The end of the civil war in America brought an end of an era,

The end of the civil war in America brought an end of an era, but some people remained attached to the past’s traditional values. Faulkner’s main character in a Rose for Emily is one of the southerners who remained attached to the old ways. The eccentric spinster came from a high-ranking family –Grierson’s family- and being the last of her family was the representative of the old days. The author uses the first-person point of view to take the audience through the tragic life and death of a rich girl in Jefferson’s fictional town. The story follows the life transformation of Miss Emily from heir to her family fortune to an orphan, lonely tax-evading older woman, and her death. The author starts with the death of Miss Emily and takes us back to her younger days, through her tragic losses, and back to her death. Miss Emily was raised in isolation and refused to change even after her father’s death, a trait that led to the strange life she lived. The protagonist’s fear of change, and embrace of self-preservation, and loyalty towards a monument provides the narrator with the perfect tools to illustrate the narrative’s setting adequately. Faulkner writes of the physical and emotional decay, aging, and inevitable changes to people and things through time. The author first depicts Emily as the victim through the longing for companionship and love denied by the father, but finally, her faults are exposed, and others become the victim of her control and seclusion. Faulkner in A Rose for Emily employs symbolism, two-dimension plot to create the themes of isolation, death, love, and conflict to express Emily’s strange life and the perception of the people from Jefferson town towards her.