Emily Grierson Short summary of the story, enjoy

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The whole town attended to Emily Grierson’s funeral, but did they actually knew who she was? And that was exactly the problem. Emily was a very mysterious lady, with a lot of secrets and eccentricities; it was impossible to know what was going through that woman’s head. But that did not stop the people talking and supposing things about her; “poor Emily” they used to say, and it was impossible not to talk about her due to her weird personality. Emily Grierson not only was a weird woman, but also she was insane.
Emily’s family background contributed to make Emily Grierson who she is. First of all, it is implied that her family had once been socially well positioned when it is said that her house was

set on what had once been our most select street.

That means her family was wealthy and accepted within the society. But not everything was normal in her family; her aunt had mental problems, giving the possibility to Emily of becoming crazy too, according to what people assumed. However, her father’s death was the most important factor that changed her life. When he died her whole appearance changed;

She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their errand.

This description reflects how decaying her semblance was becoming. Also, it says that she was the last of her family, being this one of the reasons of her isolation. These situations were important causes of her personality, being the source of her madness, loneliness and bitterness. Another important part of her life is her peculiar relationship with Homer Barron. This relationship was not usual, but it was to be expected considering Emily’s behavior. They first started seeing each other:

Presently we began to see him and Miss Emily on Sunday afternoons driving in the yellow-wheeled buggy and the matched team of bays from the livery stable.

However, their relationship was not perfect.

He liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks' Club.

Later some ladies began saying that their relationship was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people. They even forced the Baptist minister to call upon her; as a result, some kinfolks arrived from Alabama and stayed in her house. Barron and Emily seemed to have a good relationship then; people started wondering if they were going to marry, and they even thought they did. Nevertheless, Barron went away some time later, as well as her cousins. After a few days he came back, but since that day he was never seen again, neither Emily for some months. From that point on, she began behaving ever weirder. She never showed out of her house again, only her servant used to get out to buy some groceries, but he never spoke.

When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray… And so she died. Fell ill in the house filled with dust and shadows, with only a doddering Negro man to wait on her.

She finished her last years without talking to anyone since her broke up with Barron. It can be inferred in the story that she could not stand a normal relationship. First of all, she was a very possessive person. This can be seen when she tries to keep her father’s corpse claiming that he was alive or when she refused to pay her taxes. In the story we can infer that she actually kill Barron because by the time that he left her she suspiciously bought some rat poison, and at the end they find his rotten corpse lying in a locked room of her house with a strand of her iron-gray hair. That means that something happen that made her react like a psycho, and therefore, to poison her boyfriend. Furthermore, that means that she was insane and that she could not control herself. Consequently, she was not able to persist in a good relationship with a man.
It can be easily noticed that Emily was not a normal person and that she was a bizarre lady with a creepy behavior. Even though her family had once been a well positioned one, she became lonely and mad at the time that she lost them. She isolated herself from the society, she barely talked to some people and she even became stinky. She could not stand a relationship with a man at the point that she became a psycho-killer. She became even weirder with that last action; she got even older and bitterer. The rest of the people just enjoyed feeling pity of her, but they really did not know her; the only thing they knew is that she was insane, and so she was.