In William Faulkner's short story, "A Rose for Emily", Miss Emily Grierson portrays a defiant woman in the community. The community of Jefferson, Mississippi; find Miss Emily as an interesting person, of whom they been obligated to take care of her over the years because her father gave money to the town. Miss Emily is a woman who had the whole town wondering what she was doing, but did not allow anyone the pleasure of finding out. Once the men that she cared about in life deserted her, either by death or by simply leaving her, she hid out and did not allow anyone to get close to her. She was the perfect example of a woman alienated by a society controlled by men who make trouble for her instead of helping her. When Miss Emily began to draw away from everyone, she actually began to get out of touch with the outside world. Her isolation from the community actually made her inescapable figure.
Mrs. Emily was living under her father's strict mentality. He basically chased all men away from her, believing no one was good enough for his daughter. It was when he died, she single and thirty at the time, that she began to slip into isolation from the community. It was he who robbed her from the experience of men. After her fathers death "all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid"(206). Miss Emily showed no feeling of grief and told everyone her father is not dead. She kept her father in her home for three days until she "broke down" and let the community bury him. The townspeople did not believe she was crazy, even though they knew insanity ran in her family. They thought Emily did this because they remembered how the father drove all the young men away. Now she was a figure that could be pitied by the town, alone and penniless. .
For a long period after her father's death Miss Emily was sick and remained in solitude.
In the summer after her father's death she eventually comes out and is seen by the townspeople with a Yankee day laborer, Homer Barron, driving in the yellow-wheeled buggy on Sunday afternoons.