Emily, you so crazy

"...All the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches..."

This line, near the end of the story, sums up "A Rose for Emily" to me.  Above all, this story is steeped in nostalgia.  Or, perhaps, not quite nostalgia, but a strange nostalgic preference that the past would remain the present.  The narrator, to be sure, is guilty of this; his perspective drifts among reverence of Emily, peculiar fascination, and quiet contempt.  As the town itself ages and decays, Emily seems to remain sacrosanct, inviolable, and secure in her home.

Only after Emily dies do we learn that she has perpetrated the ultimate nostalgia; what better, in her mind, than to keep things "the way they are," so there never has to be a "way they were?"  It seems apparent, in the final paragraph, that Emily had long ago poisoned Mr. Barron and had been sleeping next to his corpse for many years.  For her, this may have effectively frozen time.  This, from such a reticent woman, one who simply would not acknowledge any phrase resembling "things have changed," seems hardly surprising, if a bit shocking.  Indeed, to the intruders in her home, things have changed quite noticeably.  Jefferson has been corrupted by encroaching industry, Homer Barron's belongings lie obscured under thick tarnish, and he himself is withered, dessicated, and skeletonized.  Emily, too, will soon take this road.

So, what to make of this?  Is Faulkner linking Emily's grotesquerie to the Confederate war veterans waxing nostalgic on her lawn?  Is he focusing his dark satirical gaze on those who would, in an effort to preserve their idealized memory of Dixie past, regress it and pervert it beyond recognition?  Probably.