A Rose for Emily" recounts the story of an eccentric spinster, Emily Grierson. An unnamed narrator details the strange circumstances of Emily’s life and her odd relationships with her father, who controlled and manipulated her, and her lover, the Yankee road worker Homer Barron. She is seen buying arsenic, which the townspeople believe she will use to commit suicide. After this, Homer Barron is not heard from again, and is assumed to have returned north. Though she does not commit suicide, the townspeople of Jefferson continue to gossip about her and her eccentricities, citing her family's history of mental illness. She is heard from less and less, and rarely ever leaves her home. Unbeknownst to the townspeople until her death, hidden in her upstairs room is Homer's corpse, which explains the horrid stench that emitted from Miss Emily's house 40 years ago.