A Rose for Emily (Characters)

Characters

Homer Barron

Homer Barron is the Yankee construction foreman who becomes Emily Grierson’s first real beau. His relationship with Emily is considered scandalous because he is a Northerner and because it doesn’t appear as if they will ever be married. In fact, it is known that he drinks with younger men in the Elks’ Club and he has remarked that he is not a marrying man. The lovers ignore the gossip of the town until Emily’s two female cousins from Alabama arrive. Homer leaves town for several days until the cousins go back to Alabama. Meanwhile, Emily purchases arsenic, a monogrammed toilet set with the initials H.B., and men’s clothing. Homer returns to Jefferson three days after Emily’s cousins leave and he is seen entering her home. He is never seen (alive) again. However, what is presumably his corpse is discovered in a ghastly bridal suite on the top floor of the Grierson house after Emily’s funeral.

Druggist

The druggist sells Emily arsenic while her two female cousins from Alabama are visiting her. Emily just stares at him when he tells her that the law requires her to tell him why she is buying it. He backs down without an answer and writes “for rats” on the box.

Miss Emily

See Emily Grierson

Emily’s Cousins

Emily’s cousins arrive after receiving a letter from the Baptist minister’s wife. Apparently, they visit to discourage Emily’s relationship with Homer Barron. Homer leaves while they are in town, and then returns after they have been gone for three days. The narrator, speaking for many in the town, hopes that Emily can rid herself of the cousins because they are “. . . even more Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been.”

Emily’s Father

Although there is only a brief description of Emily’s father in section two of the story, he plays an important role in the development of her character. Certainly Emily learns her genteel ways from him. It is his influence that deprives her of a husband when she is young; the narrator says that the town pictured Emily and her father as a “... tableau, 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 backflung front door.” Emily at first refuses to acknowledge his death. She doesn’t allow anyone to remove her father’s body; finally, after three days she breaks down and lets someone remove the cadaver. This foreshadows the town’s discovery of Homer Barron’s decomposed corpse on the top floor in Emily’s house after her death.

Emily Grierson

Emily Grierson, referred to as Miss Emily throughout the story, is the main character of “A Rose for Emily.” An unnamed narrator tells her strange story through a series of flashbacks. She is essentially the town eccentric. The narrator compares her to “an idol in a niche . . . dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.” Emily is born to a proud, aristocratic family sometime during the Civil War; her life in many ways reflects the disintegration of the Old South during the Reconstruction and the early twentieth century. Although her mother is never mentioned, her father plays an important part in shaping her character. He chases away Emily’s potential suitors because none of them are “good enough” for his daughter. His death leaves Emily a tragic, penniless spinster. She may even be mad — she denies that her father is dead at first and she won’t allow anyone to remove his corpse until she breaks down after three days. However, she later causes a scandal when she falls in love with Homer Barron, a Yankee construction foreman who is paving the streets in Jefferson. The narrator’s various clues (Emily’s purchase of arsenic; the awful smell coming from her home after Homer disappears) and the town’s grotesque discovery at the end of the story suggest that Emily is driven to murder when she begins to fear that Homer may leave her.

Minister

The Baptist minister, under pressure from the ladies of the town, goes to Emily (although she is Episcopal) to discuss her relationship with Homer Barron. He never tells anyone what happens and he refuses to go back to her. The following Sunday, Emily and Homer are seen riding through the town in the buggy again.

Minister’s Wife

The minister’s wife sends a letter to Emily’s relations in Alabama after her husband calls upon Emily. The letter prompts a visit from two of Emily’s female cousins.

Narrator

The unnamed narrator refers to himself in collective pronouns throughout the story. As Isaac

Rodman points out in The Faulkner Journal, “The critical consensus remains that the narrator of ‘A Rose for Emily’ speaks for his community.” Although there are a few sub-groups to which the narrator refers to as separate (for example, the “ladies” and the “older people” of the town), readers assume that he speaks for the majority of the average people of Jefferson. He tells Emily’s story in a series of flashbacks which culminates in the dreadful discovery of a decomposed corpse on the top floor of the Grierson home after her death. The narrator never directly claims that Emily murders her lover, Homer Barron, and keeps his corpse in a bed for more than forty years. However, the events he chooses to detail, including Emily’s purchase of arsenic and the stench that comes from her house after Homer Barron’s disappearance, lead readers to that perception.

The Negro

See Tobe

Colonel Sartoris

Colonel Sartoris is the mayor of Jefferson when Emily’s father dies. He remits Emily’s taxes “into perpetuity” because he knows that her father was unable to leave her with anything but the house. Sartoris, being a prototypical southern gentleman, invents a story involving a loan that Emily’s father had made to the town in order to spare Emily the embarrassment of accepting charity. The narrator contrasts this chivalrous act with another edict made by Sartoris stating that “. . . no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron.” Colonel Sartoris appears in other works by Faulkner; he is a pivotal character in the history of Yoknapatawpha County.

Judge Stevens

Judge Stevens is the mayor of Jefferson when the townspeople begin to complain of the awful odor coming from the Grierson house. Like Colonel Sartoris, he is from a generation that believes an honorable man does not publicly confront a woman with an embarrassing situation. He refuses to allow anyone to discuss the smell with her. Instead, four men sneak onto the Grierson property after midnight and sprinkle lime around the house to rid the town of the disgusting stench.

Tobe

Tobe is Emily’s black manservant and, for most of the story, her only companion. He is often the only sign of life about the Grierson house. The ladies find it shocking that Emily allows him to maintain her kitchen, and they blame his poor housekeeping for the development of the smell after Emily is “deserted” by Homer Barron. He rarely speaks to anyone. He is the only person present when Emily dies. He lets the townspeople into the Grierson house after her death, after which he promptly leaves, never to be seen again.

Old Lady Wyatt

Old lady Wyatt is Emily Grierson’s great-aunt. The narrator makes reference to her as having gone “. . . completely crazy at last,” suggesting perhaps that madness runs in the Grierson family. The narrator also mentions that Emily’s father had a falling out with their kin in Alabama over old lady Wyatt’s estate.

Media Adaptations

• “A Rose for Emily” was adapted for film by Chubbuck Cinema Co. It was produced an directed by Lyndon Chubbuck and written by H. Kaye Dyal. Anjelica Huston plays the role of Miss Emily.