Historical background and cultural context are important elements which use to shape the article and story. Authors have different experience about their life because they live in various age. This will shape their article and make these articles have different meaning. "A Rose for Emily" which was written by William Faulkner can be an example. 

This story was published in 1930, and the setting of the story was between 1890 and 1900. The south lost the Civil War about forty years ago. The Civil War placed the north and south in opposite side. Their society is different at that time. The north is more industrialize than the south. The north demanded for free labor and a greater number of consumers. The south is still agrarian society in that time period. Plantation is the main resource for the south. Their economic development is still depend on large mass of slave. The defeat of south causes the economic change in south.

 "The economic change were radical, but a more subtle change was taking place in the southern society----that of their value. After the Civil War, the empowered north started to spread its industry and commerce which required a great extension of railroads. This 'invasion' caused great impact in the south that resented it as well as attempted to resist showing a great attachment to their 'old' values.(Edicao)" 

The town where Miss Emily live is connected with this background. "It was a big, squarish frame house had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily light some style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; 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.(Faulkner)" This showed the change is happening in the south. Their building style revealed that their value about life is changing, and this situation is matching with the background. South people's value start become close with north people's value.

This background shapes how lonely Miss Emily is at that time. Miss Emily lost her father and her friendship in the Civil War. She cannot pass the the death of her father for a long time. Her fiance leaves her because of the war. She cannot accept the horrible news of her father. "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 . She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body."(Faulkner  p175) She imagines that her father is still alive and remain in the world. She still feels that her father is close like these people who she missed in the war. The sadness which caused by the Civil War shape the unique character Miss Emily. She tries to stand the south value when all the people start turning to the north thinking style. The house can be the example to express, because her house is the only one still keep in south style purely. It reveals the different value between Miss Emily and other people who live in same town. (Edicao)

The decay of the south cannot make all the south people to understand the north idea. Some people resist the management of the north government. Miss Emily is a typical example of this kind of people. The property problem between she and these gentlemen is a great one to show this. She resists the taxes, which are made by these politicians. She asked them to see "Colonel Sartoris" who died almost ten years at that time. She is isolated because others cannot accept her south value. She is lonely and no one can communicate with her. No one try to understand how hard her life is. This shapes her unseen crazy. She revealed this crazy when she wanted to poison the man, Homer Barron. Her active showed that she is planing something. When the man who sell poison wanted to know where the poison would be used, her action is a kind of creepy. "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.(Faulkner p176)" There is "for rats" on the box when she open that package, and it is a kind of irony in the story. She poison the man after she plan the murder carefully. She becomes totally crazy because she knows that Homer Barron love man. She tries to maintain a distance from the townspeople due to her position in that society. She wants to find a place for her to stay, but no people give her chance. She wants to build a family, so she chooses this northerner, Homer Barron. She cannot afford the betray or lose from anybody who is close to her. Homer Barron loves man means that he will leave her. Miss Emily feels that the northerner is a traitor for her. Snaring him forever is what she wants to do. She poisoned him and lock his body in a room which only she can go in. 

Her family background is the reason that stimulate her become crazy. Her family is wealthy in the small town, but it all depends on her father. "Her father, charged with transmitting these traditions and values to Miss Emily, was rigid in reinforcing these expectations, and in the words of the narrator, the father was a man who had 'thwarted her woman's life so many times'(Faulkner).(Edicao)" This is match with their south value which man is more powerful in the family, and the father is the teacher for his children. Her father is the biggest support in her mind, but this support has fallen. His death makes Miss Emily feel the despair to life and her own future. "The role of male figures in aristocratic families is essential to the understanding of Emily's actions. Aristocracy is, as demonstrated in the novel, highly dependent on the men that belonged to this nucleus. In the case of Emily, the dependence of men is visible through the importance her father has had in her life and, later on, the importance (the lack of) a husband seems to have too. Miss Emily's responsibility is to keep the family's tradition and wealth. In order to do so, she, as a woman in a patriarchal society, is supposed to marry a wealthy man that would take care of her and of her 'virtue'. This never takes place and we observe that this 'lack' is one of the main problems in Emily's life for she is never able to meet this tradition in an expected way. That is, she only comes to 'have a man' through her desperate act of killing and maintaining her lover's body by her side.(psychological)"

Miss Emily's existence means the tradition value, the south value. She is a tradition in the town. When the new generation come, her value is not as same as before. "When the next generation, with it's more modern ideas, became mayors and alderman, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction.(Faulkner p173)" "This divergence shows that, as time went by, the values that Emily and her aristocratic family represented for the townspeople has changed. In the view of the new generation, she is not a 'property of the town' anymore and does not deserve the special treatment once granted to her.(Edicao)" Her death is connected with the disappearance of the south value. As the new generation come, the old value has to be replaced by modern value. 

In conclusion, the historic background and culture is very important in shaping the story. It shapes these unique characters, their own relationship, and their own lives.

Edicao. Aceito Para Publicacao Em Novembro De 2012 EMILY AND THE SOUTH: THE POST CIVIL WAR PERIOD AND THE DISSOLUTION OF TRADITION Marcia Cristine Agustini (UFSC)1 (n.d.): n. pag. Web.
