A Rose for Emily

After her father’s death in 1894, Emily Grierson continues to live in a large, empty plantation house that has deteriorated since the Civil War. The imposing but decaying Grierson house is a symbol of the decline of the old Southern aristocracy. Faulkner’s description of the Grierson house and the changing town that surrounds it is an extended metaphor depicting Emily’s internal decay:

It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps—an eyesore among eyesores (47).

The decay of the house thematically reflects The Reconstruction Era and the Decline of the Old South and The Dangers of Social Isolation. The house, which was once a highlight of the town, is now a blight. The cotton gins and garages are structures that symbolize the modern, industrial world that is encroaching upon the old Southern way of life.