The narrator begins with the funeral of Emily. Miss Emily is referred to as a “fallen monument” (ARE 531, NIL). This indicates to us that Emily represented what was left of the prominent Grierson name, long time, and upstanding citizens in the town of Jefferson. She was the ideal of past values but fallen, because of her passing.

Emily is the product of an earlier era and surrounds herself with reminders of the past. After the death of her father, his crayon portrait is given prominence in her house and is hung above her coffin upon her death.

The image of Emily trying to hold back the encroachment of new generations is shown in the description of her house, which is of a traditional style mansion, of southern well-to-do families, despite being surrounded by newer buildings. Faulkner writes: “Only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn coquettish decay about the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps” (ARE 532, NIL). Her home was an eyesore amongst the newer, yet diffe

When the town of Jefferson started receiving free mail service to their homes “Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it” (ARE 537, NIL). Emily once again shows her resistance to change with the time and move onto and into the modern world.

The murder of Homer Barron and his position in a marital bed is the ultimate attempt by Emily, to halt the onslaught of time. “The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him” (ARE 538, NIL). It show us that she truly loved Homer, embracing him every night, until she could no longer move her legs to climb the steps to the upper rooms.

A description of her home “the house smells of dust and disuse–a close, dank smell” (ARE 532, NIL) and a description of Emily in relation to her home is disclosed by the narrator “She looked bloated like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that palled hue (ARE 532, NIL). We can see the comparison of the two and find they are closely related.

Emily did not always have a drab-used appearance. In the crayon picture Emily with her father, which hung in the home, she had a slender figure and looked the part of that era. After her father’s death, she cut her hair “looked like a girl with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows–sort of tragic and serene” (ARE 534, NIL). This she did to perhaps show mourning for the loss of her father, but this is where she also begins her entrance into her lost world of the past.

“A Rose for Emily” is a work of art. Faulkner uses Emily’s character to show her past and present life and how she attempts to cope with the constant changes occurring around her and the loves of her life that leave her. He also throws in a bit of suspense allowing us to wonder if she is going to kill herself, because she has tro

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