A Rose for Emily

In the opening paragraph of "A Rose for Emily", we are immediately informed that Miss Emily Greirson, who by the title we already assume is the subject of the story, has passed away. We are also notified that there is something both special and queer about Emily; while she is held in high regard by her peers, they are also quite curious about her. And why shouldn't they be? Ms. Grierson, it is written, lives in a house "which no one save an old manservant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in the last ten years." Instantaneously we as readers are gripped, finding ourselves asking what it is about this woman that makes her so private: is she a misanthrope? Secretive? Is she the villain in the story? Or is she simply a lonely old woman who has been wronged? It is with suspense in the very first paragraph that the plot begins, and we find ourselves eager to read on.

In the following paragraphs, we slowly piece together more about the life of Miss Emily. Rather than being chronologically led from her life to her death, the author, William Faulkner, works backward, then forward again, creating an intense curiosity; just as the women at the funeral are intrigued by the life and death of Miss Emily, we the readers are engulfed with questions about what made this woman so peculiar. With this we are taken from Emily's death to her adulthood, adolescence, old age, and death again, all the while learning about the bizarre events that made up her life. It is through the many stages of this story that we the readers, not unlike the narrator and even the townspeople, must decide how we feel about the callous (but justly so) woman that was Emily Grierson.

We are first introduced to the character of Emily in Part I, after her death. Throughout the story, however, we are reacquainted with the woman as certain facts become known, causing us as readers to constantly reassess how we feel about her. This is a huge part of the plot, as we are given reasons to both sympathize with Emily as well as hate her as more facts are revealed. For this reason we are hooked to the story; the discomfort that comes with uncertainty about Emily as a person causes us to hastily read on. We continue to debate with ourselves about Emily's persona. We feel sorry for her time and again; at the beginning, Emily dies a lonely old woman, fallen from prestige; throughout the story she is badgered by city officials, judged as ugly and obese, abandoned by those close to her, heckled for her family's pretentiousness, and gossiped about until the day she keels over. At the same time, we are given many reasons to dislike the person that is Emily Grierson. She's regarded as a "duty" who lives free of taxes. Much like the house in which she lives, Emily is also an "eyesore". The woman exists in an outdated style, refusing to adapt to modern times. She is aesthetically displeasing, creates problems for which she won't take responsibility, appears perverse when she won't bury her father, buys rat poison, and is eventually assumed the killer of Homer Barron. It is with these facts that we, like Emily's peers, try to determine who she was and how we feel about her.

The manner in which the events unfold is highly confusing, and the facts are difficult to ascertain even after reading the story several times. Presented far from sequentially, the readers must go back and reinterpret the details, leading to an ending that is quite surprising. Much like the townspeople in the story, we find ourselves reassessing the facts of Emily's life. Like they, we are convinced that after her father's death, Emily's sweetheart deserts her. We come to find out, however, that her sweetheart, Homer Barron, didn't leave her at all--rather than kill herself with the arsenic she purchased, Emily murdered Homer in order to keep him from ever leaving her. The smell that developed after "her sweetheart-- the one [the narrator and the townspeople] believed would marry her--deserted her" was most likely