Previous
Satire
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
“A Rose for Emily” is set in a small town named Jefferson, the county seat of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. Yoknapatawpha County is a fictional setting where many of Faulkner’s novels and short stories take place and is loosely based on Lafayette County, Mississippi. The name Yoknapatawpha is derived from two Chickasaw words, Yocona and petopha, meaning “split land.” The land Yoknapatawpha County is built upon belonged to the Chickasaw tribe until European settlers arrived, who sowed large plantation farms. These descriptions play an important part in how Faulkner roots and sets his stories. Jefferson is based on Lafayette County’s capital, Oxford, where Faulkner himself grew up.
“A Rose for Emily” takes place post-Civil War, through the Reconstruction era, with a timespan ranging from the late 19th century to the beginning decades of the 20th century. Many of Jefferson’s townspeople still uphold those social conventions, customs, and mindsets that were common during the Antebellum Period. Some examples are the mayor's law that no Black women are allowed on the streets without an apron, and the fact that the townspeople do not approve of Miss Emily, a Southerner, having relations with a Northerner. As time passes, and the new generation emerges with modern ideas, modernity and tradition are mixed in the town.
But while the town’s setting changes, Miss Emily’s house does not. Much of Jefferson’s architecture that had been built during the Antebellum Period is overrun by garages and cotton gins. Miss Emily’s decaying house, on what was once considered the town’s most select street, is the only one that retains attributes of the town’s past Southern plantation-style houses. As the story progresses, the town’s infrastructure slowly develops to keep up with the changing times, investing in new pavements being poured and adopting mailboxes and a housing number system. Miss Emily’s house, in contrast, has neither a mailbox nor a house number and remains unchanged, symbolic of the town’s aging Southern pride.
Related Themes:
