infected the house. Even the duplicitous Gardener's voice is described as having:-
             "... grown harsh and rusty, as if from disuse."
             It is like an old disused mechanism which is decayed with age. These images of decay reach their pinnacle with the gruesome corpse of Homer dressed for bed.
             Faulkner's narrative uses the story of Emily Grierson to examine the working of the local community. The townsfolk seem to obey a sort of hierarchy within which Emily is highly placed. Both the city authorities and the minister are shown to be subservient to her at different times in the story. Emily is identified as an object of furious gossip, her courtship of Homer being of considerable interest to the townspeople. It is as if her story were a legend passed on through generations. This corresponds with the chronological shift as the reader is guided to different parts in Emily's life. The details of the legend are collected in a series of incidents which build a picture of the events surroundi
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