There's Something Wrong with Emily

In William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily, so much creepiness happens in so few pages. It's actually incredible. The way Faulkner slowly introduces Emily's character posthumously is chilling; just after revealing that she is in fact dead, he offers his first physical description of her, and it is not very flattering. Obese, he calls her. Her eyes, personality, and manner of speech are all off-putting, and impressions of her given throughout the rest of the story don't do much in her favor. Especially not when she buys arsenic/poison with no explanation. From very early on, there is no question that there is something untrustworthy and strange about her.

Then there is the setting. Faulkner excels at creating a vague and unsettling tone. The street Emily's house is located on is described rather darkly. Almost as if the very street is decaying. However, the most poignant piece of the setting is Emily's home. As the story goes on, it reveals how the house rarely saw any visitors, and how Emily boarded up the upstairs, and how for some time there was even a bad smell about the place. All of these things come together to create the perfect atmosphere in which to reveal the horrible truth hiding in Emily's upstairs: She killed a man she (probably) loved, and slept beside his decaying corpse for years. At least, that's how I interpret the gray hair of hers lying on the pillow. It is a very powerful piece of imagery, offering up one of the most uncomfortable endings to a story I've ever read. And if it doesn't conclude the characterization of one of the most uncomfortable characters ever written, I'd like to know another.