A Rose for Emily | Historical Context

The South after the Civil War
The Reconstruction after the Civil War had a profound and humbling effect on Southern society. The South’s outdated plantation economy, based so long upon slave labor, was devastated by emancipation. Northern opportunists, known as ‘‘carpet-baggers,’’ came in droves to take advantage of the economic chaos. Some Southern aristocrats found themselves working the land alongside tenant farmers and former slaves. Faulkner came from a family that once owned a plantation. The history of his family and of the South in general...

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