Emily Grierson Compare The Old South To The New South

In this story Faulkner uses the life of the main character Emily Grierson to compare the old south to the new south. Faulkner uses a “we-narrator” to tell the story so that it is representing the entire community when the narrator speaks. Emily represents the old south in the fact that her dad kept her closed off from the rest of the world for thirty years. He would not allow her to go out with anyone and if anyone came to take her out he would send them away. After years of solitude it was like she was there in town, but separated from the town at the same time. Emily did not even pay taxes like other members of the community did. When the townspeople complained about this and sent people to her house she was not happy about it. ‘Her voice was dry and cold. "I have no taxes in

She would not listen to them.” Miss Emily was the only one in the entire town that refused a mailbox attached to her door or metal numbers. Miss Emily did not like change and in her mind, she always had a choice because the authorities of the city always allowed her to make her own choices. It really upset the people of Jefferson; after her dad died; when she got a boyfriend named Homer Baron. He was a yankee and that was post-civil war times when the north was more industrialized and the south was more of a farming community. Emily knows how the people in the town stare and talk about her dating Homer and she does not care. Emily likes to hold on to the past and considering how she was brought up she cannot let Homer go when he states that their relationship is coming to an end. She decides she will hold on to him anyway she can. She inds up killing Homer and keeps him in the house with her. People complain of the smell but the townspeople will not confront her. Instead they send men from the town to put lime around her house. “So, the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily's lawn and slunk about the house like burglars,