In "A Rose for Emily," how does the town's attitude toward Miss Emily evolve over time?

Faulkner's story is unusual and fascinating in several respects, and one of them concerns his treatment of the people of Jefferson. They are treated not as individuals but as a group: the town. The story's unnamed narrator speaks for "the town," and "the town" actually becomes a character in the story. As such, the town's attitude toward Miss Emily exists as a group opinion, and it changes throughout her lifetime.

In the beginning, the town often resented Miss Emily because she was one of "the high and mighty Griersons." She was socially superior in Jefferson and was treated as such, often grudgingly. When Emily's father died, and--in her grief and disbelief--she couldn't allow his body to be removed from the house, she became an object of pity.

After she took up with Homer Barron and allowed him to court her publicly, the town was angry and scandalized by her breech of respectable conduct. As the years passed, the town assumed responsibility for Emily; she became their legacy, and they now felt superior to her. At the time of her death, they viewed Emily as a sort of "monument" in Jefferson, respected simply for having lived so long among them.

Also, they viewed her as an object of curiosity. After her funeral, they couldn't wait to go inside her house after all those years and to visit the upstairs bedroom that no one had seen for forty years. After finding Homer's decayed remains in Emily's bedroom, one of their other earlier attitudes was confirmed. Insanity did run in Emily's family after all.

How does the town's view of Miss Emily change over time in "A Rose for Emily"?

William Faulkner's short story "A Rose for Emily" is framed in the past of a haunted Old South; therefore, it is from the middle sections that the reader must reconstruct the history of Emily and the changes in the attitude and perception of the townspeople as she ages.

As a young girl, Emily Grierson was part of the old aristocracy; she was privileged as the daughter of a wealthy and prestigious man. After her dominating father dies, Emily clings to the past and dismisses the aldermen who come to claim taxes as well as the ladies of the town who pay her a visit to offer their condolences. With no grief on her face, Miss Emily tells them that her father is not dead. For three days ministers and doctors call upon her; when the authorities feel they must resort to the law, Emily finally breaks down and lets her father be buried. The townspeople find her very eccentric.

A "long time" passes, then when the city contracts with a construction company to put in sidewalks, the foreman of the crew, a "Yankee," is seen with Miss Emily on Sunday afternoons driving in a yellow-wheeled buggy. Many of the townspeople are offended by Miss Emily's having ignored her station in life as a lady of the old prestigious family. In fact, some of the ladies begin to gossip about her, saying her behavior is a disgrace, but she holds up her head when she and Homer Barron, with a cigar in his teeth, pass by. At first, the Baptist minister calls upon her; after this visit he refuses to divulge what occurred, but he makes no second visit. So, the minister's wife writes to Emily's relatives in Alabama to remind her of noblesse oblige (her obligations as one of the upper class) who come to town and pay a visit to Miss Emily.

After this visit, nothing happens; however, Miss Emily reappears at the jewelers where she has ordered a man's grooming set in silver with the letters H. B. engraved on each piece. When Homer departs, the townspeople suspect that he has gone ahead to prepare a home for Emily and him. Shortly thereafter, the cousins depart. But, before their departure, Emily purchases arsenic, claiming it is for rats. Within three days, Homer returns, but he is never seen again. Nor does Miss Emily appear for six months, during which time the townspeople complain of a foul odor about her house. When she finally emerges from her house, Miss Emily is heavy and her hair gray.

Her door remains closed to any visitors; but, after six or seven years, when she is around forty, she gives china-painting lessons. These lessons end when the "newer generation" becomes the "backbone of the town" who essentially ignore Miss Emily Grierson. The others passively watch.

Daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro (servant) grow grayer and more stooped, going in and out with the market basket. Each December we sent her a tax notice, which would be returned by the post office a week later, unclaimed. Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows--she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house....

Passing so from generation to generation, Miss Emily falls ill in the house and dies in one of the downstairs rooms. At her funeral, the old Civil War veterans dressed in their Confederate uniforms imagine that they have danced with Miss Emily in their confusion of time. After Miss Emily has been interred for "a decent amount of time," some of the townspeople enter the house and go upstairs, knowing this part of the house has been closed for years. There, to their horror, they find "the man himself" on the bed. On the other pillow they find a long steel gray hair.

How did the protagonist in "A Rose for Emily" change due to the story's events?

Emily Grierson is not a character that makes a rapid and drastic change at some point during the novel.  Rather her change over the course of the novel is more of a slow, spiraling decline.  She becomes more and more reclusive and mysterious after her father's death.  

Before her father's death, she wasn't a recluse by her own choosing, but her father exerted a great deal of control over Emily.  This was most evidenced by his continual refusal to allow any suitor to marry his daughter. When he died, Emily took back some of that control and exerted it over his dead body. She denied to neighbors that he was dead and in the house for three days.  Yeah, gross. 

Throughout the novel the reader is told about Emily's annual refusal to pay taxes.  It's one way that Faulkner can concretely make Emily stand out as an oddity in the town.  At one point in the novel, Emily tells the tax collectors that they should ask Mr. Sartoris about her tax deal. At that point in the book though, Sartoris had been dead for more than a decade.  It's further concrete evidence that Faulkner provides his readers that Emily's mental faculties are declining.  

In section III of the book, Homer Barron begins to court Emily.  He gets her out of the house, and together they go on Sunday carriage rides.  The downside to her relationship with Homer is that the people of the town think Emily is dating beneath her status level.  Lots of gossip ensues. Toward the end of section III Emily purchases a vile of arsenic, and the townspeople worry that Emily will commit suicide with it.  Boy are they wrong. 

Emily's increasingly warped view of relationships and control culminates in her poisoning and killing Homer.  She locks his dead body upstairs and for all intents and purposes acts as if she is married to him.  The townspeople know none of this.  Emily is smart enough or selfish enough to know that she needs to keep Homer's body hidden.  At the end of the novel, after Emily dies, Homer's body is discovered in the upstairs bedroom with Emily's head indentation in the pillow with some hair.  

In a nutshell, Emily went from being a controlled daughter to a controlling necrophiliac.  Perhaps not sexually aroused by the dead body, but she became so controlling that her only recourse was to choose to be with someone that she could control completely -- a dead body. 

How does Emily's relationship with the town change over time in "A Rose for Emily"?

The town in "A Rose for Emily" are both respectful and curious about Miss Emily Grierson.  From the beginning, the reader knows that Miss Emily has died and that the men of the town attended her funeral out of respect while the women attended just to see the inside of her house.  This begins the story of a town who is intrigued by it's inhabitant, without really knowing why.

Details of Miss Emily's life that are unknown are simply guessed at and discussed in the parlors of her neighbors.  The town knows that she doesn't pay taxes, but they do not know why.  They only know the former mayor, Colonel Sartoris, arranged it with her, and the new mayor was shown out when he questioned her. Miss Emily tells the group “Colonel Sartoris explained it to me, " even though he had been dead for 10 years.

The town's respect of Miss Emily is shown when no one mentions the odd smell coming from her house.  Instead, the men sneak onto her property an spread lime, which disposes of the smell.  The town would not have been so careful of her feelings if they did not care.

The town's fascination with Miss Emily continues when her father dies.  Upon hearing that he only left her the house, they rejoice that she may now be poor, so the visit her house to investigate her sadness.  Unfortunately, she answers the door meeting “them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face.”

Miss Emily was a celebrity of her day.  The town discussed her life the way we discuss actors.  They speculated on her love life, imagined the inside of her house, and respected her enough to not say anything to her face about it.  As time passes, she becomes a legend to the people of the town who question her lifestyle and choices, but who also wait until her death to investigate inside her house.

In "A Rose for Emily," how do the protagonist's character traits change throughout the story?

Miss Emily Grierson is presented through the narrator’s eyes. The reader learns the most about her after her death, when the presence of Homer’s body in her home is revealed. Until that point, she seems like an eccentric but harmless character. Once the reader learns of her bizarre and perhaps homicidal behavior, however, other points raised in the story seem to be ominous foreshadowing.

Miss Emily, as she is called, is highly aware of her family’s status in the small Southern town where she has always lived. Utterly indifferent to the changing times, after her father’s death she remains at home, which an African American servant manages for her. When her father passed, Miss Emily at first refused to acknowledge his death or release his body. This inability to cope with death clearly presages the way she treats Homer. Miss Emily also seems to have a big ego or strong will. She expects the town to accommodate her, not the other way around. She depends on the mayor, Colonel Sartoris, to arrange for her not to pay taxes. After Colonel Sartoris passes away, she seems unable to acknowledge his death and instead continues to maintain, or believe, he is still the mayor.

As Miss Emily apparently had little interaction with townspeople in her youth, it is impossible to say if she had been mentally challenged all her life, and people accommodated her difference because her father was wealthy. The border between eccentricity and mental illness, Faulkner implies, is not always clear.

The protagonist of "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner is Miss Emily Grierson. She is a representative of the upper classes of the Old (antebellum) South who is now living in a rapidly changing New South. 

Miss Emily's father considered himself a member of the local aristocracy and owned an elegant house with servants, but did not really have enough money to maintain his social pretensions. When we first encounter her in the story, the neighborhood around her house has become a derelict industrial area and she herself has become too poor to afford her property taxes. She has lost her youthful attractiveness and not only has gained weight, but uses a cane. Nonetheless, she still carries some of the arrogance and sense of entitlement of the old southern upper classes and has a certain stubborn dignity in her reduced circumstances, winning battles over taxes and the mysterious smell. 

The narrator then recalls her as a slender attractive young woman in the shadow of her father, who considered her too good for potential suitors. In the story about her jilting by Homer and the ending of the story, we get a sense of how she negotiates her dual traits as a passive woman in a patriarchal society and a member of the upper classes. Although she cannot prevent herself from being jilted, she can successfully murder the man who did the jilting and control him in death in a way she could not in life. 

How is the protagonist in "A Rose for Emily" changed by the story's events?

Since the story is told anachronistically, one would have to trace Emily Grierson's mental breakdown to its earliest inception. The reader is told that Emily grew up with a domineering father, who constantly watched over her and prevented potential suitors from approaching her. Emily's experience growing up in a home with an authoritative father greatly affected her emotions and mental state. Following her father's death, Emily refuses to acknowledge that he is dead but eventually capitulates to the ministers and doctors' requests to bury him. Emily then becomes extremely ill and remains indoors for many years. The community does not see Emily for an extended period of time until she begins having a relationship with a northerner named Homer Barron. Despite the community's negative feelings regarding her relationship with Homer Barron, Emily continues to date him. The townspeople then mention that Emily mysteriously bought arsenic over the counter, and the citizens no longer see Homer Barron in town following her purchase. Emily remains reclusive inside her home, and the citizens are forced to spread lime throughout her yard to quell the awful stench coming from her estate. At the end of the story, it is revealed that Emily had murdered Homer Barron and had been sleeping next to his skeleton.

One can assume that Emily's oppressive childhood under the constant supervision of her father dramatically impacted her mental stability. Her father's death also played a significant role in her decision to murder the man she loved and remain reclusive for the rest her life. The fact that Homer Barron was a transient man could also have impacted her decision to kill him.

How do community attitudes toward Miss Emily shape "A Rose for Emily"?

    Author William Faulkner tells much of the short story, "A Rose for Emily," from the perspective of "first person collective," an unusual style that puts the unnamed and unidentified narrator as a part of the community. The narrator often uses the word "we" in describing the town's feelings about Miss Emily Grierson. It gives the story a personal feel inasmuch as the narrator seems to have an intimate knowledge of the main character.
    In addition to the narrator's personal comments, views of the community are given in reference to personal opinions and observations about the activities of Emily Grierson. For example:

"Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town."

    Sometimes the narrator gives specific quotes from other townspeople:

That night the Board of Aldermen met--three gray-beard and one younger man, a member of the rising generation. 
     'It's simple enough," he said.  'Send her word to have her place cleaned up. Give her a certain time to do it in, and if she don't...' 
     'Dammit, sir,' Judge Stevens said, "will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?"

    The treatment given Miss Emily by the narrator is primarily sympathetic, particularly concerning her bad luck with Homer Barron and for her mental state of being. She is unsociable, snobbish and cantankerous, but she is also

... a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town... Thus she passed from generation to generation--dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.

    In the end, when the townspeople discover the contents of the mysterious, locked upstairs room, the narrator tells the story as if he is one of the curious members who witness the body, pillow and single hair. The grisly scene is as much a surprise to the narrator as it is to the first-time reader.