Aristocratic Pretensions

Very little of the relationship between Miss Emily and the townsfolk is predicated on the fact that she is a woman and the town leaders are mostly men. However, that relationship is highly predicated on the fact that Miss Emily is the last in the line of an aristocratic family that formerly maintained a position of influence and import in the town. Yet it is a relationship that sours when the inevitable forces of modernity undermine old notions of position and aristocracy.

There are a couple examples in A Rose For Emily that the relation of the town and Miss Emily is predicated on the fact that the town leaders are mostly men. The most significant of these is the reaction of Judge Stevenson, when a number of complaints reach him about the odor coming from Miss Emily's house. The members of the Board of Aldermen tell him to inform her she has a specific amount of time to clean the place of its smell. Judge Aldermen reacts harshly to this, "Dammit Sir, will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?" (Faulkner 240).

Yet even this example has to do with past notions of Southern gentility and mores about proper respect between men and women than it does with gender. Numerous other examples demonstrate that the relationship between Miss Emily and the town is predicated on the conflict between old aristocracy and encroaching modernity. When she passes away, we are told "Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of�august

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