Sentence Analysis: A Rose for Emily

 “When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad...at last they could pity Miss Emily. … Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized.” - Faulkner pg. 3

These two statements in the same dialogue on page 3 of “A Rose for Emily, (William Faulkner), specifically stood out to me not only in the sense of how the townspeople of Jefferson base their perceptions of Emily after certain events happen throughout her life, but also in a more provocative, open-ended way of understanding the meaning behind their words. The narrator of the story is likely an outside perspective, situated amongst the townspeople, or even the collective perspectives as one, noting that this outside perspective is significant to how these statements and other likewise quotes shape the understanding of the story. Specifically, what the narrator highlights as a subject of great interest is the day to day life of Miss Emily, seeing as the progression and plot of the story revolves around several recounts of noticeable events surrounding her life. Shortly after trailing on the death of Miss Emily’s father, the townspeople begin to pity her for a bit, as they do often seeing as her life has had prevalent episodes of misfortune brought upon her, also while linking her lineage as the last of the “elite”. 

The first sentence develops a certain irony; upon initially reading and understanding the tone of "When her father died....in a way people were glad", it could be inferred that the people were almost grateful or relieved that Miss Emily had lost her father; not the warranted reaction to a situation like this. As dark and twisted as that may sound, I believe when rereading and understanding the context in which the narrator comes to that conclusion, it seems almost expected for them to feel that way. However this reaction is probably not for the loss of just her father, as "it got about that the house was all that was left to her" suggests (which I'll touch on later). Analyzing the second portion of the excerpt, “At last they could pity Miss Emily”, one can interpret that the main reason the narrator expresses this is due to how closeted and closed off from society Miss Emily had been. The townspeople have always been observing Miss Emily’s life and events that have taken place during the course of it, overall being very attentive and analytical to Miss Emily herself, possibly even silently pitying her for a while. This could’ve been due to a variety of reasons, one possibly being her aging while left unmarried, which also linked to her father’s judgment and rejection of suitors as a male authority figure in her life. When he passed, she must have felt strong effects of losing the one man in her life, deeming it socially acceptable at that point to begin pitying Miss Emily; for the loss of her father but also for his role in complicating her love life as well as being an overall callous figure in her life. 

While they could have pitied her just for her losses, the second sentence in relation to the first also offers up more convincing, alternate answers. Overall, the people of Jefferson have always thought of the Griersons as arrogant individuals who placed themselves too high up for what they really were. Moreover, the loss of everything relating to Miss Emily’s status and lineage except for the house is relevant to how the perception of the outsiders/townspeople shifted towards Miss Emily in relation to this held belief. The tone of “at last they could” offers up the connotation of “finally”, in a more relieved and almost like they’ve been waiting for the change in Miss Emily’s life to happen. One of the most important segments of this dialogue, "it got about that the house was all that was left to her, and in a way, people were glad ”, links the perspectives of the townspeople to the drastic change in Miss Emily's life. Once Miss Emily was stripped figuratively of her high status by losing her father in this context, the townspeople, were satisfied to see that all Miss Emily inherited from her lineage was the house. Slowly, she was starting to become poorer and just like everyone else. This correlation is ultimately why the narrator can express their response as relieved or glad because in a sense the people of Jefferson thought this was a way of Miss Emily being humbled.

What provoked the townspeople to view the Griersons in a different way than everyone else was due to the Griersons’ ability to receive distinct treatment from the rest in society, as is a common perk of being elite in a society. One example being the exemption of Miss Emily’s taxes, allegedly due to her father having loaned the town money, one exception that had never been made before in Jefferson. The link between Miss Emily’s superiority gaining her special treatments, and the last sentence, “Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized.”, evokes the collective belief that before this change happened, Miss Emily, and the Griersons themselves, were unlike and not truly liked by anyone else, following that “outsider to society” representation. Their perceptions only become evident from there, especially after Miss Emily’s father’s passing, where before she had hardly been about but now she never came out at all, living in isolation and alienation from the rest of society. Without any male authority figure in her life anymore and only being left the house, Miss Emily was indeed on her own and poor, convincing the townspeople that she’d finally been lifted off her pedestal of high status. This in turn “humanizes” her, making her indifferent to everyone else in town, and no longer presents her as an otherworldly being in terms of her past status and wealth. Overall, the significance of both her father’s passing and her being relieved from her status might also serve to progress the plot forward and stand as a key shift/turning point in the story overall, i.e matters only get worse from there.