Trying to Mask Change in A Rose For Emily by William Faulkner Aravind Ramachandran

1. Trying to Mask Change in A Rose For Emily by William Faulkner AravindRamachandran The town’s refusal to accept the decay of their old values of Southern Gentility can be seen as a parallel of the white supremacist views and movements that existed during Faulkner’s time period of the 1900s. Organizations such as the KKK refused to let go of their ideals of racism and decided to actively protest black voting rights through use of intimidation and lynching. The outbreak of World War I actually bolstered the ranks of the Klan as the adopted stauncher views against immigration, white supremacy and the return of “traditional” family life. Clearly, the actions of this group parallel the town’s resistance to admit the reality of Emily’s nature. Such resistance in the story is best seen through the town’s reluctance of confronting Emily on their suspicions. Rather than question the odd smell (which was probably Homer Baron’s corpse), the town chose to, “open the cellar door and sprinkled lime there… After a week or two the smell went away” (Faulkner, 123). Rather than truly investigate what is in the cellar, the en of the town merely sprinkle lime to solve the problem of the smell. This conveys the town’s attempt to avoid confronting the truth; which is that Emily Grearson, the last living relic and representation of the Old South, is a killer. If the town recognized this fact of Emily Grearson, then they would be forced to recognize that their projected image and views of the Old South were in fact mistaken, forcing them to accept the change that has happened. Historically, Ladies of the South were expected to live up to the ideal of the “Southern belle”. Such a woman was supposed to be fragile, flirtatious, as well as being sexually innocent. They were said to be beautiful but risky to touch, much like porcelain. Clearly, in Rose for Emily, the reader is given a very twisted version of the Southern belle through the character of Emily Grearson. A description of Emily consisted of, “ a small, fat women in black… leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head…She looked bloated… Her eyes, lost I the fatty ridges of her face” (Faulkner, 121). Note how Faulkner juxtaposes the difference between expectation and reality, by depicting Emily in an almost nightmarish light when all the town seems to have a high regard for her. Especially through his note of the cane with the tarnished head, Faulkner is indicating how the passage of time has led to the decay of what used to be the “Old South” and ideals such as that of the “Southern belle”. The only people who don’t see (or don’t want to see) this change in reality is Emily and the town.