A Rose for Emily
I really enjoyed a Rose for Emily because of the way Faulkner set up the story - jumping around chronologically and focusing on Emily through the townspeople’s point of view. I had also read it before, but it had been so long since the first time that I didn’t realize it until I got to the middle of the story. I thought it was amusing how Emily’s community had helped her get away with murder because of their customs and manners. The way society viewed the role of women meant that Emily, a lady, could not possibly be capable of anything like murder. These beliefs pinned Emily in a corner, giving her no way to achieve her own happiness and then gave her the tools she needed to get away with the murder of Homer Baron, her beau, out of desperation to keep him. The druggist she bought arsenic from let her have the strong poison even when she refused to tell him what it was for - as the law demanded he do, he decided to put the reason for the purchase as “rats”. When she murdered Homer and, as all decaying bodies eventually do, began to stink up her property, the neighbors complained but no one would confront Emily about it because it would be rude to point out her house stunk. Instead, a group of men grabbed some lime and sprinkled her yard with it to suppress the smell helping her cover up her murder. The town eventually discovered what she had done when she died - she slept in the same bed with Homer’s corpse until she was quite old, as seen from when they pulled a long, grey strand of her hair off of the pillow next to him. This is my favorite short story because it’s so much fun to read this town feeling to superior to Miss Emily, thinking they’re doing the town eccentric a favor by putting up with her, when it turns out that she murdered someone right under their noses.