"A Rose for Emily" William Faulkner

“A Rose for Emily” William Faulkner
This is a story set in the south and is extremely grotesque throughout. It is filled like Emily herself with death. The story overall can be seen as a symbol for “the old way” and what communities and persons have to go through change. Like most people Emily was in capable of handling change in her life just as when her father died and she tried to keep his corpse in her house still thinking that she could cheat death in some way. Her sheer refusal to change in a world that was changing all around her presented itself in her necrophilia. She decides that it would be better to try to capture the moment when she and Herman were married just the way it was by killing him and designating that upper room to be a shrine for them instead of dealing with the ongoing changes that occur every day in life. This can also be seen in the way that she won’t even let them attach metal numbers or a mailbox to her house. She is totally consumed with the past and fearful of anything new through the story. The new taxes symbolize her way of looking at the future as something that can only bring pain, debt, suffering or most of all death.