Suspense In A Rose For Emily By William Faulkner

In most stories, the author works to captivate and entertain an audience with a story. To do that, however, he must capture the audience’s attention and make them want to read the story all the way through. One way an author does this is through suspense, the apprehension a reader has for what is to come. Suspense is an important literary element that helps develop a story, contributes to its overall effect, and enthrall the audience through many ways including foreshadowing, conflict, and the climax.
Creating suspense in a story usually involves foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is a hint of what is to come without revealing any important details. For example, in Killings by Andre Dubus, the author foreshadows Richard Strout’s violence towards Frank when Strout beats Frank after finding out he was dating Strout’s ex. Later, Strout kills Frank for the same reason. In Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs uses foreshadowing to hint to the reader the future romance between Tarzan and Jane when Terkoz mistakes Jane for Tarzan’s woman. In A Rose for Emily by William …show more content…
The moment of greatest emotional tension in a story formed by the suspense an audience has of the outcome of the conflicts a character is put through. The climax in Tarzan is when Tarzan kills Terkoz, which relieves the readers of suspense for a moment before introducing a new issue that builds it up again. In Killings, the climax also came at the end of the conflict with Matt killing Richard, which resolved the suspense and leads to the falling resolution. In A Rose for Emily, the climax came when the townspeople found Homer’s body in a bed with a grey hair that presumes to belong to Miss Emily on the pillow, but could presumably be Miss Emily going into town to buy the strongest arsenic at the drug store. The climax of a story is an important part of having suspense, as it allows the author to relieve and reset the suspense in a scene and pulls the reader back