Name:______________________________________________ Date:____________________________ Period:________

“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

Directions: Read this story on pages 516-524 of your literature book. Answer these questions below in complete sentences.

1. How does the narrator describe what Miss Emily’s house and street used to be like?

2. Describe what it is like now.

3. What had Colonel Sartoris done for Miss Emily in 1894? Why do you think he did this?

4. What did the next generation of town leaders do on the first of the year?

5. List the diction Faulkner uses to describe Miss Emily in the sixth paragraph of this story. What do you think this is meant to show about her?

6. What details from Part I show that Miss Emily is “unaware of time”?

7. What are the neighbors complaining about? Why does Judge Stevens not want to talk to Miss Emily about this problem?

8. Describe the relationship between Miss Emily and her father? Be sure you discuss how this relationship affected her life.

9. What did Miss Emily tell her visitors the day after her father’s death?

10. Why did the townspeople not think she was crazy for this action?

11. Who began to date Miss Emily in Part III? What did the townspeople think of Miss Emily’s new relationship?

12. What does Miss Emily want to purchase from the druggist? What do the townspeople think she will do with this purchase?

13. What can you infer about Homer Barron based off of the details mentioned in the first paragraph of part IV? How does his name relate to this inference?

14. What does Miss Emily do that makes the townspeople think that she and her boyfriend have wed?

15. When was the last time the townspeople saw the boyfriend/husband?

16. Describe the physical characteristic of Miss Emily the narrator emphasizes greatly in the last half of Part IV.

17. In Part V, the townspeople claimed “they waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened [the room upstairs]” (524). What does this statement say about the townspeople and their curiosity of Miss Emily?

18. There is a room upstairs that no one has seen for forty years. After Miss Emily’s funeral, the door to it is broken down. Describe the room. What do the townspeople find there?

19. What is noticed about the second pillow on the bed in the last paragraph? What inference can you make from this detail?

20. The narrator never mentions any roses for Emily. Why do you think this story is called “A Rose for Emily”?