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Faulkner's A Rose for Emily

 

A Rose for Emily was published in 1931; according to the text, this story takes place in a town called Town of Jefferson who seems to be fictional, a town created by the author with some characteristics of the real Mississippi Town of Oxford where Faulkner grew up. Regarding the events of the story, they develop in the nineteenth century. During this century the South and the North were in conflict due to the differences they had in the way of living and thinking; Northerners were characterized by its commercial and industrial interests while southerners were inclined to agriculture; wealthy plantation worked by slaves (Tim McNeese 2003). In the same line, Faulkner deals with issues such as gender, race and class and also he describes the romance between a southern lady and a northern man who represents the different ideologies in each location.
             This short story about tragedy presents the life and death of a southern woman who became mentally ill while living in isolation according to the obsolete traditions of the South Aristocrats. The story is narrated in first person plural; a commentary of the narrator says: "We did not say she was crazy then" therefore, it is evidence that people from the town are telling the story. Furthermore, , it is a nonlinear narrative since actions do not follow a traditional linear approach to introduce his characters. It begins with Miss Emily Grierson's funeral (the main character of the story), a southern lady who used to live with her slave an old man servant who was seen in the household in the last ten years. She died at the age of 74 years, many people from the town went to the funeral; Ones went because they felt affection, a kind of respect for her, others, especially women, were curious to know the mystery Miss Grierson's house hid. It is important to highlight that the author makes an allusion of civil war when he states: "And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson".


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