Tori F's response to "A Rose for Emily"

First off, I actually really wanted this one; because 1. It's Faulkner. and 2. I'm from the South.  Southerners need to be represented for this one.  Period.  Why?  Because Yankees and Westerners don't know what they are talking about when they refer to the South and when they discuss this short story.  Why?  Because they don't know a thing about us (they just think that they do).

Now that that's out of the way...  when I think of Miss Emily I think of my great-grandmother.  Why?  Because she held to the old South and old Southern values, etc. until she passed away at age 93.  She would always talk about those [insert old South word here] that lived down the street and how this (before she was put in a nursing home) used to be a good white community, but those [insert] seemed like pretty fine people (though she'd never talked to them, of course).  Did I mention that we called her Great-Grandma Davis?  Because we did.  You wanna know where the "Davis" part came from?  Yup, that's right.  Jefferson Davis is my who-knows-how-many-greats-uncle.

Miss Emily represents the old South in many ways.  Her dad dies (the Confederacy loses the war), and she becomes anti-social, isolated.  A bunch of carpet-baggers come and pump up the blacks.  She leads Homer into a false sense of security, and then poisons him.  I could go on, but that would get very long and annoying (I think I would even put myself to sleep).

So the real question of this story is why is it so important?  Why has it lasted so long?  Why do people still talk about it even though it was written before we were even born?  It's because it's true--in so many ways.  To the new generation, the old South is a "contemporary" and a nuisance.  It is something we pretend to understand, though we know nothing of it.  It is something we will always remember but never come to terms with.  "It" is Miss Emily Grierson, a woman true to her values even when her values destroy her and poisoned by her past yet fearful of her future.  "We" have killed her.

Okay, now that that's over.  Let me explain some things to you Yankees/Westerners that you may or may not know.  First off, we do in fact still call Northerners Yankees.  Secondly, only hard-core hicks say things like "the South will rise again" and ride around with the Confederate flag on their truck (they also wear a lot of camouflage and go "huntin' and muddin'" frequently).  I could keep saying "next," etc. but I'm lazy.  When I see the Confederate flag, all I think of is Georgia and how a bunch of black people got together and had them change the state flag because they were convinced that it was the Confederate flag (even though, in my opinion because I haven't actually had time to look this up and many people also agree with me on this one, the Georgia flag was created before the Confederate flag (duh!) and the Confederate flag was probably based off the GA flag!).  I get very heated when people pronounce Georgia like they've lived there and actually know what they're talking about... even though they do not (we do not say Georgia like that!).  Also, Tennessee is, in fact, in the South.  Texas is not (unless you are from Texas and think that you are, when in reality you are not... the same thing goes for Florida).  We do not (as a whole) like country music.  We have actual trees.  It's humid, which means that the actual temperature and what you feel like the temperature is are two different things (i.e. it feels hotter in the summer than the temperature and it also feels colder than the temperature in the winter... it's the type of heat/cold that shoots straight though you).  We can actually breathe the air.  We have trees in our mountains (instead of "trees" i.e. twigs i.e. sticks, etc.).  We don't have to water our yards, and we are not all baptist.  Sweet tea, fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes, etc. are general staples of the South (i.e. KFC and Chick-Fil-A make bank).  We (in general) do not have that "southern drawl" or talk like "hicks" (only people who live in the boonies and whose parents have likewise lived in the boonies for most of their lives really have an accent).  We do say "y'all" and frequently (it comes naturally, so it doesn't sound as weird when we/Texans say it vs. when Yankees/Westerners say it).  And we all have Southern pride (unless you weren't born in the South... then, if you have any at all, you have "mock" Southern pride... because you're still a Yankee... unless you're from the West, because then we don't have any problems with you).  We also make fun of Yankees who move to the South, but in a loving way not a I-hate-you-because-you-beat-us kind of way (kind of like a "they've seen the light" kind of way ;) ).  I could go on, but I don't feel like it.