Faulkner's "Miss Emily"

One irrefutable aspect of the human condition is that everyone has a dark side to his or her personality. Unfortunately, this dark side can rise to the surface, causing one to act outside both the constraints of society and their own consciences. By creating a character that, because of her very real life situation allows herself to act outside of the law, Faulkner appeals to his readers’ sense of this dark side inherent in all of us, thereby evoking sympathy for the very “human” Miss Emily.

Faulkner writes a story depicting a friendless old woman who dies a lonely death. Within the very first sentence, the reader learns that although the whole town attended her funeral, it was not due to friendship: “the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one… had seen in at least ten years.” Her life as a young woman is described as a protected one, sh...