A Rose For Emily

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…forty, during which she gave lessons in china-painting,"(Faulkner, 721). This shows that most of her life Emily was alone and once she had someone the townspeople wanted her to be confined again. This could be why she killed Homer and slept by his decomposing body for over forty years. It also shows that during this long period of isolation she must have lost her mind and that drove her to her sad and lonely ending.