Emily Grierson: The Fallen Monument Miss Emily Grierson is a descendant of a family that embodied the traditions, duties, and cares about the Old South. She had a hereditary obligation upon the town and was represented as a symbol of what it meant to be chivalrous, to have formal manners, and to live out what it meant to be traditional. When her father died, she became broken and became a victim of the values she once represented. She had become humanized, letting time trickle by as her life passed away. Miss Emily tries to take back control of her life by also trying to take control of the life of her lover, Homer Barron. Her lover has no interest in her, but she takes control of the situation by forcing a wedding and forcing him to stay forever by killing him. Emily Grierson is victimized by her old ideals and is dead long before her burial. Chivalry is an honorable quality that is used to describe high classed families, and to separate them from the rest, showing their courtesy and nobility within the community. Emily “had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town (Faulkner30),” she was placed on a pedestal of chivalry and was too worthy for anyone else. She was very well respected in her town despite her mental breakdowns, even the children she taught respected her enough that “they rose when she entered (31).” Miss Emily suffered from illnesses that even the town noticed, but out of a sense of “duty” they never offered to