A Rose For Emily
... Tobe, to shop for her. In this she bears a resemblance to Louisa in “A New England Nun.” Both women prefer their own company, and both are agitated when they are around others. Miss Emily slowly fades out of the public eye until the next time she is spotted: she has “grown fat and her hair [had turned] gray.” This is the crucial point for Faulkner to set up the ending. This scene is disgusting and disturbing. Earlier, everyone smelled a rotting scent coming from Miss Emily’s house, and so the men go to find out what it is. Thinking that it is the carcass of a snake Tobe killed, they sprinkle lime powder all around the house. But at the very end of the story, we find out that it was not a decomposing animal causing the smells. At Emily’s funeral, some of the townspeople break into one of the rooms in her house, which had been locked for 40 years. On the bed is the body of Homer Barron, fleshless and entirely decayed. On the pillow next to his body lay “a long strand of iron-grey hair.” Apparently Miss Emily had been sleeping next to the corpse; in fact, maybe that is how she “fell ill” and ...