In "A Rose for Emily" William Faulkner writes about two lovers, Emily Grierson and Homer Barron, with conflicting personalities that eventually leads up to Emily poisoning Homer in his sleep. Faulkner discusses their dissimilar social backgrounds and emotional behaviors as well as symbolizing Emily with "the old times" and Homer with "the new times."
             Emily Grierson was the daughter of a wealthy man of high social class in a southern town called Jefferson. He was a very overbearing man that didn't allow her to see men for any reason at all. He kept her locked away inside the house and never let her leave his side. The townspeople believed the Griersons thought of themselves too highly, that no man was good enough for Miss Emily. They thought of the Griersons as "tableau" or "fake." Soon her father died and when the woman came to pay their condolences Emily looked at them with no expression of grief on her face, she didn't believe her father was dead. After three days of convincing, Emily finally allowed the townspeople to remove her father from the house and they buried him. In a way the townspeople were glad, they were able to pity Emily. All she had left was the house, and the townspeople didn't think she was crazy for what she did. They said, "We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will."
             The summer after the death of Emily's father, the town signed a contract to have the sidewalks paved. Along with the construction company came Homer Barron, a Yankee from the North that was a foreman on the job. He was always the center of attention. Whenever there was a large crowd of people laughing, he was in the middle of it. Soon Homer knew everybody in town and he was seen out driving with Emily. When they ...