In William Faulkner's short story "A Rose for Emily", he uses many literary elements to describe Emily's life and Jefferson City. The theme of past versus present is in some ways the story of Miss Emily's life. Miss Emily is the representation of the Old South against the New South, primarily due to her inability to interact with the present or accept reality. Holding on to the past and rejecting change in the present has led Miss Emily into a life of isolation and mental problems. Miss Emily's refusal to change began when her father died and when asked about it, she was in denial and "she told them my father wasn't dead." She didn't want to realize that the one person in her life who loved and protected her was gone. The fact that he was so controlling of her life and the way she lived made Miss Emily afraid of what would happen next. She wasn't used to making her own life choices. The past takes on many symbols in “A Rose for Emily,” the most important being the past of the Old South. This may be the Old South, a South that was beaten and defeated by the North. This, however, is a South that persistently and rather unreasonably insists on clinging to its earlier wonders and refuses to accept the passage of time. or confront the changes that have been made there. The South is Miss Emily, embodied in her refusal to pay taxes, she says » See Colonel Sartoris. I don't have taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris has been dead for almost ten years. This shows how out of touch Miss Emily is with the world and how she refuses to accept the change happening around her, ending with her indifferent treatment towards the town authorities and their rejection...... middle of paper.....had an adverse psychological effect on her. The ways of the world had changed around her and Miss Emily simply hadn't accepted it. She had tried to stop time in her own way and, more surprisingly, the townspeople had let her. To them, she was a symbol of the old South, even though they suspected mental illness. She was her father's daughter and they were more than happy to let her do things her way. They loved it as a symbol of the Old South so they could also cling to an idealized past. But as the reader knows, time stops for no one. He will never be able to stop and no matter how you try to trick him, he will eventually find a way out. The outcome for Emily was death. She leaves behind the city dwellers who must determine how they will evolve in this new world of change and growth, how they will reconcile the Old South with the new..