Blog #8, "A Rose for Emily"

In “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, Southern Gothic, modernity vs. tradition, and gender issues happen within this short story along with a small racial issues that are noticeable.  Instead of the Gothic literature as a whole, Southern Gothic occurs because of the location in the South and because of the grotesque element that also takes place that takes on a more realistic value than a supernatural one like vampires, etc.  Instead, it shows how an individual, Miss Emily, is dealing with a society that is changing right in front of her eyes and the suffering she is going through.  This also ties in with the modernity vs. tradition issue.  Miss Emily struggles to keep up with her society rapidly changing to a more modern society.  For example, the modern mail service the town begins to set up.  Miss Emily refuses the mail service to put numbers on her house as an address.  To me, it seems like she is afraid of change and refuses to have any part in it.  Faulkner also used the Southern Gothic style of writing by making Emily the “damsel in distress” because of this fear of change and her refusing to at any cost. Gender issues occur when, “So when she got to be thirty and still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn’t have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized” (2). This is a gender related issue because in the past when girls became what was considered women in their society, they were married off at a very young age.  However, when girls were not married by what middle age was, people would assume something was wrong with her.  Also, some of the ladies told the man that he would not be able to take care of the kitchen simply because he was a man.  So in this story both sides of gender related issues occurred. The small racial issues I witnessed throughout the story was the use of the “N” word.  Overall, William Faulkner wrote a short story to show that once a person has their mind set on something, nothing can change their minds and that sometimes their actions are controlled by what they truly believe in.