by Amelia Tibbett

Created on: February 07, 2008

Written in 1931 Robert Faulkner's A Rose For Emily is quite an interesting story on many different levels. A Rose For Emily powerfully demonstrates how culture shapes identity. His telling, the way he portrays this story allows us to step outside of our own identities and see first hand how diverse the human environment really can be.

A Rose For Emily is the narrative-type story of the life and death of an eccentric woman named Emily Grierson. It is told craftily from a point of view that utilizes flashbacks and members of the town telling the story so that the reader gets a first hand view of the impressions the town had of her. By using flashbacks and telling the story not in any chronological order, the story comes across as recollections and memories rather than a well rehearsed manuscript.

There are several themes identified in the story. Often referred to in this story is a theme of generations. The "next generation" is a term that is mentioned throughout this story, and it is referring to the younger, more modern mayors and aldermen who replace the older generation of Ms. Emily's father's time, and her younger years. There is reference to her home on the first page.

"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, set on
what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached
and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house
was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline
pumps-an eyesore among the eyesores."

This passage is significant because it does more than describe her house, it describes Miss Emily as well. Later in the story, there is a description of how Emily looked when she was served her tax notice by the deputy.

"a small fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and
vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head.
Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been
merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body
long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the
fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump
of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their
errand."

The description of the dilapidated house does more

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