Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"

Faulkner’s, “Rose for Emily” is a short story full of flashbacks. The story begins with the death of Miss Emily Grierson. I found it so sad that no one had been in her home in ten years except the black man that had worked for her. At the very beginnning I felt sorry for her. I appreciate her fiestiness when she stands firm that she is not going to pay the taxes. There is some forshadowing in the next section. “So she vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell,” I missed what she was saying the first and second time I read it. I should have picked up on the smell part. Of course, later I did. I have read this story four or five times, and each time I read it, I find something else new. Throughout the story it is said, “Poor Emily.” She had some type of mental illness and the reason I think this is, she could not admit her dad was dead and left him there in their home for several days before she finally had him buried. When she bought the rat poison, people thought she would kill herself with it. This is probably why the man at the store did not what to sell it to her. When she was seen with Homer Barron, people thought it was shameful. After a while Homer disappreared. Emily and the black man grow older. I found it odd when it described her hair it was, “pepper-and-salt iron-gray,” and then described as, “vigorous iron-gray.” What does this mean? I am thinking that until she died she was still firm in who she was. Faulkner really left the reader wanting more by ending the story with Homer dead upstairs after all those years. I wonder if Emily could not accept Homer’s death just as she could not accept her father’s death. I had some confusion about who’s point of view this was written from. On one hand I thought maybe the cousin’s point of view and then on the other hand I thought it could be some of the town’s women. Faulkner did an excellent job keeping my attention.