The story, told in five sections, opens in section one with an unnamed narrator describing the funeral of Miss Emily Grierson. He notes that while the men attend the funeral to pay their respects, the women go primarily because no one has been inside Emily’s house for years. The narrator describes a grand house which was once the best of neighborhoods. Emily’s origins are aristocratic, but both her house and the neighborhood it is in have deteriorated. The narrator notes that Emily had the curious distinction of having her taxes paid by the town since her father’s death. This is because Colonel Sartoris, the former mayor of the town, invented a story explaining the payment of Emily’s taxes as the town’s method of paying back a loan to her father. He wanted to save her from the embarrassment of accepting charity.

The narrator uses this opportunity to tell about the first of several flashbacks in the story. The first incident he describes takes place about 10 years before Emily’s death. A new generation of politicians takes over Jefferson’s government. They disregard Colonel Sartoris’s invention and send Emily her bills of taxes. The first physical description of Emily is unattractive: she is “… a small, fat woman in black” who looks “bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue.” She ignores their notices and letters. Finally, they send a deputation to discuss the situation with her. After the spokesman awkwardly explains the reason for their visit, Emily repeatedly insists that she has no taxes in Jefferson and tells the men to see Colonel Sartoris. The narrator notes that Colonel Sartoris has been dead at that point for almost ten years. She sends the men away from her house with nothing.

Section two begins as the narrator tells about another flashback that takes place thirty years before the unsuccessful tax collection. In this episode, Emily’s neighbors complain of an awful smell coming from her home. The narrator reveals that Emily had a sweetheart who deserted her shortly before people began complaining about the smell. Despite several complaints, Judge Stevens, the town’s mayor during this era, is reluctant to do anything about it for he is afraid of offending Emily. This forces a small group of men to take action. Four of them sneak around Emily’s house after midnight, sprinkling lime around her house. Within a few weeks the smell disappeared.

The narrator notes the town’s pity for Emily when discussing of her family’s past. He reveals that Emily once had a mad greataunt, old lady Wyatt. He also notes that Emily is apparently an unmarried woman because of her father’s insistence that “none of the young men were good enough” for her. The narrator then describes the awful circumstances that follow Emily’s father’s death. At first, Emily denied his death until the law was about to intrude. She finally let him be buried. The narrator begins to detail Emily’s relationship with Homer Barron, a Yankee construction foreman, in section three. Barron was leading the efforts to pave the sidewalks in Jefferson.

The narrator seems sympathetic, but the ladies and many of the older people in town find Emily’s behavior scandalous. They gossip about how pathetic Emily has become whenever she rides through the town in a carriage with Homer. Then came the time she went to the town’s druggist, demanding arsenic. The druggist tells her that the law requires her to tell him how she plans to use the poison, but she simply stares at him until he backs away and wraps up the arsenic. He writes “for rats” on the box.

At the beginning of section four, the town believes that Emily may commit suicide with the poison she has purchased. The narrator backs up the story again by detailing the circumstances leading up to Emily’s purchase of the arsenic. At first, the town believes that Emily will marry Homer Barron, despite Homer says that he is not the marrying type. However, a marriage never takes place, and their relationship upsets many of the town’s ladies. The minister’s wife sends away for Emily’s two female cousins from Alabama hoping that they will convince Emily to either marry Homer or end the affair. During their visit, Emily purchases a toilet set engraved with Homer’s initials, as well as a complete set of men’s clothing, including a nightshirt. This leads the town to believe that Emily will marry Homer. The cousins leave a week later, and Homer is seen going into Emily’s house three days after they leave. After that, Homer is never seen again and the townspeople believe he has abandoned Emily.

Emily is not seen in town for almost six months. When she is finally seen on the street again, she is fat and her hair has turned gray. Her house remains closed to visitors, except when she conducted china-painting classes for several years. She doesn’t allow the town to put an address on her house and she continues to ignore the tax notices they send her. Occasionally, she is seen at an upper. Finally, she dies.

The narrator returns to his recollection of Emily’s funeral at the beginning of section five. As soon as Tobe lets the ladies into the house, he leaves out the back door and is never seen again. Soon after Emily is buried, several of the men force the upstairs open. There were the silver toilet articles with the engraved letters, “H. B.” upon them. They find a rotten corpse laying in bed and a long strand of iron-gray hair on the pillow next to his remains.