"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."
Miss Emily's house is significant to us as readers. For one, from the very beginning, we see her house as a mysterious and foreboding fortress, into which no one enters or leaves save one man. Throughout the entire story, we are only given the image of the outside of the house. What lies inside, no one knows. Even back when Miss Emily was a young woman, the only image anyone remembers is of her father in the doorway, a menacing guardian of his daughter and house. The house itself is old, greying and decayed, just like Miss Emily herself. The house falls into ruin, with a few broken windows, rooms in disuse, and peeling and faded paint. This house, once an image if beauty in its prime days, is surrounded by ugly industrialization. Finally, we can see her house not only as a fortress, but somewhat as a prison to her. Her father confined her to it, giving her nowhere else to go. Once she kills Homer, she fills out her life sentence in that house: creepy, old, claustrophobic area. In fact, the house is so creepy, even Tobe her servant leaves as soon as he can after Miss Emily's death.
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