In “A Rose For Emily” by William Faulkner, you can see that Emily had power. She was told countless times that she had to pay taxes and even even received many letters telling her to do so. When they visited her house to tell her upfront that she had to pay taxes, she said “I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me. Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy yourselves.”(p2 section 1). Even owning a butler shows that she has power because she orders him to do things that she herself would not do. Another person who had power was her father. Her father had driven away all the young men that were around Emily.(p3 section 2) I felt that the people who hopped into Emily’s yard to fix her odor problem has power. They complained many times to Board of Alderman saying that her place smelled bad, but in the end the Board of Alderman did nothing. So at night they would sneak into the yard and sprinkle lime to erase the harsh odor.
The people who didn’t have power were the Board of Alderman, who told Emily to pay for taxes. All the times they told her to pay taxes she never did and wounded up with nothing in the end. I felt like Emily herself was powerless against her father because she had no contact to boys when she was young and had to do whatever he told her to do. She was also being talked about because she never stepped outside of her house and not even been with a man even though her father has passed.
