“A Rose for Emily,” written by William Faulkner, is a short story set after the Civil War. It is about a woman who tries to defeat time. She faces depression right after her strict dad dies and her sweetheart dumps her. As a consequence, she poisons Homer Barron, her ex-boyfriend, and keeps his body in her room for many years. People from the town notice the changes: Emily gets fat and very grey hair, she refuses to pay her taxes, and a very bad smell comes from her house. At the age of 74, she dies and the whole town goes to her funeral at her home. Next, they find the dead body in her room. Emily tries to beat time because she is stuck in the past. She keeps a dead body in her room which is a heavy pressure she was holding on her back.
Emily, the main character, is under her dominating father’s control. In the beginning of the reading, the townspeople mention that they have an image of Emily’s father over protecting her like a guard. “We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip…”(Faulkner 2). This quote uses imagery to show Emily’s dad personality: restrictive and vigilant. Emily’s strict father creates conflict to the story, which promotes horror.
Faulkner shows that Emily also has some mental illness. In the story, the narrator states that she killed her boyfriend and kept his body in her room for many years. “The man himself lay in the bed for a long while we just stood here, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin”(Faulkner 5). This quote means that Homer had been murdered by Emily and left in her room for a long time and no one has realized it. Emily’s mental illness leads to suspense in the story’s conclusion.
Lastly, “A Rose for Emily” uses the theme of isolation to create a feeling of horror in the story. Emily isolated herself from the community. By the end of the reading, the town’s people open a sealed off room in her house which wasn’t seen for a long time. “Already we knew that there was one room in that region above the stairs which no one had seen in forty years”(Faulkner 4). This quote is a metaphor for Emily’s attempt to escape the passage of time. In other words, Emily wants to go back in time when her dad was alive and when she was happy with her husband because she doesn’t want to move on.