“A Rose for Emily” 429points an old revolver at him. Once again, because
of an individual acting upon an elitist interpretation
of Christian belief, Christmas believes he has no
choice but to kill.
Joe Christmas has no use for the so-called God-
given spiritual knowledge possessed by many char-
acters in this book, in part because this is the religion
of white people, and he does not feel a part of this
group. The serious and troubled conflict about who
he is and what he is aligns him with Christian mar-
tyrs, ascetics, and Christ himself. Indeed, contrary to
what McEachern and Burden believe, understand-
ing God and being a spiritual being is no easy task.
The path to enlightenment is difficult and treacher-
ous and the journey itself may be as important as
the goal. This difficult journey makes us human.
Christmas’s struggle in a world bent on destroying
him humanizes him in a way that Christ’s struggles
in a hostile world put a human face on Christianity.
McEachern and Burden’s elitist, inhuman brand
of Christianity is the kind that hurts and destroys
others as well as themselves—precisely not the kind
taught by Christ.
Elizabeth Cornell
FauLknEr, WiLLiam “a rose for
Emily” (1930, 1931)
“A Rose for Emily,” first published in the April 1930
issue of Forum magazine, may be William Faulkner’s
most widely read short story. A slightly amended
version was published in These 13 (1931) and later
in Collected Stories (1950). The story has received
critical attention because of the ways in which it
highlights several recurrent themes that appear in
Faulkner’s longer works (such as repressed sexuality,
loss and grief, and commentary on social class).
Faulkner presents the story in five non-linear
sections and employs an unnamed, first-person plu-
ral narrator to relay the details of Miss Emily Grier-
son’s life. The short story contrasts Miss Emily’s
early life of social privilege against her later life of
alienation and financial struggles following the
death of her repressive father and the sudden loss
of her romantic partner. Faulkner explores the stan-
dards of social customs through the telling of several
different scenes, such as the town leaders’ attempts
to save Miss Emily embarrassment over unpaid
taxes or the stench of her property. Most important,
the narration explores the consequences of Miss
Emily’s unorthodox relationship with the lower-
class Homer Barron and the subsequent town gos-
sip it incites. Despite the foreshadowing of a gothic
ending, it is not until Miss Emily’s death and the
townspeople’s exploration of her previously shut-up
home that the gruesome facts of Miss Emily’s life
become apparent. Miss Emily poisoned Homer
Barron years earlier and had since been sleeping
next to the disintegrating corpse in what would
have been their marriage bed. The narrative makes
important comments about the literary themes of
death, alienation, community, social class,
and gender.
Jennifer Smithdeath in “A Rose for Emily”
Within this short work, Faulkner presents compel-
ling, but occasionally contradictory, views of death.
In this tale, death functions as a process that not
only can provide moments of clarity and revelation
but also can yield more unresolved questions than
answers. Faulkner bookends the tale of Miss Emily’s
life with a narration surrounding the scene of her
death and, in doing so, suggests the very important
role that this phenomenon plays in how we come to
know and understand this character.
The tale starts with the narrative of the moments
following Miss Emily’s death. The town has
remained fascinated by Miss Emily throughout her
life, and only upon her death are the townspeople
able to begin to satisfy some of their curiosity about
the woman who held such a respected place in
Jefferson County for the better half of a century.
Miss Emily’s death breaks the societal spell that
she held over the town in her life, and permits the
townspeople to begin to illuminate the puzzle of her
later years. Death becomes a moment of revelation.
Indeed, it is only upon Miss Emily’s death and the
subsequent exploration of her previously unseen
living quarters that the townspeople are able to
understand fully the truly grotesque nature of her
later life. Yet despite this level of exposure that her
passing engenders, Miss Emily’s death also brings
forth even greater questions about her life.