Cultural criticism of Faulkner`s A Rose for Emily

Faulkner paid very special attention to the theme of the Civil War in the US in his works. And “A Rose for Emily” is not an exception in fact. The whole atmosphere of the story is gloomy and depressed and reflects the attitude of the southerners to the happened tragedy. I think that in some part miss Emily personified the soul of the whole country (Southern States) and the narrator himself  always uses pronoun “we”. It is like collective image of a certain person, but in this case the part of the country – the Nothern States: “We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will” (Faulkner,1930). I think the author used such an allegory to show what was the difference between the defeater and the lost side. Faulkner made a stress on these two aspects to make the reader understand the fact how miserable and wretched looked in old days arrogant and self-complacent southerners. The society felt sorry for Miss Emily but all this compassion seems to be artificial and fake. They just wanted her to show their so called “Charity of the Winner” but in fact she did not need their mercy.

The author starts the story describing the death of Miss Emily and then telling some facts about her late life and attitude to the events that influenced her life. Miss Emily was like a splinter of an old Civilization, the culture and life of Southern States. She was still using Afro-American servant and do not let anyone into her life.

When her father died, the society felt gladness: “When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad. At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less” (Fsulkner, 1930), they also felt gladness when her fiancé “left” her. They just felt gladness as if she got her bitters for her arrogance and defiance. It was essential thing for that time.

In the field of personal tragedy of Miss Emily (she lost everything) Faulkner showed the tragedy of the whole nation: at the beginning rich, prosperous and arrogant and in the end beggary, spiteful and still arrogant. The author masterfully showed the typical image of the post war southerner: spirit of the southerner was living inside and nothing could defeat it.

In short passages the author showed masterfully the difference between the generations. The development showed that people have changed and their attitude to such an odd as Miss Emily was changed also. They did know nothing about so called “Southern Code of Honor” which was provided by the Colonel Sartoris and that is why came to take taxes from her. Her pupils were also the daughters and then granddaughters of the old colonel but in the end they did not sent their children: “Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of the town, and the painting pupils grew up and fell away and did not send their children to her with boxes of color and tedious brushes and pictures cut from the ladies' magazines” (Faulkner, 1930). The generation changed and changed the attitude. Miss Emily and her life during all this period was something like an entertainment in Jefferson. Everyone of them was interested in her life. Everyone wanted to know more about her, but she do not let anyone of them. She wanted to keep all her secrets. And they were kept up until her death.

She poisoned her fiancé and all the time he was lying upstairs on the second floor and she was visiting him for some time. It was like a habit, probably, awful, terrible, even horrible habit. She probably did not understand what she had made. She just did not believe that he was gone. He was always near, as her father, colonel Sartoris and other phantoms of an Old Sothern Civilization that was destroyed by the Civil War in the United States. She was one of the last pieces of this civilization, and with her was buried a part of a living history of the flourishing South that turned into a desert, arrogant desert of insularity and conceit. It is essential as the whole atmosphere of post-war society was assisting to the fact.

Sources:

The Norton Introduction to Literature Website.2005. William Faulkner, "A Rose for Emily". 18th of October 2009.

Morton, Clay (2005). "'A Rose for Emily': Oral Plot, Typographic Story," Storytelling: A Critical Journal of Popular Narrative 5.1.