A Rose for the Dead

After reading A Rose for Emily, I was left wanting more out of this gothic short story. Granted, some parts of the story did include elements which could categorize this story within the gothic genre, it just wasn’t as good as the other stories that we’ve read. The unknown is a gothic component within this short story, because Emily isolating herself from the others creates mystery which can be unsettling for many because her intentions are not clear and could lead to danger. In this case, Emily actually was a dangerous person. It is evident how dangerous she was when people searched her house after her death. A decayed body was found in a bed and a strand of hair that belonged to Emily was on the pillow next to the body. The fact that she murdered someone and kept the body on a bed and slept next to it is also another gothic component. Since she did not murder herself with the rat poison, as the townspeople assumed I’m pretty sure she murdered her “sweetheart” which is why he disappeared. I cannot understand why she would murder him. What were her true intentions for committing this crime?  How could the corpse of a human ever compensate for the interaction of a living and breathing one? How could she justify her actions when the body was no longer her sweetheart’s, but rather almost a skeleton by the time they found it. I also wonder why the servant of the house never told the police about what Emily had done.