Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily” illustrates the evolution of a small post-Civil War community as a new generation of residents replaces the pre-Civil War one ideals with more modern ideas. At the center of the town is Emily Grierson, the sole survivor of the upper-middle-class Grierson family, a "Southern gentlewoman incapable of understanding how much the world has changed around her." (Kazin, 2). This essay will focus on Emily Grierson and her attempts to control change after her father's death. Emily's need to control change is first highlighted through her relationship with her father. Their bond, based on a high-class aristocratic ideal system, lasted until their father's death. A mental picture of Mr. Grierson's relationship with Emily is painted by the narrator, who "speaks for his community" (Rodman, 3), as "Miss Emily...in the background, her father...in the foreground, who with his back to her and clutching a riding crop, the two of them framed by the backwards-opened front door. Mr. Grierson's position between Emily and the area outside the house prevents anyone from entering or leaving the house, whip in hand. Emily's father rejects every potential husband because, as Dennis W. Allen states, "no suitor is 'good enough for Mrs. Emily'" (689) Allen goes on to say that “Mr. Grierson stands between his daughter and the world external….Emily's romantic involvements are limited to an incestuous fixation on her father (689). is revealed after the death of Emily's father. According to the speaker, "When her father died, word spread that the house was all that... middle of the paper... 'A rose for Emily'." Modern Fiction Studies 30 (Winter 1984): 685-96.Birk, John F. "A Date Beyond Time: Faulkner's 'Emily' and Keats." Studies in Short Fiction 28.2 (Spring 1991): 203-13.Blythe, Hal "A Rose for Emily." Explicator 47.2 (Winter 1989): 26-30. Faulkner, William. "A rose for Emily." Literature for composition. 4th ed. Sylvan Barnett, et al. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.Kazin, Alfred Bright Book of Life. Boston: Little Brown Company, 1973. Kobler, J. F. "A Rose for Emily. '" Explicator 32 (1974): 65. Muller, Gil. “Faulkner's 'A Rose for Emily'.” Explicator 33 (1975): 79.Rodman, Isaac. "Irony and Isolation: Narrative Distance in Faulkner's 'A Rose for Emily.'" Faulkner Journal 8.2 (Spring 1993): 3-12. Schwab, Milinda. "A Watch for Emily." Studies in Short Fiction 28.2 (Spring 1991): 215-17.