If Faulkner had chosen Emily or her servant as the narrator, the story would have been very different, and readers would have known what was going on in Emily's house much sooner, but since Faulkner chose a townsperson, the secrets of Emily's disturbed mind remained hidden until the final scene where the rotting corpse of her second suitor is discovered in her bed. The story is much more entertaining this way, because finding out about Emily too early would have made the rest of the story dull and somewhat uninteresting. Once they make the gruesome discovery, not much more analysis about Emily is needed. Each person in the town had opinions and beliefs about Emily, and the final scene lets the townspeople know whether their opinions and beliefs were correct. The one thing it does not tell the reader is why Emily did what she did. Did she hate the men? Was it a game? Was she crazy after all? Or was she just so concerned about losing the men's affection that she killed them to keep them...
There could be a million different reasons for the deaths that Emily caused, but the story ends without the reader finding out what the actual reason was, and Faulkner does not even really hint at the main reason.Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
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