that were included in the story that I didn't understand and left me a little confused. Miss Emily made it very clear and evident that she would not be paying any taxes, but when there was a change in mayors, she was then requested to pay, when they came to see her they let a little old woman basically tell them that there visit was wasted because she hadn't paid taxes in the past and wasn't going to pay them then. I wonder what they did about that, were her taxes being compiled in one mass pile? Or did they take her word and although the taxes were issued they ignored them and allowed them to not be paid? After her father had passed, the narrator calls Emily a pauper, which defined means a poor person, if she was so poor where did she get the money to pay for the groceries she sent Tobe to get religiously, where did the money come from when she purchased the new belongings for Homer Barron? It seemed that a lot of people had formed cabals; in the neighborhood. They did a lot of talking about Emily and her impervious crazy ways, but know one demanded that she needed help, I don't know if IÐ''m looking too much through the eyes of a twentieth century reader but Emily clearly showed signs of issues. I guess comparatively speaking the law officials couldn't get her to pay taxes so I guess it would prove irrelevant that someone could force her to be helped.

The author had a way of planting clues earlier in the story that either seemed too detailed or not that significant for that part of the story, but in the end it all made sense because it was those small lines that helped the reader figure out what was happening in the end of the story. This story reminds me oddly of the "Yellow Wallpaper," the fact that both stories have woman who are loosing their minds; they suffer from too different problems off course but in the end have the same result; gone mad. This story also just reminds me a lot of the older creepy movies that oddly all seemed to share old English characters' (channel pbs) there is a shocking similarity as well to the "Tell Tail Heart," by Edgar Allen Poe, if I remember correctly.

The narrator did a good job in telling enough about the character in the beginning of the story that allowed me to assume what kind of character I was reading about. It was in the beginning of the story where I noticed a slight foreshadowing glimpse of what might have happened in the end. It was when her father died, she literally had to be forced to bury her father and for some reason that just didn't sit well with me, it was on that detail that I was sure that this lady was definitely a little demented than she wanted to believe or confess to. "The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom. Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. 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. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly." When she went to the store and bought poison, it was out of the ordinary, a flag went up in my mind. She didn't even know what kind of poison she wanted which to me qued that she wanted something handled, and it was either to kill herself or something far worse or creepier.

I assume that the narrator who in the story refers to themselves as "we" were the people in the neighborhood, not just anyone in the neighborhood but the women that watched her so closely. "We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will." It's interesting however, because before that section the narrator refers to whom I assumed the narrators were, but they call the women "they" so I can only assume that it was another person/group making observations at that time. Whoever the narrator is however, has got to be someone/people who are old, at least just as old as Emily because they tell the story from the beginning and as time has progressed continue to tell the events. If it were someone young they wouldn't have remembered so many details, things like the