The Sound and the Fury 431holds a special standard in the town of Jefferson. Yet
what responses does this situation invoke?
Social class comes into play frequently in the
reactions that Miss Emily’s misfortunes inspire in
the community. As Miss Emily continues to age and
does not settle down with a husband in her early
adult life, the townsfolk express a general feeling of
vindication; while they are not exactly happy, they are
comforted in their belief that Miss Emily and her
family had tried to hold themselves too far above the
average man. One can imagine that, had Miss Emily
been a poverty-stricken unfortunate when her father
died, and had since remained unmarried, the town’s
general reaction to her situation might have included
more empathetic responses.
As the narrative progresses, the townspeople
come to regard Miss Emily with a seemingly deeper
pity, and though they worry over her, they seem
resigned to Miss Emily’s fate as a lonely, unmarried
woman. It may be a shock, for the reader to com-
prehend that when Miss Emily does seem to find
happiness in her relationship with Homer Barron,
the class differences between the two incite even
more gossip among the townspeople. Because of
the place that Miss Emily’s family once held in the
socially divided society, she seems forever relegated
to the outskirts of that community, and purpose-
fully excluded from the general society of her fellow
townspeople.
Another aspect that one must consider when
thinking about social class in this tale is that of the
context in which Faulkner was writing. Faulkner
comments on the ideals of a deeply stratified south-
ern society throughout the tale, and points the
reader to the potentially negative effects this degree
of stratification inspires. The close of the tale reveals
Miss Emily’s necrophilia, and, at the same time,
points an accusing finger at the townspeople for
committing the same metaphorical crime. Unable
to live in the present moment, the town, like Miss
Emily, continually dallies with a past that is long
over but still haunts the communal mind-set. Miss
Emily’s family dates back to a prior generation of
community members who upheld much different
standards about power structures in society—a gen-
eration well versed in the expectations of antebellum
America. The community members of Jefferson
County who remain fascinated with Miss Emily are
also transfixed by an image of a society divided. Jef-
ferson County may have long ago abolished slavery,
but the habits and mentality that such a divisive
practice instilled in its inhabitants remain very well
entrenched.
To attempt to understand “A Rose for Emily”
without accounting for the varied and significant
ways in which social matters influence the text is to
take an overly simplistic approach to the work. In
this tale, Faulkner makes some not-so-subtle com-
ments on the dangerously pervasive ways in which
social roles can divide communities. Exploring rep-
resentations of social standards in Jefferson County
helps us to understand better Miss Emily’s character,
the reasons behind her questionable actions, and the
responses that these events provoke.
Jennifer SmithFauLknEr, WiLLiam The Sound and
the Fury (1929)
William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury began
as a short story centered around some children who
are sent away from their grandmother’s funeral to
protect them from the sight of grieving adults. After
Faulkner wrote the story, he became interested in
the relationship of a “truly innocent” child to the
world. That child became Benjy Compson, a men-
tally handicapped 33-year-old man who narrates
the first section of the book. Faulkner recognized,
however, that the erratic time shifts in Benjy’s
section made the story difficult to understand, so
he wrote three more sections, each time retelling
the story in an attempt to make it clearer. What
emerged was a novel about the sibling love and lost
innocence within the relationships between Caddy
Compson and her three brothers, Quentin, Jason,
and Benjy. The book is also about the slow decline of
the Compsons, a family that has seen its reputation
and finances fall upon hard times amid the dying
traditions of the old South. Each of the three sec-
tions is narrated by a different brother, who provides
his perspective of this story. In the last section, the
story is told by an unidentified narrator and features
a detailed portrait of the family’s loyal black servant,
Dilsey Gibson.