Plot Summary for “A Rose for Emily ”.doc

Plot Summary for “A Rose for Emily ”This semester we learned "A Rose for Emily" on the class of English novel reading.It is a short story by American author William Faulkner first published in the April 30, 1930 issue of Forum.The story, told in five sections, opens in section one with an unnamed narrator describing the funeral of Miss Emily Grierson. (The narrator always refers to himself in collective pronouns; he is perceived as being the voice of the average citizen of the town of Jefferson.) He notes that while the men attend the funeral out of obligation, the women go primarily because no one has been inside Emilys house for years. The narrator describes what was once a grand house “set on what had once been our most select street.” Emilys origins are aristocratic, but both her house and the neighborhood it is in have deteriorated. The narrator notes that, prior to her death, Emily had been “a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town.” This is because Colonel Sartoris, the former mayor of the town, remitted Emilys taxes dating from the death of her father “on into perpetuity.” Apparently, Emilys father left her with nothing when he died. Colonel Sartoris invented a story explaining the remittance of Emilys taxes (it is the towns method of paying back a loan to her father) to save her from the embarrassment of accepting charity.The narrator uses this opportunity to segue into the first of several flashbacks in the story. The first incident he describes takes place approximately a decade before Emilys death. A new generation of politicians takes over Jeffersons government. They are unmoved by Colonel Sartoriss grand gesture on Emilys behalf and they attempt to collect taxes from her. She ignores their notices and letters. Finally, the Board of Aldermen sends a deputation to discuss the situation with her. The men are led into a decrepit parlor by Emilys black manservant, Tobe. The first physical description of Emily is unflattering: she is “. . . a small, fat woman in black” who looks “bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue.” After the spokesman awkwardly explains the reason for their visit, Emily repeatedly insists that she has no taxes in Jefferson and tells the men to see Colonel Sartoris. The narrator notes that Colonel Sartoris has been dead at that point for almost ten years. She sends the men away from her house with nothing.Section two begins as the narrator segues into another flashback that takes place thirty years before the unsuccessful tax collection. In this episode, Emilys neighbors complain of an awful smell emanating from her home. The narrator reveals that Emily had a sweetheart who deserted her shortly before people began complaining about the smell. The ladies of the town attribute the stench to the poor housekeeping of Emilys manservant, Tobe. However, despite several complaints, Judge Stevens, the towns mayor during this era, is reluctant to do anything about it for fear of offending Emily (“Dammit, sir. . . will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?”). This forces a small contingent of men to take action. Four of them sneak around Emilys house after midnight, sprinkling lime around her house and in her cellar. When they are done, they see that “. . . a window that had been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol.”The narrator notes the towns pity for Emily at this point in a discussion of her familys past. The narrator reveals that Emily once had a mad great-aunt, old lady Wyatt. He also notes that Emily is apparently a spinster because of her fathers insistence that “none of the young men were good enough” for her. The narrator then describes the awful circumstances that follow Emilys fathers death. Emily is at first in such deep denial she refuses to acknowledge that her father is dead. She finally breaks down after three days and allows the townspeople to remove his body.The narrator begins to detail Emilys burgeoning relationship with Homer Barron, a Yankee construction foreman, in section three. The narrator seems sympathetic, but the ladies and many of the older people in town find Emilys behavior scandalous. They gossip about how pathetic Emily has become whenever she rides through the town in a buggy with Homer. However, the narrator notes that Emily still carries herself with pride, even when she purchases arsenic from the towns druggist. The druggist tells her that the law requires her to tell him how she plans to use the poison, but she simply stares at him until he backs away and wraps up the arsenic. He writes “for rats” on the box.At the beginning of section four, the town believes that Emily may commit suicide with the poison she has purchased. The narrator backs up the story again by detailing the circumstances leading up to Emilys purchase of the arsenic. At first, the town believes that Emily will marry Homer Barron when she is seen with him, despite Homers statements that he is not the marrying type. However, a marriage never takes place, and the boldness of their relationship upsets many of the towns ladies. They send a minister to talk to Emily, but the following Sunday she rides through town yet again in the buggy with Homer. The ministers wife sends away for Emilys two female cousins from Alabama in the hope that they will convince Emily to either marry Homer or end the affair. During their visit, Emily purchases a toilet set engraved with Homers initials, as well as a complete set of mens clothing, including a nightshirt. This leads the town to believe that Emily will marry Homer and rid herself of the conceited cousins. Homer leaves Jefferson, apparently to give Emily the opportunity to chase the cousins off. The cousins leave a week later, and Homer is seen going into Emilys house three days after they leave. Homer is never seen again after that and the townspeople believe he has jilted Emily.Emily is not seen in town for almost six months. When she is finally seen on the streets of Jefferson again, she is fat and her hair has turned gray. Her house remains closed to visitors, except for a period of six or seven years when she gives china-painting lessons. She doesnt allow the town to put an address on her house and she continues to ignore the tax notices they send her. Occasionally, she is seen in one of the downstairs windows; she has apparently closed the top floor of the house. Finally, she dies, alone except for her manservant, Tobe.The narrator returns to his recollection of Emilys funeral at the beginning of section five. As soon as Tobe lets the ladies into the house, he leaves out the back door and is never seen again. The funeral is a morbid affair. Soon after Emily is buried, several of the men force the upstairs open. There they find what is evidently the rotten corpse of Homer Barron. Even more grotesque, they find a long strand of iron-gray hair on the pillow next to his remains.