A Rose for Emily

A Rose for Emily Plot Summary

Introduction

The American South after the Civil War was a landscape transformed by defeat and devastation, yet stubbornly clinging to certain ideals that predated the conflict. In this tumultuous period, concepts of honor, justice, and vengeance became deeply intertwined, creating a distinct moral framework that governed social interactions, especially among the former Confederate elite. Men raised in the tradition of personal honor found themselves navigating a world where the old certainties had been shattered, yet the expectations of their class remained largely unchanged. Through the powerful narrative of the Sartoris family, we witness how violence became institutionalized as a form of justice in the post-war South. The choices faced by young Bayard Sartoris represent the broader struggle of a generation caught between honoring traditional codes of vengeance and forging a new path toward reconciliation. This exploration of moral courage challenges readers to consider how societies transition from cycles of violence to sustainable peace, and what personal sacrifices such transitions demand. For anyone seeking to understand the complex legacy of the American South or the psychological dimensions of violence and forgiveness, this profound examination of one family's moral journey offers valuable insights into human nature itself.

Chapter 1: Post-Civil War Mississippi: A Land Divided (1865-1870)

The war's end in 1865 left Mississippi in ruins, with plantations burned, railroads destroyed, and an entire social order upended. This was the world to which John Sartoris, a former Confederate colonel, returned - a world where the physical devastation was matched only by the psychological trauma experienced by its inhabitants. In Jefferson and the surrounding county, former slave owners struggled to maintain control over their land and labor, while newly freed Black citizens attempted to exercise their rights amid growing hostility. Colonel Sartoris emerged as a dominant figure in this uncertain landscape. Having commanded Confederate troops with distinction, he brought the same forceful leadership to rebuilding his fortune and influence. The Sartoris plantation, burned during the war, was reconstructed on an even grander scale, symbolizing the family's refusal to accept defeat. John Sartoris seized upon one of the few opportunities available to former Confederates - railroad development - forming a partnership to connect Jefferson to the wider region, a venture that promised wealth and progress but also created bitter rivalries. This period saw the rise of vigilante justice as formal institutions failed to command respect from the white population. Colonel Sartoris organized "night riders" to intimidate Blacks and Republicans, particularly targeting "carpetbaggers" - Northerners who had come south. When accused of violence, Sartoris was unapologetic, viewing these actions as necessary to preserve what he considered the natural order. As his Aunt Jenny observed, he had "killed too many men," developing that "transparent film" in his eyes that marked men who had become comfortable with dealing death. The political battles of this era were fought with bullets as often as ballots. Colonel Sartoris killed two "carpetbaggers" during an election, an act that his family and supporters rationalized as necessary for the community's protection. This incident established a pattern that would define the Sartoris legacy - violence employed as a tool of social control, wrapped in the language of honor and necessity. This period laid the foundation for conflicts that would eventually claim John Sartoris's life and present his son Bayard with the moral crisis at the heart of this Southern saga.

Chapter 2: The Rise of Vigilante Justice and Southern Honor

Throughout the 1870s, as Reconstruction policies attempted to reshape Southern society, many white Southerners resisted through extralegal systems of justice. In Jefferson, Mississippi, this manifested in what one character called "moral housecleaning" - violence directed against those perceived as threats to the established order. Colonel John Sartoris embodied this approach, carrying a concealed derringer and developing a reputation for swift, deadly confrontations that required no legal sanction or proceeding. The concept of honor that underpinned this vigilantism had deep roots in Southern culture. For men like Sartoris, personal reputation was sacred and any insult demanded response, typically violent. This code predated the Civil War but gained new significance afterward as white Southerners sought to reassert control. The duel, once a formal ritual between gentlemen, evolved into less structured but equally lethal encounters. Sartoris's habit of carrying a hidden pistol up his sleeve, which he could deploy with mechanical precision, represented this evolution - maintaining the veneer of gentility while adapting to more desperate circumstances. Women played complex roles in this honor system. While excluded from direct participation in violence, they often served as its most fervent advocates. Drusilla Sartoris, John's wife and cousin, kept dueling pistols ready and cultivated verbena in her garden because it was "the only scent you could smell above the smell of horses and courage." Far from moderating male violence, some women intensified it, transforming vengeance into a sacred duty. When John Sartoris was killed, Drusilla prepared the pistols and verbena for his son Bayard, expecting him to continue the cycle of violence. The vigilante approach to justice created a society where violence became self-perpetuating. Each killing demanded retaliation; each act of retribution spawned new grievances. As George Wyatt observed of Colonel Sartoris, "he's had to kill too many folks, and that's bad for a man." This system trapped even those who recognized its futility, creating a tragic inertia that propelled communities toward ever more bloodshed. The moral cost of this approach would eventually force a reckoning among younger Southerners like Bayard, who began to question whether honor truly required the continuation of ancestral feuds.

Chapter 3: From Father to Son: The Inheritance of Violence

The transfer of violent tradition from one generation to the next forms a central theme in the Sartoris legacy. Young Bayard Sartoris grew up watching his father dispense personal justice through violence, absorbing these lessons as naturally as breathing. His own introduction to violence came early - as a boy during the Civil War, he and his Black companion Ringo had killed a man named Grumby who had murdered Bayard's grandmother. This early experience taught Bayard that killing could be justified, even necessary, establishing a precedent that would complicate his later moral choices. Education and distance provided Bayard with perspective his father never had. While studying law at the University, Bayard encountered different value systems and began developing a more nuanced moral framework. Professor Wilkins introduced him to the concept that "if there was anything at all in the Book, anything of hope and peace... Thou shalt not kill must be it." This created tension between his university education and his inheritance - the unwritten but equally powerful curriculum of Sartoris family tradition. The expectation of violence weighed heavily on Bayard. When his father was killed by a longtime rival named Redmond, the community automatically assumed Bayard would seek revenge. George Wyatt, one of his father's former troopers, offered to help him with the killing or to do it himself if necessary, asking incredulously, "Who are you? Is your name Sartoris?" The pressure came not only from men but from women like Drusilla, who prepared dueling pistols and wore verbena in her hair in ritualistic anticipation of bloodshed. The inheritance was psychological as well as cultural. Bayard recognized in himself the capacity for violence that had defined his father. He knew he could kill Redmond if he chose to, and part of him wanted that release. The weight of family tradition made violence the path of least resistance - easier than the moral courage required to break the cycle. As Aunt Jenny observed, "Damn you Sartorises!" - recognizing how the family legacy trapped each generation in patterns of destruction. For Bayard, true courage would mean defying this inheritance rather than fulfilling it.

Chapter 4: Breaking the Cycle: Bayard's Moral Choice

When the moment of decision arrived, Bayard Sartoris faced not just a personal choice but a historical crossroads. After his father's murder, he rode into Jefferson alone, dismounted before the courthouse, and climbed the stairs to Redmond's office. The entire town held its breath, expecting another chapter in the endless saga of violence. But Bayard entered unarmed, a deliberate rejection of the traditional Sartoris response. As he faced his father's killer, he allowed Redmond to fire twice - both shots missing - before Redmond, shaken by this unexpected moral courage, walked past Bayard and left town forever. Bayard's decision represented a profound break with Southern tradition. George Wyatt, representing the old order, was incredulous: "You walked in here without even a pocket knife and let him miss you twice. My God in heaven." To Wyatt and others raised in the code of violent honor, Bayard's actions were almost incomprehensible. Yet there was reluctant admiration too, a recognition that this new approach required its own kind of courage - perhaps greater than that needed to pull a trigger. The personal cost of Bayard's choice was severe. Drusilla, who had prepared the dueling pistols with ritual anticipation, was devastated by his refusal to kill. When she realized his intentions, she broke down in hysterical laughter, crying "I kissed his hand!" - a reference to having honored what she now saw as cowardice. Unable to reconcile herself to Bayard's choice, she left on the evening train, a symbolic rejection of the new moral order he represented. This pivotal moment transcended personal drama to represent a broader historical transition. As Professor Wilkins had suggested, true peace required someone brave enough to absorb violence without returning it. Bayard's choice offered a template for how the South might move beyond its cycles of retribution. While just one man's decision, it demonstrated that alternatives to violence existed even within the honor-bound culture of Mississippi. The verbena sprig left on Bayard's pillow by the departing Drusilla symbolized this transition - the scent of courage now attached to peace rather than violence.

Chapter 5: Verbena and Gunpowder: Symbols of Southern Identity

Throughout the narrative, powerful symbols illuminate the complex interplay between violence and honor in Southern culture. Most prominent among these is verbena, the flowering plant that Drusilla cultivated and wore in her hair. She explained its significance clearly: "verbena was the only scent you could smell above the smell of horses and courage," making it the emblem of Southern martial values. When preparing Bayard to avenge his father, Drusilla placed sprigs of verbena in his lapel and her own hair, transforming a simple plant into a ritual object associated with bloodshed. Guns, particularly the derringer pistol favored by Colonel Sartoris, represented the ever-present potential for violence that characterized post-war Southern society. John Sartoris carried his derringer concealed in his sleeve, a mechanical extension of his will to dominate. The weapon's small size belied its deadliness, much as Southern gentility often masked brutal enforcement of social hierarchies. When Drusilla presented Bayard with dueling pistols, she described them in almost erotic terms: "the long true barrels true as justice, the triggers quick as retribution... slender and invincible and fatal as the physical shape of love." The railroad that Colonel Sartoris built served as another powerful symbol of the post-war South's contradictions. Representing progress and economic renewal, it nevertheless became an instrument of Sartoris's personal vendettas. When the first train arrived in Jefferson, Sartoris used the celebration to publicly humiliate his rival Redmond, demonstrating how even symbols of modernization could be weaponized within traditional honor disputes. The railroad simultaneously pointed toward a new South while being used to settle old scores. These symbols gained power through women's participation in the culture of honor. While men enacted violence, women like Drusilla cultivated its aesthetic and moral dimensions. She maintained the garden where verbena grew, preserved the dueling pistols, and created rituals around vengeance. As Bayard observed, women like Drusilla were not "like so many men who return from wars to live on Government reservations... interchangeable save for the old habit of answering to a given name." Instead, they remained "incorrigibly individual," often more committed to traditional honor than the men themselves.

Chapter 6: Reconciliation Without Bloodshed: A New South Emerges

The final confrontation between Bayard Sartoris and his father's killer represented a crucial turning point not just for one family but for an entire social order. When Bayard chose to face Redmond unarmed, he offered an alternative model of courage - one based on moral conviction rather than violent retribution. This quiet act of defiance against tradition required greater strength than continuing the cycle of vengeance would have demanded. As Bayard reflected, it was his chance "to find out if I am what I think I am or if I just hope; if I am going to do what I have taught myself is right or if I am just going to wish I were." This individual moral choice resonated with broader historical forces reshaping the South. By the 1870s, many Southerners recognized that perpetual violence threatened the region's recovery and prosperity. While Colonel Sartoris represented the old approach of settling disputes through personal violence, his son embodied a new generation's desire for stability and legal order. Bayard's law education symbolized this transition from the gun to the courtroom, from immediate violent justice to the more measured approach of law. The reactions to Bayard's choice revealed a community in transition. While some, like Drusilla, could not accept this new definition of honor, others showed reluctant admiration. George Wyatt, initially outraged by Bayard's refusal to shoot, ultimately acknowledged the courage his approach required. This mixed response illustrated how the South stood at a crossroads, with some citizens clinging to traditional codes while others began envisioning alternatives to endless bloodshed. Professor Wilkins' biblical admonition that "Thou shalt not kill must be" the foundation of civilization found practical expression in Bayard's actions. His choice demonstrated that reconciliation without bloodshed was possible even in a culture steeped in honor-based violence. As night fell on the Sartoris plantation after this momentous day, the mockingbird's song in the magnolia tree offered a fitting accompaniment to this transition - the "drowsy moony" evening song replacing the harsh calls of conflict. The sprig of verbena left on Bayard's pillow by the departing Drusilla symbolized how even the emblems of the old order could be repurposed for a more peaceful future.

Summary

At its heart, the Sartoris saga reveals the transformative journey from violence to reconciliation that defined the post-Civil War South. The central tension throughout remains the conflict between inherited traditions of personal justice through violence and emerging values of legal order and forgiveness. Colonel John Sartoris represented the Old South's approach - direct, violent, and unapologetic - while his son Bayard embodied the painful but necessary transition toward a society governed by law rather than personal vendettas. This generational shift mirrors the broader evolution that the American South underwent, albeit incompletely and at tremendous human cost. The story offers profound insights into how societies emerge from cycles of violence. First, breaking such cycles typically requires extraordinary moral courage from individuals willing to absorb violence without returning it, even at the cost of being misunderstood by their contemporaries. Second, genuine social transformation demands reconciling traditional values like courage and honor with new expressions that don't perpetuate bloodshed. Finally, healing divided societies requires acknowledging that some traditions, however cherished, cannot be preserved without condemning future generations to inherited hatreds. The verbena that once symbolized the "smell of courage" in battle found new meaning on Bayard's pillow - a fragrance now associated with the courage to choose peace when everyone expects violence. This transformation suggests how societies might preserve their cultural identities while shedding their most destructive traditions.

About Author

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William Faulkner

William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer. He is best known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in for Lafayette County where he spent most of his life. A Nobel laureate, Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers of American literature and often is considered the greatest writer of Southern literature.Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, and raised in Oxford, Mississippi. During World War I, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, but did not serve in combat. Returning to Oxford, he attended the University of Mississippi for three semesters before dropping out. He moved to New Orleans, where he wrote his first novel Soldiers' Pay (1925). He went back to Oxford and wrote Sartoris (1927), his first work set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. In 1929, he published The Sound and the Fury. The following year, he wrote As I Lay Dying. Later that decade, he wrote Light in August, Absalom, Absalom! and The Wild Palms. He also worked as a screenwriter, contributing to Howard Hawks's To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, adapted from Raymond Chandler's novel. The former film, adapted from Ernest Hemingway's novel, is the only film with contributions by two Nobel laureates.Faulkner's reputation grew following publication of Malcolm Cowley's The Portable Faulkner, and he was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his powerful and unique contribution to the modern American novel." He is the only Mississippi-born Nobel laureate. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and The Reivers (1962), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Faulkner died from a heart attack on July 6, 1962, following a fall from his horse the month before. Ralph Ellison called him "the greatest artist the South has produced".

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