are able to get into her house for the first time in years. Their discovery there wraps everything up, leading to the resolution.

Resolution: Once inside Miss Emily’s home, the townspeople discover Homer's skeleton and a single long grey hair on the pillow beside his head. This resolves everything that we have learned previously in the story, as we realize that the poison was not for rats, but for Homer. We conclude that Miss Emily killed Homer, probably because he threatened to leave or because she was just afraid that he would leave her. Once he was dead, she lived with his decaying corpse as if they were man and wife. There is symmetry here to her earlier refusal to allow the locals to take the body of her deceased father for burial when she wanted to remain with her father even after his death.

This story is told almost backwards with its use of flashbacks. So the way to examine it's plot sections is also backwards.  The exposition of the story would be when the author introduces her father and we see his personality and her background.  We know the characters involved and the conflict.  Emily is too good for any man, according to her father, so he keeps her from dating/marrying.  Then he dies, which is another conflict for her--being alone.  This carries on throughout the story.  She does not want to be left.

The rising action involves most of the rest of the storyline including the town's attitude towards her and her fling with Homer.  Even the part where she buys the arsenic and the house smells something awful.  The town even spreads lime around the house to help keep the smell down.

The climax is not until the last few lines of the story when we find Homer's body and one of her gray hairs on the pillow next to his corpse.  We realize that she had poisoned him so he wouldn't leave, (and that was the awful smell earlier) and that she has been lying with him ever since.

The falling action is about a decade before she dies when they try to get her tax money from her.  She holds them off, though.  And the resolution then is the really at the beginning when she is introduced at her own funeral.

I would say that the rising action is constituted by the information regarding Miss Emily's conflict with her family and the people in the town, as society is her antagonist. This would include information about conflicts with the "city authorities" who come to try to collect taxes from her; the people who try to address the terrible smell emanating from her home some thirty years before; the people who talk about her negatively as a result of her relationship with Homer Barron, the "druggist" who tries to find out why she wants arsenic; her relatives who come to try to break up her relationship with Barron; the people who try to give her a mailbox and house number; and so forth. The climax of the story occurs when the townsfolk find Homer Barron, dead and decayed in Miss Emily's bed, after her own death. "The man himself lay in the bed," the narrator says. The falling action describes the appearance of his body—or what is left of it—as well as the information regarding finding Miss Emily's hair on the pillow beside him.

Evidently, Miss Emily was so terrified of being alone, or too proud to endure it, that she killed her beau rather than allow him to abandon her as her father once did. That she would lay next to him, her head on the pillow beside his, seems to indicate an affection rather than a hatred; she killed him, not because she hated him, but because she needed to keep him with her. This conveys the ideas that people fear being alone and will go to great lengths in order to avoid feeling abandoned and unloved.

"A Rose for Emily”--One of the interesting aspects of this clever, macabre story is its fractured time frame.  William Faulkner’s story requires looking at each section of the story to establish the chronological order.  Unlike other authors, Faulkner sets the beginning of the story with the funeral of the main character, Miss Emily Grierson, the town recluse/celebrity.

Only a few specific dates are mentioned in the story, but a close reading makes it possible to assign certain sequential events. We know, for example, that Colonel Sartoris remits Miss Emily's taxes in 1894, and that he has been dead for at least ten years when she confronts the new aldermen. Likewise, we know that she dies at the age of 74. When she was forty, she gave China painting lessons to the children. From these clues, the reader can set a framework for the story.

What  happened and when?

Section 11

• Miss Emily’s father dies.
• Her fiancé deserts her.

Section III

• Homer Barron comes to town.
• He squires Miss Emily around  town in a buggy.

Section IV

•  Rumors fly about Miss Emily and Homer and them acting disgracefully.
• The Baptist Minister comes to talk to Miss Emily.
• The cousins come to save her from Homer.
• She buys a man's silver toilet set — a mirror, brush, and comb — and men's clothing.
• Miss Emily buys arsenic.
• Homer Barron disappears.

Section II

• The neighbors complain of a smell.
• The town men place lime around Miss Emily’s house to stop the odor.

Section IV

• Miss Emily does not go out of the house anymore.
• Miss Emily dies at the age of 74.

Section I

• The cousins have Emily’s funeral two days after she dies.

Section V

• The town's people come to snoop around in Miss Emily’s house after her funeral.
• The black servant lets the people in and disappears out the back door.
• The men break down the door and discover a skeleton dressed in a nightshirt lying in the bed.
• One grey hair is found on the pillow.

What an intriguing story to read and read again so that the reader can be sure that he has not missed any of Faulkner's hints at the surprise ending of the story. 

This is a great assignment that I have also given my classes. It's especially tough because of the flashbacks and constant shifts in time sequence.

CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF EVENTS IN "A ROSE FOR EMILY"

1. Emily's father dies.
2. The Grierson taxes are remitted.
3. Homer Barron comes to town.
4. Homer and Emily become a couple.
5. Homer disappears--the first time.
6. Emily's relatives arrive to discuss her relationship with Homer.
7. Emily's relative leave; Homer returns.
8. Emily buys rat poison.
9. Homer disappears again.
10. "The Smell" emerges.
11. Men from the town spread lime around her house.
12. Emily gives china-painting lessons.
13. Members from the Board of Alderman try to serve Emily a tax notice.
14. Miss Emily dies.
15. Tobe disappears.
16. Miss Emily's funeral.
17. The upstairs bedroom is entered, and the body on the bed--and the strand of hair on the pillow--are found.

Reassembling William Faulkner's short story, "A Rose for Emily," is no easy task since it is told in a manner that includes multiple shifts in time. Chronologically, we first hear of Emily in her 20s, "a slender figure" pictured with her father in a photograph. Emily's father died while she was in her 30s, and she refused to allow the body to be removed from the house for three days. "She was sick for a long time" after that, and when she next appeared her hair had been cut short. She met Homer Barron soon after. Their romance was a short one. Some of Emily's relatives visited to discuss her relationship with this Yankee working man. After the relatives left, Homer reappeared, but soon he was gone--but not before Emily had made an unusual purchase of rat poison. Not long after, a smell was noticed about the Grierson house, and some townspeople soon spread lime around the outer fringes of the home to eradicate the smell. Soon, it, too, was gone.

It was a long time before Emily was seen again, and her hair was turning gray. She gave china painting lessons for "six or seven years, when she was about forty." Soon after, she was greeted by a delegation to inquire about her taxes, which she refused to pay. After the children stopped coming for the painting lessons, Emily was rarely visible. Only her manservant, Tobe, was seen, except for an occasional glimpse of her sitting in a downstairs chair. She died at the age of 74.

Following her death, Tobe disappeared. The funeral was held "on the second day" afterward and was attended by several of her cousins and men in Confederate uniforms. After Emily "was decently in the ground," a group of men arrived to inspect the old house. They found the upstairs bedroom locked. When they broke the door down, they found the skeletal remains of a man in the bed with a yellowed pillow beside his skull: It had the indentation of a head and on it lay a single iron-gray hair.  

There are some clues in the story to give us some ideas about when this story takes place.  In the first section, we are told that Miss Emily was relieved of the obligation to pay taxes in 1894, going back to the date of her father's death and "on into perpetuity (288).  We do not know the date of her father's death, but we do know that the next generation sends a delegation to investigate when her taxes remain unpaid.  In Section II, we are told that she gets rid of the delegation, as she had gotten rid of the delegation sent thirty years earlier, two years after her father died.  So we can make a guess that would take the action up to 1924.  We are also told in Section V that when Miss Emily dies, there is a room that must be opened, a room that no one has seen for more than forty years.

There are other time "clues" in the story, for example, that she died at age 74 and that she gave china-painting lessons for six or seven years when she was forty.  If you read the story carefully, you should be able to make an educated guess about the entire period in which the action takes place.

Good luck.

"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner was first published in 1930 in an issue of The Forum, a literary magazine. It has since been published in numerous collections, and is used for many high school English courses. It is a great tale of people ignoring many, many danger signs of what has been going on in the house of Emily Grierson. She is the last remaining member of a family held in high regard in her Southern town. Emily did not acknowledge her father's death for three days. She had been very sheltered by him; she was not allowed to date, even though at the time she was thirty years old. After her father's death she is attracted to a Northern man traveling through town, who informs his friends that he is not the marrying kind. Emily buys a silver toiletry set, which is assumed to be an engagement present for Homer, the man she loves. She also buys enough arsenic to kill an elephant. Her house presently begins to emit a horrible smell, but rather than actually investigate a possible death, the aldermen spread lime around the front yard. Forty years later Emily dies. Homer's skeleton is found in a bed in her house, with one of Emily's "iron-gray" hairs on the next pillow. She has apparently been sleeping next to the decomposing corpse of the man who rejected her until her death, as the gray color of the hair indicates.

This story is set in the American South in the era following the Civil War. We learn early on that Miss Emily was told in 1894, not long after her father's death, that her family owed no taxes in town because of a time when her father loaned money to Jefferson. So we can surmise that the bulk of the story is taking place in this decade and the few that follow it. By the time Miss Emily died, there were only a few "very old men" wearing their "brushed Confederate uniforms" to attend her funeral, and because the Civil War ended in 1865, the story really cannot extend too close to the middle of the twentieth century.

Producing a summary of this story is actually a somewhat fraught undertaking because it is not told in chronological order. The reader is left to connect the events of the story through time. In the first part, we learn of Miss Emily's death and her status in town, how she was told she owed no taxes, how—a generation later—she was asked to begin to pay again, and how she "vanquished" the men who came to ask her for payment.

In part 2, we go back in time to learn about the terrible smell surrounding her home that caused quite a stir thirty years ago. Eventually, some neighbors sprinkled lime around her property, and the smell dissipated. People began to feel sorry for her, especially because her new beau went away, and Miss Emily was left with no money and no one.

In part 3, we go back a bit more in time to learn about her romance with this beau, a Yankee called Homer Barron, and how people judged Emily for her choice. Emily still held her head high. One day, she purchased arsenic, though she would not tell the pharmacist why.

In part 4, we learn that the townspeople believed she would use the poison to kill herself. They reported her behavior with Homer to her family, and the boyfriend vanished for a few days. When he came back, Emily's servant let him in, and then no one ever saw him again. Emily herself stayed in her home for some time, and everyone believed that Homer had left her. The years passed, and Emily became a shut-in; only her servant came and went. Finally, she died in the downstairs of her home.

In the last part, back to the near present, a funeral was held, and Miss Emily's bedroom was finally opened. They found the corpse of Homer Barron lying in Miss Emily's bed, with an indentation and a piece of her hair on the pillow next to his. The room had, evidently, been prepared as though it were a bridal suite, and we are given to believe that Emily killed Homer with the arsenic rather than be abandoned again, as she felt her father had done.

The story, like many of Faulkner's stories, is set in Jefferson, the county seat of Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. Jefferson is a small town filled with families that are rooted deeply in the history of the South and its culture. The people of Jefferson are united in their values and opinions; they think as one. In "A Rose for Emily," Faulkner develops the town so that it functions as a character in the story, not as a collection of individuals, but as a force to be reckoned with.

Go to the eNotes links below to find an excellent summary of the story, as well as additional information to aid in your study.

In response to the setting--

Intrinsic to the development of both character and conflict, the setting of "A Rose for Emily" is Jefferson, the county seat of Faulkner's fictional kingdom that he named Yoknapatawpha county, a county in which Colonel Sartoris is an important figure.

Devasted by the emancipation of slaves after the Civil War, the South was inundated by Northern opportunists, known as carpetbaggers. Against the Northerners who had no code of conduct, the newly-poor plantation owners retained their aristocratic arrogance.  And, the code of chivalry of such men as Emily Grierson's father protected the women against encounters with men such as Homer Barron. This code of chivalry keeps Colonel Sartoris from taxing the poor spinster and Judge Stevens from confronting Emily about the smell emanating from her house.

However, the new generations of the South are removed from these antiquated ways, and it is this conflict between twentieth century and antebellum ways that is presented in Emily's character.

In summarizing William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," I would look to the primary aspects of the tale—but perhaps not so much to the details as to the larger picture.

For instance, we know that Miss Emily is what the townspeople refer to as a "fallen monument."

When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument...

There is a double entendre used here: a "fallen monument" could refer to the fact that Emily was once important in another era, but like a statue that may break or sag over time, is no longer of importance. However, the women in the town believe that Emily has slept with Homer Barron, and they see her in the sense of a "fallen woman"—a woman who is no longer pure or respectable.

While today considered anachronistic and misogynistic, the term fallen woman was once used as a euphemism for someone who lost her innocence, or "had surrendered her chastity".

This is one aspect of Emily. Another important aspect is that she is someone who cannot be controlled by any man or even a collection of men, as seen when the Board of Aldermen try to collect her back taxes.

Her voice was dry and cold. "I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me. Perhaps you can gain access to the city records and satisfy yourselves."...

"But there is nothing on the books to show that, you see. We must go by—"

"See Colonel Sartoris...I have no taxes in Jefferson. Tobe!...Show these gentlemen out."

She "vanquishes" them easily. So Emily is, since her father died, a force to be reckoned with: she has lived her life on her terms, regardless of how her cousins or the members of the community have felt about it. This is another important aspect of Faulkner's unusual protagonist.

Certainly, the last and most haunting aspects of Miss Emily are her seeming madness, and her "control"—"till death do us part" control—regarding the "long absent" Homer Barron—who the town believed had just left Miss Emily, never to return. In truth, we learn she poisoned him, kept his body in their "bridal chamber," and—most horrific of all—has been sleeping along side his corpse since that time. We know this because the hair on the pillow is the color of an older Miss Emily, not a young one.

The man himself lay in the bed.

For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him...Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it...a long strand of irony-gray hair.

This could arguably be the most haunting and "impressive" aspect of Miss Emily and her life—the person she was. To write one sentence, I would consider all of these aspects of Miss Emily's character, and would write something similar to:

In the Old South, when men controlled every aspect of life, including their women, Miss Emily chose to be the "mistress" of her own destiny; she defied the local government, her family, the expectations of her neighbors, and love itself—by not only refusing to adhere to the expectations of her society, but (in seeming madness) by joining the man she loved to her...not in marriage...but through his murder, "living with him" for the remainder of her life.

(This is, with correct punctuation, not a run-on sentence.)

There are several interesting incidents that shine a light into the otherwise obscure world of Emily Grierson in the story "A Rose for Emily".  It is best to focus on those events that directly contribute to moving the plot forward, culminating in the highly climactic ending that finally gives away the answer to the question of what was going on inside Emily's home, inside her head, and inside her heart.

The first event is the one that prompts the "conversation" among the townsfolk of Jefferson concerning Miss Emily: her funeral. It is this event that triggers the telling of her story, as it connects the entire town with a common preoccupation concerning their most eccentric inhabitant.

Since the story does not follow a linear narrative, let's put the events in order as they are told by the narrator.

The death of Emily's father starts the sequence of events, as it is obvious that Emily's profound attachment to her father,  and her overprotected childhood, leaves her lacking the social tools that she desperately needs to fit in her environment.

We learn that she refused to bury her father, and that the town had to intervene.  She also refuses to pay taxes, as she is still mentally stuck back in the times when her family was powerful enough to be exempt.

Meeting Homer Barron is the most pivotal event, as it shows that Emily has, in a way, broken away from herself and has attached to the real world. Of course, the townspeople were not happy with Homer, as is evident in the way he is described:

a Yankee—a big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face. The little boys would follow in groups to hear him cuss the riggers, and the riggers singing in time to the rise and fall of picks.

Although the people were happy to see Emily with someone, they still felt that Homer fell way short compared to what Emily's father would have wanted for his daughter.

The time period when Homer leaves town and then returns marks the time when Emily is seen buying a wedding trousseau for a man and bathroom items. This is when everyone wonders whether there will be a wedding. Emily is also seen buying poison at the pharmacy. Shortly after, Homer enters Emily's house, but is never seen leaving.

Then comes the stench that starts reeking from Emily's house. This is not only significant as far as foreshadowing goes, but it also shows the feelings of the villagers toward Emily. Rather than letting the police get Emily for a potential sanitation issue, the people get together and dose Emily's yard with lime.

The final (and most important) event is Emily's death. She had already turned into a complete recluse, inciting all sorts of rumors around town. It is because of her death that a door finally opens in her property. It is then that the corpse of Homer Barron is discovered laying on Emily's bed.

To put Emily Grierson's life and death into a timeline from the information in the story, the reader must reconstruct events from hints given in the various sections of the story--which are not chronological. 

As a young woman, Emily lived with her father, and he scared away all potential suitors. Emily had out-of-town relatives, and one, a great-aunt, went crazy. Emily's father had a falling out with his family before he died. After his death, Emily refused to admit he had died, and it took three days for townspeople to convince her. No extended family came to the funeral. Emily was reclusive for a long time--months--after her father's death. Colonel Sartoris, the mayor, forgave Emily's taxes because she had no inheritance other than the house.  

About a year after her father's death, Homer Barron, a Northerner, began courting Emily. The town believed her unchaperoned affair with Homer was a scandal, and the Baptist minister called on her, but wouldn't say what happened. Female cousins came to stay with Emily. She purchased a men's toilet set, engraved with the initials H.B., and arsenic. The townspeople assumed Emily and Homer were getting married or had gotten married. Homer Barron left town, and the people believed he went home to prepare to move Emily to the North with him. The cousins went back to Alabama, and Homer Barron returned. He was seen entering Miss Emily's home. But he was never seen leaving. Shortly after, there was a horrible smell on the property and the aldermen came at night to spread lime around the home. This is the point at which Emily murdered Homer and slept with his corpse, but that is not revealed until the end of the story.

After that, Emily became reclusive. She wasn't seen at all for six months, and seldom for about eight years. Then, when she was about 40, she started giving china painting lessons for about six or seven years. After that, she was rarely seen and never went out. Colonel Sartoris had died, and the new generation of aldermen tried to collect taxes from Emily, to no avail. She died when she was about 72 years old. Emily's black servant who had lived with her since the death of her father walked out the day she died without saying anything to anyone. Her two cousins came from Alabama for the funeral. After the funeral, the townspeople broke down the door of Emily's upstairs bedroom and found the skeleton of Homer Barron in her bed.

This question is harder to answer than one might think. Faulkner, in telling his story out of order, doesn't make it easy; it takes a very close reading of the novel in order to figure out the real order of major events. Faulkner slips in little clues here and there like "it was ten years later" or "no one saw Miss Emily for six months"; using those clues, you can piece it together. In a nutshell, here are some of the major events, in order of actual occurrence: 1. Her father dies; people finally convince her to give up the body. 2. Homer Barron arrives in town; people see her riding around in her carriage with him. 3. The aunts come, Emily buys toiletries with Homer's initials, AND arsenic. 4. The aunts leave, and Homer returns after being gone for 3 days, only to disappear forever. 5. The smell; lime is applied. 6. She isn't seen for a while; she gives painting lessons occasionally. 7. The aldermen visit about taxes, unsuccessfully. 8. Emily dies. I hope that helps, and if there are any details I missed, hopefully you can tell where to fit them in.

Considered an American literature masterpiece, “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner has two unusual elements: a fractured time frame and a narrator that appears to have known everything about Emily Grierson, a ‘flower of the Old South.”

The story covers the life of the protagonist Miss Emily Grierson. Emily lived in her house for seventy-four years which lasted before the Civil War, during and after it.  The setting for the story is Jefferson, Mississippi.

The first person point of view comes from a citizen of the town who guides the reader through the events of Emil’s life. To add interest to the story, the plot of the story is told with a fractured time frame.  The summary that is provided here is in the right chronological  order according to the events of Emily’s life.

Emily’s father kept her from marrying by refusing boys or men to court her.  He controlled her life.  When he died, Emily was about thirty years.  The father left her penniless and without any means of support.  He did give her the house, but without money how does she keep it up. Her only companion is the black servant Tobe.

When Emily was about 32, Homer Barron came to town to help put in the sidewalks.  A self-described homosexual, Homer drove Emily around the town on Sundays. The rumors began to fly among the townspeople: he was ruining her good name; they were going to marry; Homer had taken advantage of Emily. 

Finally, the women of the town asked the minister to talk to Emily. When that did no go, the women sent for her cousins.  During their stay, Emily did two unusual things: she ordered men’s toiletries and a nightshirt with HB embroidered, and she bought arsenic from the druggist.  Everyone thought that Homer and Emily would marry; so the cousins went home. 

Suddenly, Homer disappeared. The last time he was seen was when Tobe let him in the backdoor of Emily’s house.

And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron. And of Miss Emily for some time. The Negro man went in and out with the market basket, but the front door remained closed.

 Not too long after that a smell began to emanate from Emily’s house. The Sheriff and some men went during the night to spread lime around Emily’s house to eliminate the stench.

No one saw Emily for about six months.  Her hair now was completely gray.  Emily became a recluse and few people ever saw her. She refused any modernizing of the home.  In addition, when the new city leaders, decided that she should pay taxes, they went to her house and tried to convince her that she owed property taxes.  Never willing to accept death, Emily told them to talk to Colonel Sartoris who had been dead for many years.

Emily died in her chair downstairs.  After the funeral, Tobe let the women into the house, and he left through the back door never to be seen again.  The group goes upstairs and breaks open the locked bedroom door.  There a skeleton lies on the bed. Next to the corpse was a pillow with a head intention and one gray hair. 

Apparently, the town had known about the upstairs bedroom for some time since the narrator’s implication alludes to this:

Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced. They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it.

That ends the story of an unusual lady from the Old South.

William Faulkner’s short story "A Rose for Emily" is set in the small southern town of Jefferson, Mississippi, after the United States Civil War. It is located in Yoknapatawpha County, a fictional Mississippi county that Faulkner came up with and set a lot of his work in.

A key part of the setting is Miss Emily’s run-down house, which is one of the many gothic aspects of this story. It was "once" white but now is a deteriorating eyesore. This is emblematic of the post–Civil War American South itself. After slavery ended, the Southern culture became fragmented, and many social norms and practices had to drastically change. Miss Emily refuses to accept this. Rather than adapt to the times, she isolates herself in her house and attempts to exert control over the uncontrollable aspects of life. For instance, when Homer Baron is going to leave her, she poisons him with arsenic and keeps his body in her house.

The passage of time is an important theme in Faulkner's famed short story "A Rose for Emily," and its highly confusing non-linear time sequence takes many leaps forward and backward. The exact dates in which the story takes place is not certain, but a few dates and time periods are mentioned.

We do know that Colonel Sartoris, mayor of Jefferson, remitted Emily's taxes in 1894. The family home is said to have resembled "the lightsome style of the seventies (1870s)," so we can assume that Miss Emily was born during or possibly before this time. A generation (20-30 years?) passed before the new mayor attempted to collect taxes from Emily, who is described as "small, fat... leaning on a cane."

The next chapter declares that Emily "vanquished them... just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell." At the time of Emily's death at age 74, it is mentioned that the room upstairs had not been "seen in forty years."

Lastly, we know that author William Faulkner first published the story in 1930 and he may have been kicking around the idea for several years before. So, during what years does the story take place? It is still a mystery, but backtracking 40 years from the publication date to the time of "the smell" would make it about 1890. Since Emily was probably in her 30s when she dated Homer, we can assume that Emily was born no later--and, certainly, possibly before--1856.

The structure that William Faulkner uses in the story sometimes obscures the specific actions that are taking place at specific times. The narrator uses a flashback technique to reminisce about events that occurred in the past, most likely within their memory; the reader does not learn this narrator’s identity or gender. Those flashbacks also refer to events further back in time that one of the characters may be discussing.

If the reader accepts the accuracy of this narrator’s telling, there are several specific actions that can be established. Two of these are the deaths of Emily and of her father. When the story opens, the narrator explains that she was in her seventies when she had passed away recently. About 50 years earlier, her father had died and left her the family house. The narrator tells us that there was inadequate money to properly care for the house or pay the taxes on it. One event mentioned is that the former mayor had allowed her not to pay taxes, and she continued not to do so even after that mayor also passed away.

In more recent years, an action that the narrator establishes is that after her father died, Homer Barron came to town from the North and began to court Emily. The townspeople disapprove and, along with her cousins, try to intervene. Homer apparently leaves town, but this action is not a certainty. He is no longer seen in town.

Along with the news of Emily’s death and the townspeople’s curiosity about seeing the inside of the reclusive woman’s house, the narrator refers to the discovery of a dead body in her bedroom. While it cannot be ascertained precisely how he died, the narrator also mentions Emily’s purchase of rat poison. In sum, many important actions are not discussed in the story because the narrator did not observe them or does not report gossip from people who supposedly did observe them.

If by activities, you mean, actions in the plot, we can start with some of the things that made Miss Emily Grierson so unique.  She was stubborn to the point of ignoring anything she disagreed with--she refused to pay or acknowledge that she owed taxes.  She refused to tell the druggist why she wanted arsenic even though by law she was required to do so.  She even refused to admit that her father was dead, keeping his dead body in the parlor for at least three days.

By the end of the story, we learn that she had indeed killed Homer Barron years earlier and kept his dead body in a bed where she had at least once and very recently lain down beside his body.

1. Part 1 of the story begins with Miss Emily's death.  Faulkner writes,

"When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral . . ."

After a description of the place Miss Emily held in the town (she represents tradition) and a listing of her notable ancestors, the author begins to go back in time to right before Miss Emily died.  He states that at this point, she already shut herself up in the house and ceased to give china-painting lessons.

2. After the town's leaders visit the elderly Emily in regards to her taxes, Faulkner begins Part 2 by flashing back 30 years earlier (two years after Emily's father died).  At this point in the story, the town is concerned about the smell emanating from Emily's house.  After this incident, Faulkner does continue going back in time to Emily's reaction to her father's death.  In this section overall, Miss Emily's younger years are presented, and Faulkner even describes a very young Emily whose father drove away suitors.

3.  In Part 3, Miss Emily is still a younger woman because this is when she meets Homer Barron and develops a keen interest in him.

4.  In Part 4, Faulkner continues with Emily's "dying" relationship with Homer and brings the story back to its beginning time--Miss Emily's death.  At the end of Part 4, the narrator states,

"Daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow grayer and more stooped, going in and out [of Miss Emily's house]."

Thus, altogether, you could list at least 3 different timelines in Miss Emily's life from the story (even though Faulkner does not address them chronologically).

1. Miss Emily as a young girl of courting age (this is simply a reference made by the author to Miss Emily's father driving off suitors).

2. Miss Emily as a fatherless younger woman (perhaps in her 30s or 40s) who becomes sick after her father's death and then becomes interested in Homer Barron.

3. Miss Emily as an elderly recluse right before her death.