In "A Rose for Emily," what do you think the "long iron-grey hair" found on the pillow next to Homer's body symbolizes?

None of the other answers address this question. What does the hair symbolize? That it belongs to Emily is obvious because of the earlier reference to her hair, "Up until the day of her death at 74, it was still that vigorous iron-gray."

Anyone who has studied Faulkner at all knows that his obsession was the dying/decaying South. That's what this story is all about. The necrophilia is just candy for what Flannery O'Connor would describe as "the average reader." Yeah, there's the stuff about her daddy, but that's not the main point.

Emily, and her Dad, represent the old south. They really are allegorical characters. There's very little character development; she simply is the last remnant of the old south, the confederate gray. She is the old generation.

Yes, it is ironic that she, of all people ends up with a Yankee. But from her generation's point of view, the yankees really did come down and screw the south (to put it gently). The baser capitalisitic and opportunistic values of the north pollute the bed of the south for generations to come. This may be why Emily's relationship with Homer is so unnatural.

The final image of the book is a bed with a rotting corpse of a yankee--Homer--and a single iron-gray hair. The symbolism could not be more obvious.