Is Miss Emily really crazy? Is Mrs. Mallard just a selfish old woman? What about Daphne the baglady, is she really so different that she should disappear in a crowd? These are the sorts of questions that an author likes to hear. When an author writes a story he presents the reader with at least one character that brings the story to life. Faulkner, Chopin, and Byatt use Miss Emily, Mrs. Mallard, and Daphne to leave a lasting impression on the reader.
             In A Rose for Emily William Faulkner tells the story of a woman that is so obedient to her father as a young girl that she becomes a loner during her later years. Miss Emily comes from a very prestigious family and has a very strict father who believes that all of the eligible men in town are not good enough so he will not allow her to get married. "So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with the insanity in her family she wouldn't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized" (93). Her father's strictness eventually leads to Miss Emily's insanity. Even after his death Emily stays in her house and no one goes to visit until Homer Barron came along. The town does not agree with Miss Emily living with a man unmarried, "Some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town, and a bad example to the young people" (94,95). They eventually kick Homer out but unbeknownst to the town he comes back to permanently become a hermit with Miss Emily. After a few years Miss Emily dies and the town finally finds the source of the awful stench they have smelled. After the funeral the room above the stairs is broken into. Outsiders have not seen it in forty years. There Homer's body is found in a bed that has obviously been recently inhabited. "Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it...