The town of Jefferson, which is personified in the form of the narrator, becomes one of the most important and active "characters" in the story: the town actively interferes in Miss Emily's life in such a way that it becomes, at times, the antagonist.
The town struggles to force Emily to pay her taxes, which Emily believes were permanently remitted by Colonel Sartoris. With her stubbornness, Emily "vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers before about the smell." In an earlier episode, when neighbors detect a foul smell coming from Emily's property, the town--this time, the older, pre-democratic town--takes care of the smell by secretly spreading lime around Emily's house. This conflict is solved silently because the town still respects the aristocratic social stratum that Emily represents. In yet another episode of conflict, however, the town acts overtly against Emily.
When it appears that Emily and Homer Barron are courting, the town is at first happy for her but then becomes outraged because it believes Emily's association with a working man and, worse, a Yankee, is a violation of her aristocratic obligations, her noblesse oblige. The town brings in the minister to convince her to give up Homer, and he fails so miserably that he can never talk about what happened. The town then calls in its last hope of influencing Emily, her cousins from Alabama, who also fail. The town, however, is glad the cousins failed because, as the narrator tells us, the cousins "were even more Grierson than Miss Emily had been." The town, then, is not happy about the fact that Miss Emily may still be able to find some happiness. Rather, the town is pleased with the result because it dislikes the cousins more than it dislikes Miss Emily's violation of her obligations as the last vestige of southern aristocracy. The town, as antagonist, attempts at every turn to recreate Emily into its version of the southern aristocratic lady who behaves in accord with the town's collective idea of appropriate behavior.
In every episode in which the town and Emily interact, the town sets itself up as the arbiter of Emily's behavior and becomes not just an observer or judge of Emily's behavior but an active antagonist whose goal is to conform Emily's behavior to its view. In a sense, the town and Emily have been locked for decades in a power struggle over the rights of the many against the rights of the one. If we were to keep score, though, the rights of the one have prevailed.