American novelist William Faulkner is most famous for his cultural text since he had written a lot of works based on historical and cultural background of Southern America from the early 19th century to the mid-20th century. Besides that, Faulkner was also good at characterization and many characters he created are representative. After reading his novels, readers can learn about the social reality during that time period and finally obtain some valuable experience for their current life. As a typical example of Faulkner’s cultural text, “A Rose for Emily” is a short story that especially deserves to be studied. In other word, “A Rose for Emily” fully reflects Southern America’s social background after the American Civil War by its winding plot and typical characters.

To begin with, it’s important to focus on the special order of the short story. As most stories go on with chronological order, “A Rose for Emily” walks on its own way. When the story begins, readers have been told that the main character: Miss Emily Grierson died and almost all the men in the town fell into sadness because they lost a “monument”. However, women just attended her funeral for curiosity (Faulkner1). For readers, the beginning seems to be the end of the story but they haven’t acquired any important clue. For author, this actually makes it easier to stimulate the readers’ reading interest and keep them reading with curiosity and question. “A Rose for Emily” has several questions to be answered but even until the end of the story Faulkner doesn’t point out the truth directly. Conversely, readers are shown a mass of clues which make contribution to their understanding toward the story during the period of reading. For example, in the last paragraph of the fiction, as people finally found a “long strand of iron-gray hair” on the pillow which was next to a dead man’s body in Emily’s house (Faulkner9), the truth of Barron’s disappear and Emily’s strange behavior in the past forty years finally comes out: Emily murdered Barron and stayed with his body for more than forty years, long time terrible life style finally made her become crazy and hard to approach.

As a cultural text, “A Rose for Emily” was written based on the social background of Southern America after the Civil War. Naturally. it should connect to the reality of the culture and history during that period. On this hand, there is no doubt that Faulkner did a good job. When describing Emily’s old house, there is a clue that the house had a “highly lightsome style of the seventies” (Faulkner1) which indicated the time of the story. In addition, in the last paragraph of the story, when people were attending Emily’s funeral there is a detail that “and the very old man—some in their brushed Confederate uniforms on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs” (Faulkner 9), which implies where the story happened and men who missed Emily also missed their former honor as southern soldiers.

What’s more, according to the typical class difference described in the story, the author created Emily as a higher class woman who were always arrogant toward other that were not in the same class as her. By observing this phenomenon, readers can learn the effect of the southern class tradition. In other word, even the Civil War had ended and the whole American society was changing gradually, there were still some traditional people, especially higher class people like Emily, and those old men who missed her choose to obey some backward traditions.

When come to the characterization of “A Rose for Emily”, there are several representative characters who reflected many southern people’s stubborn during that period. One of the most important example of them was Emily’s father. As a higher class woman, Emily grew up with her father’s cruel education. “Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door” is one of few descriptions about Emily’s father in the story. However, even from the short detail can readers feel the pressure on Emily from her father. Every time when Emily tried to approach a man she might be punished by her father because it was against her class tradition. As a traditional southern noble, her father made a big difference to the final characteristic of Emily, which also destroyed her whole life. Because of her father’s effect, Emily has forgotten what she lived for. After her father’s death, she still insisted that it was unnecessary for her to pay taxes since this was the privilege of her family. Emily’s father actually reflects a common father character who held a stubborn attitude toward daughter’s marriage during that period. As Maggie MacLean introduces in his article, “The ownership of a woman's real and personal property passed to her husband the moment she said, “I do” (MacLean1), woman at that time period had very limited right that they were even owned by men like “good”. Some women want to fight but most women like Emily chose to be silent.

When Emily finally found her true love Barron, it seems that her future could be changed because her father won’t stop her anymore. Unfortunately, since Barron was from Northern America and his social status couldn’t fit Emily’s class tradition, also Barron refused to marry her. This finally led to her madness. She murdered Barron with arsenic and placed his body on her bed. Everyday Emily stayed with Barron’s body and kept this going on for more than forty years. Although Barron had died, in Emily’s mind he was still alive just like the past that she refused to admit the death of her father. All in all, Emily was the symbol of some higher class people during that period, they didn’t want to adapt to the changing society and abandoned their backward tradition. Even until the time they were nothing, they still acted like noble.

The author William Faulkner was born in a decaying manor owner’s family in Mississippi. As Joel Williamson describes in his book, “Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha was, of course, his own Lafayette Country, Mississippi,” (Williamson11). Most of Faulkner’s novels are based on his memory of southern America. He had a real experience as people who lived in Southern America during the changing period. From his story, readers learn not just the criticism on those people who do not want to change their tradition and adapt to the new society. In fact, from the title “A Rose for Emily”, there is a latent meaning, since “Rose” always stands for love and what Emily was always chasing was also love, Faulkner actually shows a kind of sympathy to Emily because they both have familiar experience. For Emily’s miserable experience, there were some factors from her family and it was difficult for a lonely woman to change destiny totally. Although Emily tried to find her true love, she still gave in to the “past”. That is to say, there are always some people who live during the period of changing but the “past” has been deep in their mind. To change some solid traditions is painful but to keep it going is also harmful. Those who do not have a strong mind to fit the new future and forget the “past” can only be eliminated. However, they are poor as well because they get these from their living environment, which affect them all their life.
