"a rose for emily”

“ A Rose for Emily” In life people often think that the life they live in is either a good one and do not think that a change would do their life any good. In reality change is good, but Emily in the short story “ A Rose for Emily” thinks that the life she has lived through is the one to keep and does not want to change it even though to us we might think of her life as a tragic and deprived one. The time frame of Miss Emily Grierson to her was the greatest time era, which was the “ Old South”. How do we know that she wanted to stay in the time era of the “ Old South” is when the new generation moved into Jefferson and asked Emily for taxes. When they did this she ranted and raved that Colonel Sartoris has written her a letter in which relieves her of any taxes. She told the tax collectors “ See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson.” The fact that the tax collectors could not see Colonel Sartoris is because Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years. Even the furniture that she had was not updated. Emily’s parlor was furnished with heavy, leather-covered furniture that was cracked from not being used. She had been trapped in the ways “ Old South”, and did not care to change as time went by. Another factor that showed Miss Emily was not interested in change is when Jefferson came up with a mail system. This new mail system that the people of Jefferson created included putting brass numbers of the house on the door so they could organize where the mail was going. Miss Emily did not like the fact of putting something new on her house and she did not like the fact of a new system coming in. She then told the people that she did not want the numbers put on her door and did not participate in the new mail system in Jefferson. In her earlier years, Emily, grew up with her father who was a wealthy man of the “ Old South”. While growing up she was restricted from all people of the opposite sex, and was a cast away from the social nature of life. She was never to date or be seen with a man while her father was around. The day that her father died she did not show a sign of death in soul until a couple of days later. This is where the mindset of Emily’s good life started to set. She did not show signs of a death in the family because in her mind she thought that he was still alive and could not accept the fact that her father was gone. Why she could not accept the fact is because, Emily, who always went by her father’s ruling, did not know what to do with her life. As time went she managed to get by and pull herself together. She then met a man by the name of Homer Barron who was at the time a road worker. Since her father was gone this had been the first person who Emily has started to date or see. Due to the fact that she did not date men when she was younger, Emily, did not know how to react to this relationship, and did not want to mess it up. Everything went fine and through the town there was a rumor of marriage between the two couples. People saw Miss Emily buy things that you would buy for a groom. She bought a shaving set made out of silver with his initials engraved on it. Emily also bought a complete outfit of men’s clothes that included a nightshirt. The people of the town then thought “ They are married” and so time went on until she died. The town’s people paid their respects to her and the house and they found a door in which they broke down and found a shrine of a wedding place. They also found a corpse on a bed that was rotted and next to it a pillow with an indentation as if someone had been sleeping there. The indentation was the one of Miss Emily. She slept with the corpse because she did not want to believe that Homer was going to leave her. So she poisoned him and left him as if he were alive to preserve the sense of that part of her life that Homer was apart of. That is her showing that she was trying to stay in that frame of world were everything was going good. Even though times do change and people often do change with them, but there are some people who do not like to change with the times. People like Emily do not like change due to the fact that they think that the time they are living in is the greatest time in their life. They exclude things from life that makes them deprived and not up to date on things.