Death Unit: A Rose for Emily

"A Rose for Emily"
William Faulkner

In this somehow more disturbing story than "The Lottery", a special emphasis on the setting draws the reader's attention to Emily Grierson as a symbol for her society.

Throughout the story, the differences between the generations plays a prominent role in the external conflicts.   From the Civil War generation of Rose's parents, to the arising young generation entering leadership positions, everyone differs on how to treat Rose.  Her father took a suffocating role toward Rose in terms of prospective husbands.  After Homer Barron disappeared, the speaker mentions the permanent impacts of this behavior: "... as if that quality of her father which had thwarted her woman's life so many times had been too virulent and too furious to die" (Faulkner, 287).  Since Rose represents her society as a whole (the post-Civil War south), her father and his contemporaries represent the Civil War generation.  As her father chased  Rose's suitors away, the author suggests that the Civil War generation as a whole isolated its children by holding onto values and false senses of superiority.

Rose's own generation treats her in a cautiously deferential way.  The mayor halted all taxes in the guise of a repaid loan.  Additionally, parents only sent their children to take china-painting lessons to keep her in a job. As a whole, Rose's contemporaries view Rose and their generation sympathetically but unrealistically.  Although they claim that the whole nation owes these Southern aristocrats their gratitude, most efforts simply go to fuel senses of superiority.

However, the young generation will be having none of this aristocratic nonsense.  The newcomers to the local government support renewing taxes and forcing her to remove the smell from her house (from her DEAD ALMOST FIANCEE).  Finally, people are starting to hold Rose's generation responsible for contributing to society regardless of delusions of grandeur.  Likewise young people are starting to tear down the superficialities of Southern aristocracy.

Only after the post-Civil War generation passed on did people finally look into the disturbing remnants of its delusions.