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William Faulkner (1897 - 1962)

The man himself never stood taller than five feet, six inches tall, but in the realm of American literature, William Faulkner is a giant. More than simply a renowned Mississippi writer, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist and short story writer is acclaimed throughout the world as one of the twentieth century's greatest writers, one who transformed his “postage stamp” of native soil into an apocryphal setting in which he explored, articulated, and challenged “the old verities and truths of the heart.” During what is generally considered his period of greatest artistic achievement, from The Sound and the Fury in 1929 to Go Down, Moses in 1942, Faulkner accomplished in a little over a decade more artistically than most writers accomplish over a lifetime of writing. It is one of the more remarkable feats of American literature, how a young man who never graduated from high school, never received a college degree, living in a small town in the poorest state in the nation, all the while balancing a growing family of dependents and impending financial ruin, could during the Great Depression write a series of novels all set in the same small Southern county — novels that include As I Lay Dying , Light in August , and above all, Absalom, Absalom! — that would one day be recognized as among the greatest novels ever written by an American.

The Early Years
William Cuthbert Falkner (as his name was then spelled) was born on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi, the first of four sons born to Murry and Maud Butler Falkner. He was named after his great-grandfather, William Clark Falkner , the “Old Colonel,” who had been killed eight years earlier in a duel with his former business partner in the streets of Ripley, Mississippi. A lawyer, politician, planter, businessman, Civil War colonel, railroad financier, and finally a best-selling writer (of the novel The White Rose of Memphis ), the Old Colonel, even in death, loomed as a larger-than-life model of personal and professional success for his male descendants.
A few days before William's fifth birthday, the Falkners moved to Oxford, Mississippi , at the urging of Murry's father, John Wesley Thompson Falkner. Called the “Young Colonel” out of homage to his father rather than to actual military service, the younger Falkner had abruptly decided to sell the railroad begun by his father. Disappointed that he would not inherit the railroad, Murry took a series of jobs in Oxford, most of them with the help of his father. The elder Falkner, meanwhile, founded the First National Bank of Oxford in 1910 with $30,000 in capital.
William demonstrated artistic talent at a young age, drawing and writing poetry, but around the sixth grade he began to grow increasingly bored with his studies. His earliest literary efforts were romantic, conscientiously modeled on English poets such as Burns, Thomson, Housman, and Swinburne. While still in his youth, he also made the acquaintance of two individuals who would play an important role in his future: a childhood sweetheart, Estelle Oldham, and a literary mentor, Phil Stone.
Estelle was a popular, vivacious girl in Oxford with an active social life that included dances and parties. Despite her romance with William, she dated other boys, one of whom was Cornell Franklin, an Ole Miss law student who proposed marriage. She lightheartedly accepted, apparently believing his request insincere since he was going to Hawaii to establish a law practice. When he sent her an engagement ring several months later, however, her parents thought Franklin would be a fine husband for their daughter, and she found herself unable to escape the circumstances. She and Franklin were married in Oxford on April 18, 1918.
William's other close acquaintance from this period arose from their mutual interest in poetry. When Stone read the young poet's work, he immediately recognized William's talent and set out to give Faulkner encouragement, advice, and models for study.
Like Franklin, Stone was a lawyer, schooled at Ole Miss and Yale. Following Estelle's marriage, he invited Faulkner to stay with him in New Haven, where Faulkner first took a job with the Winchester Repeating Arms Company (where, for the first time, his name was spelled “Faulkner” in employee records, possibly the result of a typing error). But his job did not last long, for in June he accepted an invitation to become a cadet in training in the Royal Air Force in Canada.

Earlier, Faulkner had tried to join the U.S. Army Air Force, but he had been turned down because of his height. In his RAF application, he lied about numerous facts, including his birthdate and birthplace, in an attempt to pass himself as British. He also spelled his name “Faulkner,” believing it looked more British, and in meeting with RAF officials he affected a British accent.

He began training in Toronto, but before he finished training, the war ended. He received an honorable discharge and bought an officer's dress uniform and a set of wings for the breast pocket, even though he had probably never flown solo.
Though he had seen no combat in his wartime military service, upon returning to Oxford in December 1918, he allowed others to believe he had. He told many stories of his adventures in the RAF, most of which were highly exaggerated or patently untrue, including injuries that had left him in constant pain and with a silver plate in his head. His brief service in the RAF would also serve him in his written fiction, particularly in his first published novel, Soldiers' Pay, in 1926.
Back in Oxford, he first engaged in a footloose life, basking in the temporary glory of a war veteran. In 1919, he enrolled at the University of Mississippi in Oxford under a special provision for war veterans, even though he had never graduated from high school. In August, his first published poem, “L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune” [sic], appeared in The New Republic . While a student at Ole Miss, he published poems and short stories in the campus newspaper, the Mississippian , and submitted artwork for the university yearbook. In the fall of 1920, Faulkner helped found a dramatic club on campus called “The Marionettes,” for which he wrote a one-act play titled The Marionettes but which was never staged. After three semesters of study at Ole Miss, he dropped out in November 1920. Over the next few years, Faulkner wrote reviews, poems, and prose pieces for The Mississippian and worked several odd jobs. At the recommendation of Stark Young , a novelist in Oxford, in 1921 he took a job in New York City as an assistant in a bookstore managed by Elizabeth Prall, who would later be the wife of writer Sherwood Anderson. His most notorious job during this period was his stint as postmaster in the university post office from the spring of 1922 to October 31, 1924. By all accounts, he was a terrible postmaster, spending much of his time reading or playing cards with friends, misplacing or losing mail, and failing to serve customers. When a postal inspector came to investigate, he agreed to resign. During this period, he also served as a scoutmaster for the Oxford Boy Scout troop, but he was asked to resign for “moral reasons” (probably drinking).

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THE MEANING OF THE TITLE “A ROSE FOR EMILY”

(written by Dang Xuan Thai Ngan DH02G-AV28)

          The victory of the American Civil War ends glory days of the South. Many southern people refused to accept the changed situation and had kept cherishing their precious memories. They showed a strong attachment to old values and traditions of the faded past. Miss Emily, who is the main character in the story “A Rose for Emily”, is typical of those Southerners. Throughout the story, the word “rose” rarely appears, but trying to interpret it helps readers have a deep understanding about the story.

         “A Rose for Emily” is Faulkner's white rose to Emily, his way of expressing condolences to Emily's death. He sympathizes with her loneliness and her imagination about her status. People in the town respect her but they are one of the main reasons that make her have too good opinion of herself. They do not dare to force her to pay taxes, they do not dare to question her when she buys poison, they are more embarrassed of making remarks about the smell and do not dare to find out the truth about this terrible smell. I have the feeling that they consider her as “holy” idol. They treat her as if she was beyond the law.. If only they forced her to obey the law, she would be more conscious about her real status and integrated into a new era.

          The rose is also a comparison to Emily's life. She grows up in a comfortable environment and has everything a child wants. This caused Emily to be very self – centered and thinks of herself as superior to everyone else in the town even when her father dies. Like the most beautiful rose in a garden, she is too proud of herself to leave a normal life as other people and deny her high status which only exists in her thinking. She refuses to pay taxes, ignores town gossip that she is a fallen woman. In my opinion, she is a victim of the circumstance because she suffers from a lack of genuine love and care, and her stubbornness is caused by her father's overprotective treatment when she is young.

         Rose symbolizes love. In her life, she lacks love and desires to have one. Emily wants to be loved, and she is determined that Homer is her true love to rescue her from her fear of being alone. I think Emily sincerely loves Homer, but his feelings about the relationship are different because he does not like marriage. The only true love she has ever known now leaves her. Her deepest feelings and hidden longings for love result in her murdering of Homer Baron. She does not realize that he is not a deserving man but desperately clings to that blind love. A “rose” is what her searches for in her life but till the day she die, she never has one.

          The rose is Miss Emily herself. In her heyday she was a high – rank beautiful girl, however when she grows up, she has a lot of “thorns” that can cut and wound. Her personality prevents everyone from getting close, even to those who are attracted by the fragrance or beauty of the rose. She frames herself in her house like a rose in a protected garden far from the reach of outsiders. Emily's rose only bloomed for Homer in a short time and then it faded and died as she does.

          The rose here refers to the colour of Emily' life in her viewpoint. Miss Emily herself, I believe, is completely incapable of realizing what happens outside her closed front door. She prefers living in her isolated and protected world inside her house and believes it is a rosy world. She acts like a innocent child because she loses the concept of time. She is both indifferent and unconscious of the crime she committed. She even does not bother to conceal her crime. Instead of taking the reality as it is objectively, she keeps thinking of the past and imprisons herself in her imaginative rosy world. Sadly, it is the people in the town that make her misperceive the real world around her and pride too much on her isolation and independence. For example, when she shows no grief at her father's death, they interpret her action as an example of pride and strength, why don't they talk to her, comfort and sympathize with her true feeling? . They also make up a romantic story about her relationship with Homer Barron. When he disappears, they assume that he has left her with a broken heart, and this gives them another reason to pity the poor lady. However, when they see her walking with even straighter back and keeping her head even higher with dignity, they seem to admire her even more. She is a strong woman with a great sense of tradition but at the same time she is the victim of misperception of the world. The way the town admire her “heroic characteristics” never rescues her from the imaginative rosy world. As a result, her misperception about herself and her real world around continue till the end of her life.

          “A Rose for Emily” is a commentary on love in her life. The author tells us about her father's love and her true love. Her father loves her so much, he protects her and cares for her, but drives all the men in her life away. Homer, the man she sincerely loves, does not return the love she gives him. The 2 men she loves most leave her but her pride keeps her from socializing with other people in the town and reinforces her loneliness. Her desire for love and companionship never satisfied.

          In the story “A Rose for Emily” Faulkner chooses to use town people's point of view as a narrator because it gives the readers a positive and objective view on Miss Emily's life. While recalling past events taking place in the town, the narrator gives the reader insights into Miss Emily's problems, which in turn helps the readers form their own different but suitable interpretations about the title of the story.

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What are the important roles of the four men in Emily's life?

(written by Tran Thi Kim Chau-DH02G-AV28)

          In William Faulkner's 1930 short story "A Rose for Emily," the protagonist, Miss Emily Grierson is a desperately lonely woman. Miss Emily finds herself completely isolated from other people her entire life, yet somehow she manages to continue on with her head holds high. What makes her life become a series of sadness and solitude? It is not herself but, in my viewpoint, the four men including her father, the mayor, the Negro, and Homer Barron that are to blame. They play an important role in Emily's life in terms of her separation. While the mayor and the Negro man keep Emily from dealing with social life through duty and activity, her father and Homer Barron dispossess her of loving and being loved. These are the two aspects I would like to bring into discussion.

          The first aspect to be mentioned is the role of the mayor and the Negro man over Emily's life. About the mayor, he remitted her taxes for she is of noble descent. He must make up a story to legalize this issue without knowing that he unintentionally separates Emily from the outside world. As you know, paying tax is a duty to society and to community as well. It helps a citizen prove his existence in the community and the society where she is living. Here in the story, that Emily does not have to care about the tax means she is remote from the people. About the Negro man, he also puts his hand in the separation of Emily. He has been such a good servant that he cares nothing except for being obedient to his master. He lives silently as he goes in and out with a market basket and takes care of Emily. Even when she is sick, he does not reveal any information about that. Besides, he is considered the only sign of life about Emily's house but he keeps saying nothing about what happens inside the house. In my opinion, Emily would be more involved in the daily life if the Negro man did not exist. Without him, she must go out for food and other needs. Without him, she must do everything on her own. Moreover, if he was not a cold person, he might share her feelings and help her feel relieved. He also might reveal what has happened to Emily so that the people around could help her out of bad condition.

          The second aspect that strongly influences Emily's life is the role of her father and Homer Barron. Talking about Emily's father, I feel like he is the most to blame for her daughter's sorrow. When young, she is loved by many men of the town. But her deceased father used to force away all the young men that were in love with her. That is why during the time in which her father is alive, Emily is seen as a figure to be contemplated but never touched. As a result, she does not have love in her life. Also, the time he passes is the period she is weakest. Never being able to develop any real relationship with anyone else, it seems to me that her world completely crumbles around her. She is lost and tries to hold on to the corpse because he is all she ever knew. However, it is said that there is a beginning after an ending. Although the death of her father is a sad moment, she feels a sense of liberation. She cuts off her hair as a sign of releasing herself from her father's control. Then with the new found freedom, she sets out to fulfill her desires of finding love and living her own life. The time when she at last finds love in Homer Barron is the time she becomes strongest. Unfortunately, she is not loved. Admittedly, there is nothing more painful than loving without being loved. To Emily, the pain is greater because she has reached the old age and she really desire love. This brings her to the last limit of endurance. She is severely depressed and finally poisons Homer Barron in order to not be jilted. To this point, the role of her father and Homer Barron towards Emily's separation has been clear. It is her father that keeps her away from having a normal relationship with a man. It is Homer Barron that knocks her down when he has no love for her. These two men dispossess her of love, a thing which many a woman longs for during her life.

          In conclusion, the type of person Emily is wholly due to the men that have left a harsh impact on her life; particularly her father and Homer Barron. She is made to be separated from the normal life which she deserves living. I can infer from her sorrowful life to say that the people and the surrounding play a significant role in one's development, especially the time of adolescence. Besides, social prejudice or judgments has a powerful strength for it can rise people up and get people down at the same time.

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EMILY KILLED HER SWEETHEART

(written by Hoang Ngoc Trang - DH02G-AV28)

          The papers have written so much about lovers who killed one another. People kill their lovers for such a number of reasons: their lovers cheat them, their lovers have another man/woman and so fourth. Killing is already a terrible thing. Yet, when the murderer and the victim are lovers, the action of killing is often more violent and frightening. Only after Emily died, the townspeople discovered a horrible fact that she had killed her sweetheart – Homer Barron. It was frightening as well as surprising to her neighborhood because they used to think that Emily and Homer would get married. I was at first surprised by her murder too, but later I understood why she did so.

          When Emily was young - when she experienced the most wonderful time in a woman's life, she like any other woman hoped for an interesting boyfriend, a real love, and then a happy family. However successful a woman was, a good husband – a family was always their most wanted thing. That was not a difficult-to-come-true wish for Emily because she lived in a rich family and she was young. She had enough confidence to believe that a good man would come to her. In fact, many men wanted to call upon her and Miss Emily might be very happy. Nevertheless, his father drove them away because “None of young men were quite good enough for Emily and such.” Day by day, Emily missed a lot of chances and “when she got to be thirty … [she] was still single …” The woman wasted her youth so that she lived lonely with her continually increasing age. Now, the old father was the only one she loved and the only one loving her. She totally depended on him. Sadly, her only support broke down. The father died and she was now left alone, no more love, no more money. Emily was deeply sunk in depression, loneliness, and regret at a last youth. When this woman seemed to fall down entirely, the God sent a man to her. “Whenever you heard a lot of laughing anywhere about the square, Homer Barron would be in the center of the group.” What a man with a sense of humor. It was understandable that she would rely on him, that she would put all of her expectations on her only man. However, everything shattered when Homer himself remarked that “he liked men” and “that he was not a marrying man.” He made her expect too much and later he made her too disappointed. Love could make Emily or anyone happy but it also turned her into madness. Any woman in this situation would get crazy and it was merely the God who knew what they dared to do. Miss Emily chose to kill her beloved. A normal girl would never do that but she was Emily who lost so many things, her youth, her father, her wealthy life, and also her final and only happiness – her sweetheart.

          The society was another cause of Emily's murder. Right when people saw her and Homer driving together on Sunday afternoons, they felt sorry for her. They considered her love a pity because such a noble woman got married to a Yankee, a black and day laborer. The whole neighborhood gossiped about their relationships as if her love was something eccentric, terrible, and against the code and modes of the society. She was sympathized by the kind neighborhood that was very glad to see her cousins come to prevent her marriage. They said “Two female cousins were even more Grierson then Miss Emily had ever been,” and they were very happy about that. When she went with such a day laborer, she refused her high status and she was no longer among respected upper class. Miss Emily with her love suffered not only the criticisms of surrounded people but also the condemnation of her relatives. How could a noble woman married a low-classed man? How could a South woman married a Northerner? The standards of the society were a big barrier for her love that she and her sweetheart seemed to be unable to overcome. He would go to escape from the society's prejudice. He would go to make Emily stay in her noble status. He would go because he could not bear the public's judgments. If she had no way to keep him by her side, if she had to lose him, she would sooner kill him than let him go. Again, love and prejudice tormented a vulnerable woman to madness. Her killing of her sweetheart was resulted from a love bounded and suppressed by the old standards of the society.

          When analyzing a murder, we often seek for wrong things the victim does, which cause his/her death. Then we blame on the situation, the context, and the society, which created a cause for the crime. However, it is very important to look at the murder, to look at his/her inside to see another aspect of the fact. She grew up in the protection and preservation of her father. He – “the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were” and he made her daughter think the same. Emily considered her higher than people surround. She separated herself from the world outside to be earthless and noble. Many times people thought that she must have felt down but she always “carried her head high … it was as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson.” Then it was Colonel Sartoris who gave her a right not to pay the tax. “Only a man of Colonel Sartoris' generation and thought could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed it … When the next generation, with its more modern ideas … this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction.” This separated her more from the society and gave her a special right over other people. And then a loyal Negro servant kept silent before her deed, kept protecting her, and kept covering up her superior thought and her monstrous actions. For those reasons, Emily developed a view that she could live above the others, she didn't need their care or sympathy, and she would vanquished all of them. With this characteristic, Emily made everyone believe that she and Homer would get married although he might be a gay man or he didn't want to marry her. She chose to kill him rather than let people know that she was a loser. She could vanquish everyone including the man who did not respond to her love. She could make him hers for good. He laid there and could never go away.

          Also in term of her characteristics, I would like to stress that Emily was a traditional woman. She lived an old monument, an old ideology which were no longer accepted by the new generation. The world around had changed much but she was still in her shell. Nobody wanted to learn painting from her; it was a symbolism for her severe traditional viewpoint. The society prevented her love or it was herself who couldn't accept a marriage with a black laborer. The idea of “noblesse oblige” might ingrain in her mind so that she killed her sweetheart rather than bravely got married to him. She represented something of the past which the community was proud of. She was the last Grierson, a noble class that the whole community looked at and admired. So, she was the person who was most afraid of the public' judgments and actually she could never accept the society's ordinary judgments and values. She could never bear the ladies' idea that “it was [her relationship] a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people.” The pride and the dignity of an upper class were so important to her that she could not go out of the community's opinions to get her happiness. Being wavering between love – (she was over thirty) and dignity, Miss Traditionally Noble Emily decided to kill his lovers to keep him by her side and she didn't have to lose her own gracious image. A dispointing lover, a gossiping neighborhood, the community's values, her pride, her conscious aristocracy, her refusal to mix with normal standards of the society, her superior views, and her intentional disconnection from the real world all contributed a complex, monstrous, and mad psychology in Emily. This psychology certainly led to an abnormal action, and it was a gruesome crime. The story did not simply to describe a horror; it was not simply a horror story. The killing was not an action which frightened the audience, but it said many things about the society and a person's awareness of herself and of the world outside.

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What are the important roles of the four men in Emily's life
in term of her separation from the world?

(written by Vu Yen - DH02G-AV28)

          In the early of the twentieth century, there were two famous American writers living in nearly the same period of time were remembered as the greatest eccentric American writers. One is Ernest Hemingway (1899-1962), and another is a gentle and arrogant Southern writer known as William Faulkner. William Faulkner (1896-1962) was born in a Southern family in Oxford , Mississippi . He was undeniably defined as a gifted writer who became very famous during his lifetime, and who always kept away from the spotlight as far as possible. His Characteristics described as being sophisticated, eccentric, gentle, and arrogant had a great influence to many of his later masterpieces. One of the unforgettable works of William Faulkner is “ A Rose for Emily”. In this story, the main character, a spinster whose whole life was modified dramatically by four male characters; her father, her lover, the major, and the manservant. These four men play an important role in leading Emily to the separation from the worldwide.

          “A Rose for Emily” is the story of an eccentric spinster that was published in 1930. The unknown narrator tells the facts about Emily's life including her weird relationship with her father, her lover, and the town people in Jefferson . The story ends surprisingly for the revelation of Emily's deepest secret that she hides nearly forty years. Her secret is also the author's consideration to the noble conservation in the early of the twentieth century.

          The first thing that brings Emily a tragedy life is her traditional conservation. Miss Emily is characterized as an austere spinster who is nobody's best friend even the whole town people, and she causes no harm to anybody. Her personality suffers traumatically, but no one can ease her pain. Growing up in a noble family, Emily is portrayed as “a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of heredity obligation upon the town”. Moreover, her father, Mr. Grierson determined the whole life of Emily. When she was young, her father had driven all of her suitors away. It can be said that Mr. Grierson preserved his elite blood from being unnoble because of Emily's marriage with a low class husband. Living with her father, Emily inherited a kind of noble tradition. Later on she adopted her father's perception, and appeared to be conservative, quiet, eccentric, unsociable, and complex. That is the reason why Emily separates herself from the town people.

          Another point that isolates Emily from the society belongs to the fault responsibility of the American Government. Major Colonel Startoris who symbolizes for the American Government appears to be the important role in reserving Emily's nobility. As mentioned above, Emily represents for the British noble tradition in the American society. Therefore, the government has to participate Emily in to the community by endowing her tax, but Major Startoris “Remitted her taxes” by fooling people that “Emily's father had loaned enough money to the town which the town, as a matter of business preferred this way of repaying”. By exempting the tax, Major Startoris indirectly separates Emily from the society.

          The greatest tragedy in Emily's life happened after the death of her father and later on the disappearance of her lover, Homer Barron. “When we next saw miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray. Until the next few year; It grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and salt-iron gray”, and the people in the town only notice her existence by the in and out of the manservant who resembles as a wall for Emily's noble preservation. Moreover, the fact that Homer Barron was a Northern daily laborer, and he was not the type of marrying man who would refer hanging out with his friends rather than with Emily raised a contradiction inside Emily. Emily loved Homer Barron, but why she poisoned him and spent almost forty years sleeping next to him every night. The answer lies on her emotional complex. Emily is characterized as a noble conservative person. If she married Homer Barron, she would lose her elite identity that she had tried to preserve such a long time. Therefore by killing Homer Barron, Emily could keep her noble reputation.

          In conclusion, by his gifted writing ability, William Faulkner describes the negative perception about nobility in the American society of the early twentieth century. The major theme of the story is the influence of the people, especially the four male characters to Emily's perception that leads her to the separation from the worldwide.

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What are the important roles of the four men in Emily's life

in term of her isolation?

(written by Le Thi Nguyet Thu - DH02G-AV28)

          William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily” is considered to be a Gothic horror tale by many readers. The story is about the strange circumstances of Emily's life and her odd relationship with four men, her father, Colonel Sartoris, Homer Barron and the Negro. They are also important factors that lead to Emily's separation.

          Miss Emily Grierson is a noble woman who has an eccentric lifestyle. In her whole life, she mostly makes contacts with only four men. The first and also the man who has the most powerful affect on Emily is her father. Born in a wealthy and noble family, Emily had many duty and rule to follow. Her father was a nobleman who had a traditional rigid thought. We do not need to imagine what her father was like. He was built up as a strong character with a great influence. In the beginning of the story, his impressionable nature was described as “Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette with foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip…” Emily seemed to be so small under her father‘s influence. In her younger years, he had driven all her suitors away because he did not want Emily to marry a normal man. She was like a statue to be admired but not to be touched. “So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly…” In that way, he made Emily lose hope, control and happiness. We can see that she is an acquiescent child. She did nothing to stop her father's action. She had to suffer and then get used to being a noble woman. Indeed, in the whole story, I never saw Emily changing her way of living even when her father was death. With this kind of influence, I did think that her father's death would make a big change to Emily. However, I could not find any clue for it. When the ladies in the town prepared to call at the house, Emily appeared, “dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face”. Her action of driving everybody away was just like her father's. “We remembered all the young men her father had driven away”. It was surprising! Emily did not believe her father was death. She tried to hold on to him in some way even though his spirit was gone. She kept his death body in three days until everybody persuade her to let them dispose the body. But then, she broke down. He was the closest to her. She had never been able to build up a real relationship with any other man. Therefore, his death was a great loss for Emily. And at Emily's funeral, there was a crayon picture of him hanging above her bier. This man had died but his influence still remained until the time Emily was death. Her whole life was in the control of her father. It was also the influence of being noble on may people at that time. Even though the society had changed, they could not take control of their lives.

          The second man who had a rather important role in Emily's life was Colonel Sartoris, the major. He was even more traditional than Emily and her father. “He fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron-remitted her taxes”. He used to allow Emily not to paying any tax. He was the factor that strengthened her belief of being a noblesse. Many years after his death, when the current major came to Emily's house to talk about the tax she had to pay, she still believed that she did not have to pay any money for it. She even did not care of talking to them, just simply told them to see Colonel. I think she had no idea that Colonel had died and the time had passed.

          The third man in Emily's life was Homer Barron. He appeared really in the right time, after Emily's father had passed away. This was the time Emily became more humanized, more lively. She felt that she was late in life and she wanted to change it. And then she met Homer. He was the only love of her life, the first man that brought her happiness. I think Emily was really in love with him. She had the happiest time with him. But poor Emily! Homer was said to “like men”, that “he was not a marrying man”. And I also think of the difference between Emily's status and Homer's. Although the society had changed, Emily had no idea of it. She thought that there was no way for her to come to Homer. The only way was to kill him, to make him her property. She just wanted to keep him beside forever. Another reason for her to kill him was because of her noble characteristic. When being a noble, what she wanted was what she had to get no matter which way was used. Emily committed the crime but she did not know it was wrong. Homer was the factor that increased her bad belief. Love had made her blind. She also thought that no one could ever catch her because she was a noblewoman. She lived in her own world and did not care about the world around her. And she wanted Homer to join into her world, a world in rose. The fact that Emily often laid beside Homer's skeleton was terrible. A normal woman would not do it. Emily was going out of her mind. It was said that “the long sleep outlasts love”. I do not know whether there was real love between them or not, but at least, it was a gift, a rose for Emily.

          The final man was the Negro. He worked for Emily's family for a long time and stayed with her even though she ran out of money. Negro man was said to be loyal servant. He did everything for her. He was the only one sign that helped the villagers to know that Emily was still alive. He was also the factor that shut Emily out of the world because he helped her go out to buy things. And when she was sick, this old man took care of her instead of going the house and disappeared. It seemed like he kept all the secrets about Emily and would die with them. Certainly when Emily killed Homer, he new the plan and also became a helper. With this kind of royalty, I wonder that the Negro was in love with Emily. It was secret love that he could not tell anybody and even he did not dare to. This kind of love had kept him doing stupid things to help Emily to get what she wanted. She became a child, an orphan in the Negro's point of view. Without the Negro, the readers will never know the true story. It was as mysterious as the tile of the story. His loyalty was also a “rose for Emily”.

          “A Rose for Emily” is a story of a pity woman who had to suffer a lot. Throughout her life, there were the hallmarks of the four men. Some helped her, some brought her down, and some kept her out of the real world. But still, they were all roses for Emily.

A ROSE FOR EMILY

Pham Vu Phi Ho, M.A. - Nong Lam University