A Rose for Emily
Based on the short story by William Faulkner
I
HERE’S HOW
When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her
Literary Focus
funeral. The men went out of a sort of affection for a fallen
Since the whole town went
to the funeral, I would say
that the setting for this
story is a small town where
everyone knows one another.
But I wonder what kind of
place it is, because almost no
one had been in Miss Emily’s
house for ten years.
B
monument. The women went to see the inside of her house. No
one but an old servant had seen it in at least ten years. It was a big
house with balconies on what was once the best street in town.
But like the street, the house was now in a state of decay. A
Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care. It
began in 1894, after her father died. At that time, the mayor,
Colonel Sartoris, eliminated her taxes (not that Miss Emily
HERE’S HOW
Language Coach
10
would have accepted charity). Colonel Sartoris made up a tale
that Miss Emily’s father had loaned money to the town, and this
Adding a suffix to the end
of an adjective can turn it
into a noun in some cases. By
adding the suffix –ness, the
adjective dim, which means
“not bright,” can be turned
into the noun dimness.
Dimness means “state or
quality of not being bright.”
was the town's way of paying it back.
When the next generation came to power, they rejected
this arrangement. On the first of the year, they mailed her a tax
notice. But February came, and there was no reply.
A group of aldermen1 went to see her. The old Negro
servant let them into a dim, stale-smelling hall. B The parlor
was furnished in worn, leather-covered furniture.
They rose when she entered. She was a small, fat woman
20
in black, leaning on a cane. She looked bloated, like a drowned
body. She did not ask them to sit. She just stood in the door and
listened.
When she spoke, her voice was dry and cold. “I have no
taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me.”
“But there is nothing in our records. We must go by the—”
“See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson.”
1.
Here, aldermen are town officials.
“A Rose for Emily” adapted from Collected Stories of William Faulkner. Copyright 1930 and
renewed © 1958 by William Faulkner. Retold by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
Reproduced by permission of Random House, Inc. and electronic format by permission of
Faulkner Literary Estate.
186
A Rose for Emily
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
A
“But, Miss Emily—”the aldermen protested.
“See Colonel Sartoris,” she repeated. (Colonel Sartoris
had been dead almost ten years.) “Tobe!” The Negro appeared.
30
“Show these gentlemen out.” C
II
So she sent them away, just as she had sent away their fathers
thirty years before about the smell. That was two years after her
father’s death and a short time after her sweetheart deserted her.
C
HERE’S HOW
Reading Focus
I am trying to make an
inference about how Miss
Emily can get the best of the
aldermen this way. Is it her
strength of character, or are
the aldermen embarrassed
because she is so unattractive
or because she has such a
high social standing?
After her father’s death, she went out very little. After her
sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all. The only sign
of life about the place was the Negro coming and going.
“As if any man could keep a kitchen properly,” the ladies
said. So they were not surprised when the smell developed.
The Board of Aldermen had to deal with the smell. “It’s
40
simple,” the youngest said. “Send her word to have her place
cleaned up. Give her a certain time to do it in, and if she don’t. . .”
D
HERE’S HOW
Vocabulary
The word slunk means
“moved secretly.” The text
also says that the men moved
“like burglars.” I do not think
the men are going to do
anything bad; I think they just
want to avoid being seen by
Miss Emily.
Judge Stevens said, “Will you accuse a lady of smelling bad?”
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So the next night, after midnight, four men slunk around
E
YOUR TURN
Miss Emily’s house like burglars. D They broke open the cellar
Reading Focus
door and sprinkled lime there. As they recrossed the lawn, they
What inference can you
make about the the
townspeople from this
paragraph? Explain your
answer.
saw Miss Emily in the window. After a time the smell went away.
People in our town believed that the Griersons had thought
they were better than everyone else. None of the young men
were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. When her
50
father died, we learned that the house was all that was left to her.
In a way, people were glad. Being left alone and poor, she had
become a more sympathetic figure. E
The day after his death, all the ladies prepared to call at
the house, as is our custom. Miss Emily met them at the door,
dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told
them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days.
Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke
down, and they buried her father quickly.
A Rose for Emily
187
We did not say she was crazy then. We remembered all the
A
LITERARY ANALYSIS
60
young men her father had driven away. It was natural that with
nothing left, she would cling to the one who had robbed her. A
Based on what you have
read so far, do you think Miss
Emily is crazy? Why or why
not?
III
She was sick for a long time. When we saw her again, her hair
was cut short, like a girl’s.
The town had just arranged for paving the sidewalks, and
in the summer after her father’s death, they began the work. The
construction company’s foreman was a Yankee named Homer
Barron—a man with rough good looks. Whenever you heard a
lot of laughing anywhere about the square, Homer Barron would
Underline details about
Homer Barron in this
paragraph.
C
be in the center of the group. B Soon we began to see him and
QUICK CHECK
70
Miss Emily on Sunday afternoons driving in a yellow-wheeled
buggy.
The ladies all said, “Of course a Grierson would not think
seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer.” C But eventually the
YOUR TURN
old people began saying, “Poor Emily.”
Literary Focus
She carried her head high—even when we thought she
What does this sentence tell
you about the setting of this
story?
was fallen. It was as if, as the last Grierson, she demanded more
respect than ever. For instance, there was the arsenic matter.
“I want some poison,” she said to the druggist. She was over
thirty then, still a slight woman, with cold, haughty black eyes.
80
“I want some poison,” she said.
“Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such? I’d recom—”
“Arsenic,” Miss Emily said. “Is that a good one?”
D
YOUR TURN
Reading Focus
What inference can you
make about Miss Emily’s
character from the incident
with the arsenic?
“Why, of course,” the druggist said. “If that’s what you want.
But the law requires you to tell what you are going to use it for.”
Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back, until
he looked away and went and got the arsenic. When she opened
the package at home, she saw “For rats” had been written on the
box. D
188
A Rose for Emily
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B
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© Images.com/Corbis
IV
So the next day we all said, “She will kill herself ”; and we said
90
it would be the best thing. It seemed as if Homer Barron would
never marry her. We began saying, “Poor Emily,” as they passed
E
QUICK CHECK
Why do the townspeople
think Miss Emily will kill
herself?
on Sunday in the buggy, Miss Emily with her head high and
Homer Barron with his hat cocked and a cigar in his teeth. Some
of the ladies said that it was a disgrace. E
A Rose for Emily
189
HERE’S HOW
George Wesley Bellows, American, 1882–1925, My Mother, March 1921, Oil on canvas,
83 X 49 in. (210.8 X 124.5 cm), Frank Russell Waksworth Memorial, 1923.975. Detail.
The Art Institute of Chicago/Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago
A
Literary Focus
I think it is unusual that
someone could live in a
small town for so long
without seeing anyone else.
People in this setting seem
to have great respect for
tradition and privacy.
Then, suddenly, we were sure that they were to be married.
comb, and mirror, with the letters H. B. on each piece. Two days
later, we learned that she had bought an outfit of men’s clothing,
including a nightshirt. We said, “They are married.” We were
100
really glad.
A neighbor saw the Negro man let Homer Barron in at the
kitchen door one evening. That was the last we saw of Barron
and of Miss Emily for some time. For almost six months she did
not appear on the streets.
When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat. During
the next few years, her hair turned iron gray.
From that time on, her front door remained closed. Each
December, we sent her a tax notice, which would be returned by
the post office a week later, unclaimed. Thus, she passed from
110
generation to generation. A
She died in one of the downstairs rooms, her gray head
propped on a pillow moldy with age.
190
A Rose for Emily
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We learned that Miss Emily had purchased a man’s hairbrush,
V
The Negro let the ladies in at the front door. He walked right
through the house and out the back and was not seen again.
They held the funeral on the second day, with the town
coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers.
B
YOUR TURN
Vocabulary
An embrace is a hold or a
hug. Why might the man
have been in the position of
an embrace?
Already we knew that there was one room upstairs that no one
had seen in forty years and which would have to be forced. They
waited until Miss Emily was buried before they opened it.
120
The room was decked out as if for a bride, but dust lay
everywhere: on the curtains, on the dressing table, on the man’s
brush and mirror. Upon a chair hung the suit, carefully folded;
beneath it, the two shoes and the discarded socks.
The man himself lay in the bed.
For a long while we just stood there, staring. The body had
apparently once lain in the position of an embrace. B What was
C
LITERARY ANALYSIS
What do you think is the
importance of the long
strand of iron-gray hair on
the pillow?
left of his rotting corpse had dissolved into the bed.
Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the
indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it.
130
Leaning forward—the dust dry and bitter in our nostrils—we
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
saw a long strand of iron-gray hair. C
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191