I found William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," confusing, disturbing, but very thought-provoking. The bulk of the story was eerie,but in a strange way innocent, until the end. We get a glimpse into the strange life of Emily Grierson through a narrator who appears to be a member of the village, as he uses "we" when discussing the village people's actions. Through the thoughts of the narrator and other villagers, we find out quickly that Emily is a very high-class woman who is rich, from an important family, and, as a result, untouchable. Faulkner uses words like "impervious" as well as the description that her taxes are remitted to express the sense that Emily was above-human. In addition, the villagers describe Emily in nouns such as "a fallen monument," (58), an "idol" (60),  and resembling an angel (61) to further show that Emily was so untouchable that she was almost Godly. The villagers are so invested in her life and care about everything she does, as they are always gossiping and whispering about her, yet it is obvious that they don't care about her well being and just want to see her fall. This jealousy is seen when they say, "'She will kill herself'; and we said it would be the best thing" (Faulkner 61). The irrational way the villagers perceive Emily reminds me of how our culture views celebrities, and how we put them on a pedestal as almost God-like. We put so much of our energy into their lives, and subconsciously want them to fall so that we can feel better about ourselves. Through the story, we see that Emily does finally struggle, after her father dies. The people of the village are pleased, as "at last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less" (60). Struggles humanized Emily and brought her down from her high seat above everyone else. Now with her father gone and no husband, she finally was going through the pain that normal people go through, and the people of her village were happy that they could finally put themselves above Miss Emily by pitying her.
On a different note, I found Emily's relationship with her father very disturbing, as if he controlled her and guarded her from the rest of the world. I think that her father was to blame for her complete lack of friends. There are many other disturbing aspects of the story, as Emily acts very strange and scary at times, as if she could control and manipulate people, in addition to the fact that she never leaves her house for forty years. The rotten scent that comes from her house makes sense by the end of the story, with the eerie scene of the village finding the dead Homer Barron, with a "profound and fleshless grin" (64). I was confused with this scene, which describes in addition to the dead body of Homer, an "indentation of a head" (64) on the pillow next to him, and how they found her iron-gray hair in its nostril. This shows that Emily killed Homer, but was there another body as well?
I believe that Emily killed Homer because she wanted to create a perfect idea in her mind where she was finally married, and since Homer was gay, she could only accomplish this by killing him so that this fantasy could exist in her mind forever. Miss Emily was so lonely from a complete lack of friends, as well as a lack of love in her life, that she became a murderer.