<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards . No cleanup reason has been specified . Please help improve this article if you can . (March 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards . No cleanup reason has been specified . Please help improve this article if you can . (March 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> Emily Grierson, also referred to Miss Emily in the text, is the main character of the short story "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner . Miss Emily is described as "a small, fat woman" who lived within a modernizing town full of people who saw her as a very cold, very distant woman who lived in her past . Throughout the story, she is referred to by her fellow townspeople as a tradition, a duty, and a care, and is portrayed as a very mean, stubborn old woman . However, as her story unfolds, Faulkner wants readers to sympathize with her because of the amount of loss that she's had to cope with throughout her life . </P> <P> Miss Emily is a "hereditary obligation upon the town" in which she lived . The townspeople find themselves looking after her after her father's death . Miss Emily is often misunderstood because she is portrayed as being incapable of being alone while also exhibiting a sense of authority over the town by disregarding the laws of which they live by . For example, not paying her taxes, not putting numbers on her mailbox for the federal mail service, not telling the druggist why she needed arsenic, and parading around town with Homer Barron . After purchasing the arsenic the townspeople thought she was going to kill herself, but being the misunderstood character that she is, Miss Emily has other plans . Miss Emily's physical appearance also displays her deeper character . The way that Faulkner portrays her external changes is parallel to how she internally changes . Miss Emily's actions cause readers to view her in a different connotation: a way in which is cautious and apprehensive as a result of her radical behaviors towards the end of her life . Readers will find themselves feeling sympathetic towards Miss Emily in the beginning but much less for her in the end of the story because of her sinister actions and questionable character . </P>

Physical description of emily in a rose for emily