Allegory and Commentary on A Rose for Emily
An Allegory and Commentary “The men go to her funeral ‘through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument.’ Her house is ‘an eyesore among eyesores,’ it symbolizing Miss Emily herself in its coquettish decay” (Davis262). ... In his short story “A Rose for Emily,” he uses many symbols to enhance the entertainment of the story. Faulkner’s main use of symbols in “A Rose for Emily” was to create an allegory of North vs. ... He also created a commentary on the passage of time that Miss Emily tried to retain, but failed and her failure was demonstrated by the natural changes in her. “A Rose for Emily” has been read variously as an allegory of the relations between North and South. Akers expands on this by stating “this is apparently because the character of Homer Barron is a Yankee and Emily kills him (Akers257). The symbols that were used to create this allegory between the North and the South were the narrator, representing the South, and Homer Barron representing the North by being a rival of the South (Dilworth). ... He also believes that the narrator represents the women of the town, and symbolizes “proper’ Southern belles living in town find Miss Emily’s pre-marital relationship immoral (Burduck260). Burduck also says about the narrator, “She wants her listeners to understand that Emily was not representative of the typical ‘Southern Lady’ (Burduck261). However, Donald Akers also believes that Emily’s motive behind killing Homer was not one of anti-Northern causes. ... Thomas Dilworth states “By entering a love affair with Homer Barron, Emily briefly rebelled against southern values and then, by ending her affair with him, at least as far as the townspeople were concerned, she conformed again to those values.