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In "A Rose for Emily," what is the meaning of Emily's meeting people at the door rather than inviting them in?

Emily rarely lets anyone inside because she is reclusive and eccentric, but she has a definite reason to keep them out after she has a body in her house.


Emily is not a social butterfly. She very rarely has anyone enter her house. When the town tried desperately to get her to pay her taxes, she refused and kept insisting that she paid no taxes because of her father. They were persistent, but so was...

Emily rarely lets anyone inside because she is reclusive and eccentric, but she has a definite reason to keep them out after she has a body in her house.


Emily is not a social butterfly. She very rarely has anyone enter her house. When the town tried desperately to get her to pay her taxes, she refused and kept insisting that she paid no taxes because of her father. They were persistent, but so was she. Even when she let someone in, it was reluctantly, and he didn’t get far.



A deputation waited upon her, knocked at the door through which no visitor had passed since she ceased giving chinapainting lessons eight or ten years earlier. They were admitted by the old Negro into a dim hall from which a stairway mounted into still more shadow.



They leave without the taxes. She has “vanquished” them. Even when her father died, it took them several days to get her to give them the body.



The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. 



In this way, she gets a reputation for never coming out of the house and never having any visitors. This is very convenient when you kill your boyfriend. As a response to the smell, the men just sprinkle lime. They do not find the body until they actually break down the door, after “Miss Emily was decently in the ground.” She had the body with her in her bed the entire time.

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