Faulkner's A Rose for Emily

Some thoughts about
“a rose for Emily”

Emily and her family are representative of the decline of southern aristocracy after the civil war. At her funeral, they mention that many of the old men were wearing confederacy uniforms. This shows that the war was sometime before this, but recent enough that the participants were still alive and could remember how the south was before the war. Emily’s family was prominent in the area and it seems had been wealthy at some time.

The implication is that Emily killed her working class suitor, perhaps because he had told her that he would never m...