A Summary of “A Rose for Emily”

A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner is told, in a first person point of view, by one of
the townsfolk of Jefferson. The story, told in a fragmented, non-chronological plot, opens with
the death of Miss Emily Grierson, a woman who was born into a Southern aristocratic family, in
an upscale neighbourhood and a grandiose house. The entire community attended the funeral but
it was implied by the narrator that none of them really knew Emily well because she led an
eccentric, mysterious life of social isolation.

In the next part, the narrator brings the reader to Emily’s early years when she was
isolated by her father from most social contact, such as driving off her suitors. The townspeople
believe that the family held themselves too highly for what they really were. Hence to Emily’s
father, her suitors were not good enough for her daughter to marry. Consequently, she became
the subject of pity by the people for she remained single until she reached the age of thirties.

The Jefferson people believed that she suffered mental breakdown following the death of
her father- a death which she even refuses to admit until after three days. The townspeople
detected the Grierson’s house emitting a strong, acrid odour in the neighbourhood and locusts
lined the street. Thus, one night, some men sneaked into her house, like burglars, and sprinkled
lime. This made people really sad and they recalled her grand-aunt, old lady Wyatt, who had also
gone crazy. Then, the minister and the doctors tried to persuade her to dispose the body of her
father but she maintained that the old Grierson was not dead. It was only until they forced her
that her father was finally buried.

When the town was governed by Colonel Sartoris, Emily was exempted from paying her
taxes because antiquated social mores and code of conduct did not allow the town to tax a poor
spinster, especially white women. But the next generation of mayors and aldermen did not
operate in the same manner. They attempted to collect her taxes but she refused to adhere saying
“I have no taxes in Jefferson” and vanquished them completely.

Emily got ill for a while and the next time the townsfolk saw her she had her hair cut like
that of a girl. Then, in the summer after her father’s death she met Homer Barron, a Northerner
construction foreman who was in Jefferson to oversee the crew working in the sidewalks. The
town noticed that both spend time together. They frowned upon the union because they thought
that Baron, a working class, was no good for Emily. Furthermore, Baron had a scandalous
reputation having remarked that he liked men and he was not the marrying type. Everybody
knew that he had been drinking with younger men at a certain club in Jefferson.

Emily’s involvement with Baron increased the town’s pity for Emily. Her reputation was
also compromised and if she would marry him, she had to persuade him yet.

Worried that her boyfriend might leave her, Emily went to a drug store to purchase
arsenic, a poison for rats. The next day, people suspected that she might kill herself. But later the
people learned that Emily ordered a man’s toilet set in silver with the letters H.B. and also she
bought a complete outfit of men’s clothing. So, the people tattled that they were probably
married by then.

When Emily’s cousins from Alabama came to Jefferson, Homer Barron was gone in town
for three days. When her cousins left, a neighbour saw that the Negro admitted Homer back to
Grierson’s house. That was the last time Jefferson townsfolk saw Homer. Grierson’s house, on
the other hand, remained closed since then with no people going in and out of it, except for the
Negro with his market basket at hand, while, from time to time, Emily could only be seen at a
window.

The next time people saw her, she has already grown fat and old. She had not appeared
on the streets and her house remained closed since she gave painting lessons until the day she
died, at a ripe age of seventy-four.

When she died, her cousins came to take care of her estate. After Emily was decently
buried, they opened the door in the region above the stairs. No one had seen it for forty long
years and they were stunned with disbelief when they finally broke the door and saw what was
hidden inside it. They discovered Homer’s corpse on the bed and a pillow with the indentation of
a head and with a long strand of iron-gray hair next to it.