I believe that this denial shades almost imperceptibly into a conscious or half-conscious process in which she screens out unpleasant thoughts and disagrees with reality. Although she was unwilling to give her father over, "she broke down" as the authorities began to "resort to law." With her father as the only symbol of Emily's sexual relation, she had to adopt an alternate form for her affection.
A long time after her period of sickness, isolation, and the death of her father, Emily meets a fellow by the name of "Homer Barron." He is "a Yankee-a big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face." "The town had just let the contracts for paving the sidewalks", and Homer was coming for the job. The essential "Niggers and mules and machinery" accompanied Homer, and his construction company, into town. Not long after his arrival, the town "began to see him and Miss Emily" together on " Sunday afternoons." No one thought that Miss Emily could "think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer", and "forget noblesse oblige." .
This relationship denies the Griersons" social structure. It distorts the reflection of Mr. Grierson's aristocratic ideal, his cultural ideology that shaped his perception of the world. Emily crosses that fine line that defines people and ranks them by degree. This corrupts the social taxonomy of the family name, which normally exists only if the various degrees of people are kept separate. Emily, in the realm of her imperfections, is doing the unthinkable. Her insanity begins to reveal itself from behind the walls of the decaying house and her father's sexual restraint. .
Emily's relationship with Homer came as a surprise to the local townspeople in more than one way. They were astonished because they had never seen Emily with men, besides her father, because of his strict rules. They also questioned why she was in a relationship with someone of this low social standing.