Chen Peng
20/09/2011
Interpretation of Literature Paper#1

In William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, recurring imagery of time passing demonstrates the tension between the past and the present in Emily’s lifetime, which reveals the negative impacts of the backward traditions of the past on her destiny. In this way, Emily both embodies and is affected by the changing times. She is, in so many words, a metaphor for the decay of the old era. Miss Emily was seen as a monument because of her dignity and tradition in her time. As a result, she had always reminded herself that she was supposed to be a legendary figure whose story would be told to the next generation. She was expected to have an immense amount of wealth, a respectable social identity, and a successful marriage. However, things did not turn out that way. Her father, who was a declined aristocrat, ruthlessly intervened in her early years and drove away all of the young men who wanted to court her. Since no one dared to approach her, “When she got to be thirty … she was still single” (Faulkner 287). Time, in this situation, was really the urgency and the pressure to her. She needed time to redeem her respect. Nonetheless, all of the respect that her family had earned during the old time died with the death of her father. She seemed to be too weak to prevent the time being away from her side, and “Thus she passed from generation to generation-dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse” (290). In the end, she refused to accept the new generation and isolated herself to the changes of the society. She ended up spending the rest of her life staying in the house. The story tells that, “Her house, which no one save an old manservant-a combined gardener and cook-had seen in at least ten years” (284). Images of time passing witnessed her downfall. The dispute between the old Southern traditions and the new cultural shifts immensely affected Miss Emily’s life. In the past, she was “A focus and a care” (284) in the town. Because of her special identity, the mayor remitted her tax as a privilege after her father died. She was gradually used to this privilege and ultimately took it for granted. As time went on, however, the newer generation came into power with its more modern ideas, which led to the old arrangement being questioned and opposed. At this point, the change of time generated a sort of tension stemming from the disagreement between the old and the new that bothered Miss Emily. When requested to pay her tax as anyone else did, Miss Emily directly refused by leaving “The front door closed for good” (290). She had even “Alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it” (290) for many years. Because the treatment of the newer generation to her did not sit well with her, in her mind a woman from the upper society should be looked up to and given deserved privileges, especially in her town. This stereotype, which was a heritage of the Southern tradition, ate at her every moment and made her unable to adapt to the new circumstances. Rather than acknowledged her duty as a citizen in the town to pay her tax, she turned down all of the obligations on which she was supposed to take as well as all the kindness that people had offered. She pretended that she “Vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell” (286). In effect, however, what she did was just hiding away from the world as she saw had changed. The “Thirty years” (286) that had passed in her life created her inner insecurities and doubts about the traditions that she had relied on all through her life. It was exactly this kind of inward insecurities that had damaged her love and marriage, which became overwhelming nightmares to her, nightmares that would constantly trigger the tension in her soul all through her life. Realizing time had no longer on her side Miss Emily forced herself to make a change. It really surprised everyone in town when she fell in love with Homer Barron-a Northerner, a day laborer. Because what she had been doing was actually a breach to her culture. Even though she “Carried her head high enough” and “As if she had wanted that touch of earthliness to reaffirm her imperviousness” (288), she was indeed suffering from a piece of inner pressure brought by a sense of tradition. She was too fragile to bear with any loss. When Homer finally turned out abandoning her, her whole world was completely torn down. She lost her very last thing that could be dwelled on-the respect as the last Grierson. Picturing her past dignity, elegance, and tradition, Miss Emily at this point realized that they would never be a reality again. The only thing that she could do to preserve the sense of pride as a traditional Southern noblewoman was to terminate the existence of the one who had thoroughly destroyed her past aspirations. The arsenic, however, poisoned not only Homer who she hated, but also her. The failure of her marriage turned her into insanity and she was no longer able to confront the downfall of her life. The time that had passed by changed nothing but turned her hair to gray. “During the next few years it grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray, when it ceased turning” (289). Till the end of her life, she still refused to make a compromise to the changing world. Instead, she shuttered herself alone in the house, slept with a dead body, and pretended retaining the past magnificence of her time. Nevertheless, the decay of her era indeed had been inevitable. Faulkner continuously displays a sequence of images of time passing to demonstrate the tension and conflict that Miss Emily could have overcome but never did. Those images reveal the fact that beneath her front a powerful force causes that tension and makes her feel deeply conflicted inside. Virtually, this particular kind of force is a sense of tradition originating from the outdated Southern cultures that are fully filled with conservation, pride, and perverseness. Driven by the sense of tradition, Emily is deeply convinced that she is a monument and will never fall. Since she holds herself a little too high for what she really is, she never succeeds managing her life psychologically when the decay of old era and the rise of new spirit simultaneously strike her. As time goes on, her recognition to the old values has gradually faded, while the doubts about her traditions have progressively increased. Eventually, she ends up making a complete withdrawal into permanent loneliness. Miss Emily is a victim of the rotten traditions who loses herself in the downfall of the old era.