It is true, as Faulkner said, that Emily lives a life of unhappiness. Her only apparent lover, Homer Barron, deserts her, and she deserves some compensation for her life of unrequited love. However, the title could also suggest that giving Emily a rose is akin to paying homage to a lost time. Miss Emily lives in the only house left on a street that has now been turned over to garages. She is representative of decayed gentility. Faulkner writes, "Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town." She is a responsibility that they must care for, so they let her get away with not paying her taxes and don't question her when she mysteriously purchases arsenic. She is someone people still feel that they must pay obeisance to, and that is what the title could suggest—paying homage to her as a relic of bygone days.
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