"A Rose for Emily" - Characterization

William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" uses the character Emily Grierson to show contrast between the past and present, specifically of her life as it was, in the town of Jefferson, located somewhere in the southern United States.
The narrator begins with the funeral of Emily. Miss Emily is referred to as a "fallen monument" (ARE 531, NIL). This indicates to us that Emily represented what was left of the prominent Grierson name, long time, and upstanding citizens in the town of Jefferson. She was the ideal of past values but fallen, because of her passing.
…