A Rose for
Transcript: - The room upstairs had not been opened for 40 years and it was very mysterious and suspenseful because we didn't know what to expect what was in the room. - "Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced." (722) - There was a strong, prominent odor that no one knew the origin of. - The townspeople knew it was coming from Miss Emily's house, but they didn't know what caused it. - It raised our suspicions about Miss Emily and her home. - " 'Why, send her word to stop it,' the woman said. 'Isn't there a law?' 'I'm sure that won't be necessary,' Judge Stevens said. 'It's probably just a snake or a rat that nigger of hers killed in the yard. I'll speak to him about it.' " (718) The house continues to decay when everything around it continues to change. This shows how Emily wants to stay in the past by refusing to change. Emily tells some girls in town that her father is not dead and that he's very much alive. Emily's father had been dead for a couple days now and everyone thought Emily was crazy, but what we'll find out later is that she was going to store his body. This is a foreshadowing of the disappearnance of Homer Barron and what might have happened to him. "The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead. " (719) Suspense The Smell "Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough." (p. 718) Her eyes are dark and represented by coal, which symbolizes her loneliness and longing to freeze the past. The House "So she vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished her father 30 years earlier about the smell." (p. 718) "And, as we had expected all along, within three days Homer Barron was back in town. A neighbor saw the Negro man admit him at the kitchen door at dusk one evening. And that was the last time we saw Home Barron. And of Miss Emily for some time." (p. 718) Terrible Odor Where Homer Went The Room Closed Upstairs Setting Foreshadowing Symbolism Physical Appearance Emily buys a poison from the store without telling anyone what she intended to use it for. Shortly after, Homer Barron goes missing. The short time period between these two things sets up the foreshadowing that Emily killed Homer. "Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up. The Negro delivery boy brought her the package; the druggist didn't come back. When she opened the package at home there was written on the box, under the skull and bones: 'For rats.' " (720) Old South- Social conditions, racism, old money, like Miss Emily while the rest of the town has moved on "Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, a hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor- he who fathered the edict that no Negro women should appear on the streets without an apron..." p. 716 The Smell Arsenic - He disappeared one day and no one knew where he went. - People thought he had left Miss Emily and left town. - No one knew exactly where he was, but people had their suspicions. - Once he was gone, no one ever saw him again. Locked room- the room in Miss Emily's house that had been locked for 40 yearsp "Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced." p. 722 A Rose for Emily Father's Death Everybody in town noticed the rotten stench coming from Emily's house. This sets up to foreshadowing of a possible dead body in her house. "Just as if a man--any man--could keep a kitchen properly, "the ladies said; so they were not surprised when the smell developed. It was another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons." (718) Emily's house- old and not changing, like Miss Emily while the rest of the town is changing "only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps- an eyesore among eyesores." p.716 "Only Miss Emily's house was left lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and gasoline pumps - an eyesore among eyesores." (p. 716) The smell relates to the racism of the townspeople toward Emily. It shows how rotten racism truly is.