In his story "A Rose for Emily," author William Faulkner contrasts the past with the present. The past is easily represented in Emily, Colonel Sartoris, the old Negro servant, and the past Board of Alderman. The present is expressed mainly through the words of the unnamed narrator, the new Board of Alderman and Homer Barron, a representative of the Yankee attitudes toward the Griersons and also toward the south and in what is called "the next generation with its more modern ideas" are represented the present time period (1).
             A description of Emily in another paragraph compares her to the house. "She looked bloated like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that palled hue" Emily had not always had that appearance. (1) She was a "monument" of Southern gentility, an idea of past values, but fallen because she has aged and shown herself to be subject to decay and death. Such as the description of her house "Lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and gasoline pump-an eyesore among eyesores" represented a clear view of the past and present and was an idealistic representation of Emily herself. (1)
             One can further see the past and present attitude in Judge Stevens, who is over eighty years old, and the young man (a member of the rising generation) who came to the judge regarding the smell at Emily's house. The past pitted against the present, the past with its social ideals, the present with everything set down in "the books." For the young man, it was easy to point out health regulations that were on the books, but for the judge, "Dammit, sir...will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad."(3) If Homer had triumphed in seducing Emily and deserting her, Emily would have become easy for the town to pity, therefore becoming human.
             Emily's room above the stairs was that timeless meadow. Inside it, the living Emily and the dead Homer remained together as though not even death could separa...