Emily's relationship with her father can be vividly seen in what the narrator describes as "the tableau" they had constructed of her: Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung door." We see in this "tableau" his violence and dominance, and her youthful femininity. He was controlling, refusing her a life of her own or a husband, and he cared little, for in this picture (as the townspeople imagine them) he has his back to her. The image of the horsewhip is particularly disturbing, especially when we consider how violent she was in killing Homer to keep him. One suspects that her father might have, in a similar way, used that horsewhip on her to keep her.
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