Even on her deathbed Granny's children annoy her. "She lay and drowsed, hoping in her sleep that the children would keep out and let her rest a minute" (Porter 243)
Emily Grierson has always been able to defeat anyone who would dare to challenge her position above the other citizens of the town. "She vanquished them & #8230;just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell" (Faulkner 2011,-page 537)
For example, he was able to pass a law which demanded that all negro women wear aprons while on the street. Sartoris's power allowed for him to perpetuate the prejudicial attitudes of the south even after the war had ended (Volpe 2004,-page 100)
In a sense one could argue that the town was complicit in the murder of Homer Barron. By focusing on the simple horror of Emily Grierson, we miss the degree to which the townspeople exhibit obsessive and manipulative behavior of their own (Melczarek)