A Rose for Emily

In William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily”, the use of gothic elements help to set the proper atmosphere needed to convince the reader that the story is possible. With the gothic writing style, the writer captures the decay of society, life, and love in the post Civil War South, and the horrors that human beings are capable of committing against themselves and one another. The mystery of the story is set off perfectly by the style in which it is written. In any other writing style it would not be believable that the crimes of Emily would be unknown. It would just be a story about a crazy woman who kills her lover. But within the gothic genre the gruesome details of such crimes are wholly believable and the crime itself seems justifiable if not romantic. In any other genre this crime and the actions carried out after it would be nothing less than horrifying.

The atmosphere of the story is presented to the reader within the second paragraph. “Only Miss Emily�...