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A Story Summary - a Rose for Emily

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“A Rose for Emily” – A Story Summary
The short story “A Rose for Emily” (1930) by William Faulkner is set after the Civil War in the south of the United States in a fictional town called Jefferson. The story is not told chronologically and it is divided into five parts, each talking about a different episode of the protagonist’s life. She has one big lifelong problem – the inability to accept any changes in life and she tries to keep all the things in the way they always were. Miss Emily Grierson is a lonely lady from an aristocratic family who suffered a lot in her life. She lost a man who she loved and hoped to marry, as well as her father, who died. She is attached to her life and not willing to make any changes. She even does not want to admit to herself that her father really died. The townspeople have to come up with law to persuade her to let them take the body out of the house. We can see her refusing to pay taxes, which were remitted to her father. And she kept refusing to pay them even after a personal visit. However, they decide not to charge her, and remit her taxes again. She stops going out at all and she stays all days shut in in her house. She has a black servant, Tobe, who helps her with shopping. People start to complain about a smell around Emily’s house, but it vanishes after some time. Although the residents of the city do not like her much, they start to feel sorry for her after all. A Northman, Homer Barron, comes to the city. He is the absolute opposite of Emily, fresh and moving fast in his life. They start to see each other and people believe they will get married. But Emily is trapped in her past, which is not a style for Homer. One day Emily comes to a drugstore to buy a strong poison, but does not want to say what for. Homer disappears. When Emily grows older, she starts to teach young people china-painting. But after she loses her

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