A Rose For Emily: Symbolism

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as a “fallen monument”(Faulkner 204) symbolizing her former beauty and later ugliness. Like the house, she has fallen from grace. Once she had been “a slender figure in white”(Faulkner 207) later she is obese and “bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water with eyes lost in the fatty ridges of her face”(Faulkner 205).
Both the house and Miss Emily have suffered the ravages of time and neglect. Just as the house is described as “smelled of dust and disuse and the leather cracked” (Faulkner 205) this could also describe Miss Emily, “a small, fat woman in black” with a voice that is “dry and cold”(Faulkner 205) as if is she is rusty from disuse.
Both the house and Miss Emily reveal a common stubborn arrogance. “Even being left alone, and a pauper, and humanized”(Faulkner 207) Miss Emily held herself “a little to high” for what she was. Likewise, just as Emily held herself “a little high” the house is presented as “lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above ...

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