33 pages • 1 hour read
William FaulknerA Rose for Emily
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1930A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: William Faulkner
William Faulkner (1897-1962) was a 20th-century American writer and Nobel Prize laureate. Born in New Albany, Mississippi, Faulkner drew inspiration for his short stories and novels from the landscapes and history of the American South. The majority of Faulkner’s work takes place in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner lived for most of his life.
Faulkner’s writing style is known for its nonlinear, stream-of-consciousness narrative, which challenged contemporary literary traditions. Faulkner’s works often feature multiple narrators, exploring the same events from different perspectives. This effect creates a complex and multilayered portrait of his characters and their world. Although Faulkner was himself white, his writing often explored the impact of race and racism on Southern society, and he understood the traumatic legacies of historical events such as slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. In addition, his works also explore issues such as gender, class, and the challenges of social progress.
Faulkner began his career as a poet, but he is now most known for his novels and short stories. His most famous work, The Sound and the Fury (1929), explores the decline of the Compson family through the perspectives of four narrators. Like, “A Rose for Emily,” The Sound and the Fury features a nonlinear chronology and focuses on the Southern aristocracy. Faulkner’s other notable works include the novels As I Lay Dying (1930) and Absalom, Absalom! (1936), which have become staples of 20th-century American literature.
Historical Context: American Reconstruction
“A Rose for Emily” is set during the Reconstruction era, a period of political and social change that took place from 1865 to 1877, following the end of the Civil War. The primary goal of Reconstruction was to rebuild and integrate former Confederate states into the Union, while also addressing the traumas of slavery and the status of formerly enslaved people. During the Reconstruction era, the federal government sought to establish new institutions and policies that would protect the civil and political rights of African Americans and ensure their full participation in American society. Many white Southerners resented the federal government’s efforts to impose new laws and policies that would protect the rights of African Americans and struggled to come to terms with the loss of the Old South.
The Reconstruction era provides important historical context for much of Faulkner’s work, including “A Rose for Emily.” The South during the Reconstruction era was a deeply divided and tumultuous place, and in “A Rose for Emily,” this tension echoes in the conflicts between Emily Grierson and the residents of Jefferson. Emily’s refusal to acknowledge the changing times and her unwillingness to let go of the past reflect a psychological response to the social politics of Reconstruction. As a member of the town’s old aristocracy, Emily embodies a nostalgia for the past and a resistance to change that was common among white Southerners during this time period. In addition, Emily’s relationship with Homer Barron, a Northern laborer who comes to town to work on a construction project, is scandalous and a threat to the social order of Jefferson. Homer’s eventual murder can be read as a way of preserving the social order and maintaining the social and gender hierarchies of the Old South in the post-Civil War years.
Literary Context: Southern Gothic
As democratic governance rose throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, toppling aristocracies in their wake, new literary styles emerged. The European Gothic novel of the time featured fallen or degraded members of the ancient aristocracy who were depicted as being holed up in richly appointed but barren castles. The genre focused on the lurid death and decay that surrounded such aristocracy and served as a metaphor for the immorality of absolute and arbitrary power. However, these stories (written by both former aristocrats and laymen) contained a romantic and exoticizing element of nostalgia for the old fallen order. Their protagonists were cruel and arbitrary, but they were also pitiable and prone to fascinating eccentricities. William Faulkner was among the first to modernize this form, taking it out of the castles and mortuaries of Europe and into the post-Civil War American South.
“A Rose for Emily” is widely recognized as an exemplary work of Southern Gothic literature, a genre that emerged in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Southern Gothic literature is characterized by its dark portrayal of American Southern society, drawing on elements of horror and the grotesque to explore themes of violence, decay, and corruption. The origins of Southern Gothic literature can be traced to the aftermath of the Civil War and the Reconstruction era. During this period of profound social, cultural, and political change, Southern writers developed this genre as a response to complex and often traumatic social and political shifts. Other notable examples of Southern Gothic literature include Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” (1953) and Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird (1960).
Key elements of Southern Gothic literature include an emphasis on the supernatural and the mysterious, a fascination with decay and ruined settings, and an interest in the darker aspects of human nature. The landscapes in Southern Gothic literature are often decaying, haunted, or otherwise dilapidated, reflecting the sense of decay and decline that pervades the genre. The characters in Southern Gothic literature are similarly complex, often grappling with deep-seated traumas, hidden secrets, and psychological demons reflective of the history of the American South. The genre is also characterized by its use of the grotesque, which refers to the use of bizarre, unsettling, or even disgusting imagery to provoke a sense of shock and horror in the reader.
“A Rose for Emily” is representative of several elements of Southern Gothic literature, such as the use of the grotesque and an interest in the decaying aristocratic culture of the South. The story begins with a macabre scene: the death of Emily Grierson and the discovery of a corpse in her house. Throughout the story, Emily herself presents as a monster. She is “bloated” and “pallid” (49) in her old age, and her actions disturb the residents of Jefferson. More generally, the fall of the once wealthy and respected Grierson family is a symbol of Southern decline.
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