" Vanquish" is a potent in this story that looks back to the time of the civil war for its context. To "vanquish" means to overcome, to conquer, and "vanquish horse and foot" resonates with civil war battles that the south ultimately lost. For a woman to vanquish men shows an upset of traditional roles, and indeed Emily, even though she is a traditional, southern lady--in fact, because she is a traditional southern lady-- has power over the town in such a way that they are afraid of her, and it is this distance that enables (or causes) her to deteriorate in the way she does in murdering (vanquishing) Homer and then preserving his body.
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