Emily Mental State Was or Was Not Impaired
Miss Emily was referred to as a "fallen monument" in the story (William
Faulkner). She was a "monument" of Southern gentility, an ideal of past values but fallen
because she had shown herself susceptible to death (and decay). The description of her
house "lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline
pumps--an eyesore among eyesores" represented a juxtaposition of the past and present
and was an emblematic presentation of Emily herself (William Faulkner).
The house smells of dust and disuse and has a closed, dank smell. A description
of Emily in the following paragraph discloses her similarity to the house. "She looked
bloated like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that palled hue"
(William Faulkner). But she had not always had that appearance. In the picture of a
young Emily with her father, she was frail and apparently hungering to participate......
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