An important symbol to the story, “A Rose for Emily,” was the house Emily and her family owned. The house was a key symbol, because Faulkner used it in a variety of ways. He used the house to represent Emily herself, physically and emotionally, and he also used the house to represent the change in her social status. Then used it to represent the passage of time from the old south, to the new south, and how Ms. Emily was lost in time. The beginning of the story describes the house as being lavish and beautiful, which could relate back to Ms. Emily when she was younger. She was full of youth and very beautiful, but when her father died, Ms. Emily’s life took a turn for the worse. After her father’s death, Emily became more of shut in, which was reflected in the house, “But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left.” The house itself was secluded from the town, much like she was. When she became old and ill, so did the house, “fell ill in the house filled with dust and shadows.” The house became dilapidated and faded, the inside covered in dust by the passage of time. Not only does Faulkner use the house to show Emily's physical and mental state, but he uses the house to show her fall from grace; an aristocrat, to an eccentric hermit. This evident in the beginning of the story, “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street.” The house was once in the town’s most renowned street, which most likely housed other aristocrats. However, as time passed, “garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left.” The aristocrats of that neighborhood moved, and the street became rundown, as