William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is a Southern Gothic story set in post-Civil War Mississippi. It is the story of a lady named Emily and how she is determined to never be alone in her life. Young Emily always had her father; she was never lonely and neither was he. Emily's father runs off every boy who may be interested in Emily. He keeps Emily extremely closed off from everyone, including her family. They live in the same house that never changes. After her father's death, Emily falls severely ill; when Homer comes along, Emily is finally free to make her own decisions. Emily always had her father, so she uses Homer to replace the loneliness in her heart. She is determined to make this man who identified himself as "not a marrying man," her husband (Faulkner 6). When Emily finds out that Homer is going to leave town, she devises a plan to keep him around. After Emily's death the townspeople are anxious to see inside her house, but when they open her bedroom door and find the decaying corpse of Homer Barron they are shocked. Faulkner conveys the idea that living in the past is the equivalent of living with death through foreshadowing, conflict, and imagery.
             Faulkner begins the story with Emily's death creating immediate foreshadowing. Emily is dead throughout the entire story because living in the past is the equivalent of living with death. Emily's home is the only one of its kind still left in the town. She believes that the way her father always lived is the correct way. Her father has always secluded himself from the rest of the world, and he lives his entire life in the past. More foreshadowing of death comes when a smell begins to develop around her house. The townspeople go to her house one night to sprinkle lime around the outbuildings and the cellar. As they are leaving " a window that had been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind her upri...