A Rose for Emily past and present
... and on her murderous rage to keep Homer so she would never be alone or disserted. The narrator begins with the funeral of Emily. Miss Emily is referred to as a “fallen monument” (102). 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 intrusion 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” (102). Her home was an eyesore amongst the newer, yet different buildings in her neighborhood. By the time the representatives of the new, progressive Board of Alderman visited her regarding her delinquent taxes, she had retreated further into her world of the past. She declared “I have no taxes in Jefferson” (103). She bases her belief on what Colonel Sartoris had told her years before, when he was mayor: that she did not have to pay taxes in Jefferson. When the members of the Board of Alderman questioned her about the notice from the sheriff, indicating that she did in fact have to pay her taxes, she says “Perhaps he considers himself the sheriff….I have no taxes in Jefferson” (103). Emily refuses to accept that the sheriff has any right to change what the Colonel had told her years earlier. She says “See Colonel Sartoris” (103). Just as Em...