When Miss Emily's father dies, she refuses to let go of his body or even to admit that he has died. When the women of the town visit to offer condolences she has "no trace of grief on her face" and tells them "that her father was not dead." This shows that she has difficulty letting go and foreshadows the fact that she will not let Homer Baron leave her. The town had thought she would marry Homer, but he has stated that he is "not a marrying man." Rather than let him leave and go back to the North, she poisons him. As she did with her father, she refuses to let go of Homer.
Furthermore, by refusing to let go of her father's body she is holding onto decay, and this foreshadows the ending of the story as it becomes evident from the indentation in the pillow and the "long strand of iron gray-hair" upon it that Emily has been lying next to the skeleton of Homer Baron. Next to Emily's pillow lies Homer Baron, whose "body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace."
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