Emily In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

“A Rose for Emily” (1930) is an eerie short story of a strange woman named Emily, a Southern Belle who lived in a large house during the period after the Civil War. William Faulkner tells a tale of Emily whose controlling father passed away, turning her towards a mysterious life of confinement and solitude. Then a man named Homer came into her life and everyone was excited to see that everything seemed to be well at last for Emily. But the reader, along with the people in the story are shocked and disturbed to find out Emily murders Homer at the tail end of the story, and had kept his dead body in her house. Emily killed Homer due to her displeasure for Homer not acting upon marriage, her fear of isolation and her need of control. The first reason for the murder of …show more content…
After Emily and Homer meet, the people of their town begin spreading rumors of the two lovers. The people were sincerely happy for Emily, who finally seemed to be truly content with her life. Later throughout the story, we see that this magical love was not so perfect after all, and Emily finds comes to realize that Homer Baron does not want to settle down with her, as he is “Not a marrying man” (Faulkner 725). Through this quote we see Homer’s stay with Emily to be temporary, and whether this was a surprise to Emily or she knew his stay to be short all along, she was still disappointed by this news because that meant he would leave eventually, which she wouldn 't let happen. This quote also foreshadows the result in Emily’s killing of Homer, because she does not want him to leave therefore turning towards the only option she sees