Response 9

When it comes to the short story A Rose for Emily, a Gothic element I noticed was the loneliness or desertion. The village was full of people, but the house that was mentioned was rather empty and dull, it sticked out but not for positive things. It was rather old and ‘outdated’. The village around was thriving and growing, prospering, and reeking of success from industrialization. It was, essentially, lost in a previous era that has long gone passed. Another theme that stuck out for me was death as it was prominent in the entire story. Emily kills Homer with a potion, and while the entire townspeople think Emily killed herself, her home reeks of a dead corpse. People enter and realize that Homer instead was killed. She eventually locks herself in what seems to be an attic. She isolates herself from the outside world and essentially outcasts herself. She isnt heard from again until many years later after her death. After her death, people finally manage to get into her house and find Homer’s decayed body and her’s as well. People attend her funeral. A theme particular is mass confusion. I think people in the village forgot that someone even lived in that house because normally when you walk past a broken and run downed you would assume its empty yet you’d never actually venture inside to confirm your suspicions. A theme would be oddity as Emily wasn’t your typical person living in your village, as she secluded herself from everyone and kept to herself, and ultimately died with the body of the one she liked.