Another interesting tidbit about William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" concerns the deliberate choice of the early twentieth-century South as the story's setting. This setting is initially established by the narrator's mention of the "graves of Union and Confederate soldiers." Combined with the emphasis on "tradition," this mention indicates a Deep Southern sentiment to the narration. This Southern perspective impacts the plot of the story tremendously. Through the narrator's descriptions, it is clear that the city of Jefferson operates largely on the basis of reputation and social hierarchy. Instead of sympathizing with Miss Emily in her period of grief after her father's death, the community only indicates their relief that "at last they could pity" her because "she had become humanized."
It was this entrenched belief in social order, and the accompanying derision for the members of the city's aristocracy, that likely influenced Miss Emily's actions. Miss Emily was unable to truly connect with anyone within her community due to her elevated status. That is why Homer—a Northerner and, therefore, not a member of the dysfunctional Southern community—is accepted and even loved by Miss Emily. I think Miss Emily murdered Homer not out of anger or revenge—if that had been the case, she would not have slept next to his skeletal corpse—but out of misguided desperation. After living a life of detachment from her community, Miss Emily had become so desperate to keep Homer with her that she poisoned him in order to keep him with her dead or alive. While this is admittedly a rather macabre idea, it simply is a tragic, if not exaggerated, result of the Southern mindset.
