A Rose for Emily

"A Rose for Emily" is a short story by American author William Faulkner first published in the April 30, 1931 issue of Forum. This story takes place in Faulkner's fictional city, Jefferson, Mississippi in the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha County. It was Faulkner's first short story published in a national magazine.

Title

Faulkner explained the reason for his choice of the title as:

Plot

The story is divided into five sections.In section I, the narrator recalls the time of Emily Grierson's death and how the entire town attended her funeral in her home, which no stranger had entered for more than ten years. In a once-elegant, upscale neighborhood, her house is the last vestige of the grandeur of a lost era. Colonel Sartoris, the town’s previous mayor, had suspended Emily’s tax responsibilities to the town after her father’s death, justifying the action by claiming that Mr. Grierson had once lent the community a significant sum. As new town leaders take over, they make unsuccessful attempts to get Emily to resume payments. When members of the Board of Aldermen pay her a visit, in the dusty and antiquated parlor, Emily reasserts the fact that she is not required to pay taxes in Jefferson and that the officials should talk to Colonel Sartoris about the matter. However, at that point he has been dead for almost a decade. She asks her servant, Tobe, to show the men out.

In section II, the narrator describes a time thirty years earlier when Emily resists...
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