a rose for emily

            
             William Faulker's " A Rose for Emily" tells the story of a young .
             woman who is violated by her father's strict mentality. After being the only .
             man in her life Emily's father dies and she finds it hard to let go. Emily .
             was raised in the ante-bellum period before the Civil War. This story takes .
             place in the Reconstruction Era after the war when the North takes control of .
             the South. Like her father, Miss Emily possesses a stubborn outlook towards .
             life and refuses to change. This short story explains Emily, her mystified .
             ways and the townsfolk's sympathetic curiosity. .
             The plot of the story is mainly about Miss Emily's attitude about .
             change. "On the first of the year they mailed her a tax notice. February came .
             and there was no reply. They wrote her a formal letter asking her to call the .
             sheriff's office at her convenience. A week later the mayor wrote her .
             herself, offering to call or to send his car for her, and received in reply a .
             note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded .
             ink, to the effect that's he no longer went out at all. The tax notice was .
             enclosed, without comment." (189). Miss Emily was convinced that she had no .
             taxes in Jefferson because before the Civil War the South didn't have to pay .
             taxes and since her father had made a contribution to the town of a generous .
             amount, Colonel Sartoris, mayor at that time had remitted her taxes, she felt .
             that that promise or rather gift still stood good. "After her father's death .
             she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw .
             her at all."(190). Miss Emily might have stayed out the public eye after .
             those two deaths because she was finally alone, something she in her life was .
             not used to. Emily's father never let her alone and when he died Homer Baron .
             was a treat she was never allowed to have. Miss Emily's stubborn attitude .
             definitely came from her father's strict teachings. .
             The characters of this story are very briefly mentioned, Miss Emily .