Theme Of Suspense In A Rose For Emily

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“A window that had been dark was now lit and Emily sat in it, the light behind her” (P.130). Emily was known in the town although people had no idea about what she really did; just like her sitting in the window, you knew she was there but all you could see was her shadow. Faulkner manipulated Emily and her relationship with the community along with her lover to create an overwhelming feeling of suspense. This feeling was strategically kept throughout the entire story. From Emily keeping her father’s dead body to her buying the arson to kill Homer. In “A Rose for Emily” William Faulkner positions the character of Emily to create a feeling of suspense and uncertainty about who she actually is. The story starts out at her own funeral, automatically making you curious about what happened that led to her death. If Faulkner had not started the story this way it would have removed a huge element of suspense. It would have seemed like a story about a crazy old lady that died at age 74 and nothing more. Faulkner uses Emily in a …show more content…

What are they going to do to him? What about Emily? Well it ended up working out in the communities favor, and Homer left. This shows the extent in which the community was concerned for her, knowing her father would have disowned her if he were alive. There was a lot if things going on at this point and the suspense continued right along with it. When the community comes to her house due to the rank smell the men described her body as “small and spare” (P. 129). She is reluctant to letting the men get her dads corpse and bury him, raising the anticipation level of what they might do to get the body. The town knows the body is in the house rotting, but she does not want to admit to it and tries to play it off as a dead rat. Not knowing why she doesn’t want them to get her father allows for a margin of personal

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