Is there another character who serves as the hero other than Miss Emily, or does "A Rose for Emily" lack a hero altogether?

In William Faulkner's story, "A Rose for Emily," I would
imagine that labels placed on characters in terms of protagonist, antagonist and hero
are somewhat subjective.

In terms of the protagonist, this
is usually the main character. We would also prefer to label such a person as the "good
guy" as well, but in this case, we certainly cannot. (This is similar to Shakespeare's
Macbeth. Macbeth is the protagonist—starts out as a hero—but he
becomes a cold-blooded murderer as well.)

We can find
plenty of antagonists in the story: Emily's father, Homer Baron, the town of Jefferson,
and Miss Emily herself—in an odd way because she is the protagonist
and the "bad" guy. (How to categorize her...???) However, Faulkner
provides us with a complex character in Emily who cannot be easily explained
away.

Setting aside the concept of antagonist and
protagonist, there are certain aspects of Emily's character that make her seem "heroic"
under her circumstances. She defies her father in a community of the South where women
had no rights and were treated like possessions. When her father dies, she defies
society first by sending her female relatives who come to stay, now that Miss Emily is
unmarried and living alone, away. Then she continues to cause "tongues to wag" by going
out with Homer Baron. However, even he can be seen in a negative
light, much like Emily's father. In Homer's case, he is a "man's man," and seemingly not
ready to give that up for Emily, though he also seems to be courting her at one
point.

Emily goes through a time where she gives china
painting lessons, perhaps bringing in some extra money. She defies the local
representatives of the government who try to make her pay taxes: Colonel Sartoris did
away with her need to pay taxes when her father died. Though the Colonel is long dead,
Emily stands up to the gentlemen who come to collect the money, and dismisses them out
of hand. Even when the smell appears at her home, the community takes care of it quietly
and privately, until it goes away.

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"Dammit, sir," Judge Stevens said, "will you
accuse a lady to her face of smelling
bad?"

In later years, Miss
Emily becomes very private with only Tobe, her servant, as company. She is alone but
defies any attempts by the community to alter her self-imposed isolation. With all of
these conventions that she defies as "merely a genteel southern belle," Emily cannot be
seen completely as a victim. She stands up to the two overbearing men in her life—her
father, and then Homer (she really stands up to
him), and ultimately becomes an independent woman when such a thing
was socially unacceptable and unheard of.

In these ways, we
can see Miss Emily as heroic. She defies society, takes care of herself, stands up for
her rights, and does not allow anyone to tell her how to live. It is something heroic
when a member of the "weaker sex" can stand up to a male-dominated
society.

There is no other hero in the
story. Heroes are often defined as those who are courageous and triumphant in the face
of adversity, which Miss Emily is, but they are also
self-sacrificing for the good of others: Miss Emily is
not.

Perhaps we can agree that she is
the story's protagonist, and that she has strong heroic traits for a woman of the
time—and she has suffered at the hands of the men in her life. Perhaps we should agree
she is deranged. She is a "dark hero" who manages to survive on her
terms, who also murders a man and sleeps with his corpse. She defies a
label.