1. A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner
Feature Menu
Introducing the Story
Literary Focus: Setting
Reading Skills: Making Inferences About Characters

2. A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

3. A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner
If one judges love according to the greatest part of the effects it produces, it would appear to resemble rather hatred than kindness.
François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld
Do you think there is a grain of truth in this cynical statement?
What kind of “love” might lead to harmful effects?

4. A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner
This story is set in the small town of Jefferson, Mississippi.
The story begins with the funeral of Miss Emily, a woman who inspired a mixture of respect, pity, and curiosity.
Proud and eccentric, Emily kept to herself—especially after the man she loved disappeared.
She also, it turns out, kept a horrible secret.
[End of Section]

5. A Rose for Emily Literary Focus: Setting
The setting of a story includes
the time and location in which the story takes place
the customs and social conditions of that time and place

6. A Rose for Emily Literary Focus: Setting
The setting of this story is a racially segregated town in the rural South at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Some of the characters use offensive racial slurs that reflect the social conditions of the time.
As you read, keep in mind that Faulkner’s aim was to portray the setting as realistically as possible.
[End of Section]

7. A Rose for Emily Reading Skills: Making Inferences About Characters
Miss Emily creates a fantasy world to escape the harsh realities of her life.
As you read about Miss Emily, think about whether her bizarre behavior is merely madness or an extension of qualities admired in her community.

8. A Rose for Emily Reading Skills: Making Inferences About Characters
As you read the story, take notes on
Miss Emily’s characteristics
your ideas about the motives for her strange actions
Characteristics
Motives
emotionally fragile
denied her father’s death because she’d become totally dependent on him
[End of Section]

9. A Rose for Emily Background
Faulkner knew the old American South and its powerful social traditions.
It’s all here in “A Rose for Emily”:
the small-town social castes
the changing social values
the politeness with which people go about daily life
the struggles they undergo to find joy

10. A Rose for Emily Background
Miss Emily’s story is as sensational as any headline in a supermarket tabloid.
What makes this tale literature is the relationship between the plot and its setting.
Faulkner reveals important truths about Miss Emily’s community—and about the Old South he knew so well.
[End of Section]

11. Vocabulary

12. A Rose for Emily Vocabulary
Previewing the Vocabulary
remitted v.: canceled; refrained from enforcing payment.
archaic adj.: old-fashioned.
vindicated v. used as adj.: proved correct.
pauper n.: extremely poor person.
circumvent v.: avoid by cleverness or deceit.
virulent adj.: full of hate; venomous.

13. A Rose for Emily Vocabulary
Previewing the Vocabulary
tranquil adj.: calm; quiet.
perverse adj.: odd; contrary.
acrid adj.: bitter; irritating.
inextricable adj.: unable to be freed or disentangled from.

14. A Rose for Emily Vocabulary
Vocabulary Activity
Choose the Vocabulary word that describes each of the following.
acrid archaic inextricable pauper tranquil
__________ someone who has only rags to wear
__________ the smell of a harsh chemical
__________ the language of seventeenth-century poets
__________ yarn knotted up in a ball
__________ a lake on a sunny, windless morning
pauper
acrid
archaic
inextricable
tranquil
[End of Section]

15. Meet the Writer

16. A Rose for Emily Meet the Writer
William Faulkner (1897–1962) didn’t try his hand at fiction until he was about twenty-seven. He completed his first novel in five months and thereafter wrote with tireless energy. Eventually, he received the Nobel Prize in literature for his powerful and unique contributions to the American novel.
More About the Writer
[End of Section]