A Store Manager Is an Example of a General Agent.

Alexandra Sisavath

Dr. Mary Lasco

English 1302

March 26, 2014

A Story for the Ages: Connecting Literature and U.S. History

Unfortunately, no matter the time period, gossiping, curious neighbors are a seemingly inescapable part of society. In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” in the year of 1894 when Emily Grierson’s father has passed away, the townspeople of Jefferson, Mississippi watch intently as the sadness of her life unfolds. These events span throughout decades, introducing the devastating potential for multiple generations of onlookers. As in many examples of Gothic literature, Emily’s downturn—at least, as witnessed through the eyes of the townspeople—is catapulted by death, the death of her dominating father. She not merely resides in her great and menacing estate, she also becomes reclusive, harboring a dark secret within the walls of her home. In “A Rose for Emily,” actual societal changes of the South are revealed through the events of Emily Grierson’s life and witnessed from the narrative point of view: the combined generations of men and women, young and older, and even the poor and middle class inhabitants of the fictional town of Jefferson.

Many of the themes of William Faulkner’s writing draws from his personal experience. Faulkner was born in 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi. He was raised in a prominent Southern family full of great Civil War heroes and entrepreneurs, but his family’s dynamic was more than one-dimensional. As opined by scholar Debra Gordon:

“It's ironic that so much of his work is dedicated to the everyday man, as Faulkner himself had been raised in anything but a lower-class or mundane environment. Born into a relatively wealthy Mississippi family in which the strain of alcoholism ran swiftly through the males, he was raised in a manner both typical and atypical for the time: in addition to the traditional Southern curriculum of hunting, fishing, farming, and connoisseurship of bourbon, he was educated also in...