A Rose for Emily

The fictional town of Jefferson, based on Faulkner’s home of Oxford, Mississippi, serves as a crucial presence and character in the story. Although not a singular character, the townspeople narrate the story through a collective “we” and act as a singular force, influencing the plot and shaping the characters’ lives. In this way, the residents of Jefferson function as a Greek chorus, in that they serve as a collective voice that comments on the action of the story and offers insights into the themes and ideas being explored. Like a Greek chorus, the residents of Jefferson provide a lens through which the reader can interpret the events of the story and the characters’ motivations and actions. However, the town’s interpretation is not always reliable. For example, in the first mention of Homer’s disappearance, the narrator says he “deserted” Emily. It’s only at the end of the story that the townspeople—and the reader—learn the dark truth of Homer’s murder.

Jefferson is portrayed as a decaying and dying town that is losing its status in the years after the Civil War. The narrators regard new Jefferson as an “eyesore,” where “garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated” (47) the best streets in the most affluent neighborhoods. The town’s changing social and economic structure is a significant factor in the story. For example, the town’s decision to enforce Emily to pay her taxes directly results in her increased isolation and decline.

The residents of Jefferson function primarily as a foil to Emily, highlighting the contrast between her character and the values and expectations of the community. Their reactions to Emily’s behavior highlight the pervasive nature of repression and denial in the town. They are unable to understand or accept Emily’s behavior, and their reaction to her actions only reinforces the sense of alienation and isolation she experiences.

The story reveals little about Homer Barron, the Northern day laborer who is Emily’s love interest and an outsider in Jefferson. Homer is a flat character. Although his social status rises slightly, he does not undergo any significant changes throughout the story. However, he plays an essential role in Emily’s character arc, as her obsession with him leads her to commit murder and descend further into isolation and mental illness.

The narrator describes Homer as a “Yankee” and a “big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face” (52). He is charming and gregarious in a town where most people are not: “Whenever you heard a lot of laughing anywhere about the square, Homer Barron would be in the center of the group” (52). He is an outsider from the North at a time when the Civil War is still within living memory. He is romantically connected to Emily, yet he is presumed to be gay. In the context of the time and place, his sexuality also marks him as an outsider: “[H]e liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks’ Club” (54). Although Homer’s sexuality is never explicitly discussed, he openly admits that “he was not a marrying man” (54), and his continued relationship with Emily is a scandal for the people of Jefferson.

In addition, Homer is a powerful symbol of the intrusion of the outside world on Southern culture and the conflicts inherent to the Reconstruction era. His origin as a Northerner and his association with the construction company that has come to modernize Jefferson highlight these changes and the encroachment of progress on the stagnant world of the South. This tension is further emphasized by the fact that Homer is openly seen to be associating with Emily, a Southern woman from a prominent family whose father rejected all other suitors. The final, gruesome revelation that Homer’s body has been lying in Emily’s bed for 40 years underscores the sense of horror and decay that permeates the story.

Tobe is a Black servant living and working in Emily’s house. He remains with her throughout her increasing eccentricities and isolation, and he admits visitors to the house after her death before disappearing himself. Tobe is the only named Black character in the story. Although his presence is essential to maintaining Emily’s isolation, Tobe is a flat character who remains largely a mystery throughout the story. There are almost no physical descriptions of Tobe in the text: He is simply described as a “young man” at the beginning of the text and then “grayer and more stooped” and “doddering” (57) toward the end. He is characterized by his silent, shadowy presence, which underscores Emily’s isolation.

Rather than his appearance, the narrators focus on his actions. Tobe leaves and enters the house with only “the market basket” three times throughout the story. The repetition of his actions further characterizes Tobe as Emily’s servant. Despite Emily’s increasing isolation and detachment from the outside world, Tobe remains a part of her world, carrying out her wishes and shielding her from prying eyes. As a servant, he is subservient to Emily and the larger societal structures that govern their relationship. Tobe is narratively linked with Emily in abjection and social scorn. He grows old and weak in her service, yet he dutifully holds all her secrets. Like Emily, his duty to Emily’s father prevents him from living a full life, yet his position is fundamentally different from hers. He is an African American man in the Reconstruction South, and so his subservience is assumed by the townsfolk. Emily is buried by the town’s sentimentalizing of her, but her servant receives no such sentimentalizing; rather, his pathos is a subset of her own. Significantly, he becomes the scapegoat when the town first begins to suspect Emily of murder. To strip her of that power and continue sentimentalizing her, the narrators blame the smell of Homer’s decay on Tobe having killed an animal on the property.

Due to Tobe’s race, class, and generational loyalty, Emily is able to maintain her authority over Tobe even as she becomes progressively removed from society. Tobe’s silence as he leaves the site of his long servitude suggests that with Emily’s death, he has regained his freedom: “He walked right through the house and out the back and was not seen again” (57).