Faulkner portrayed Emily Grierson, not as a murderous madwoman, but as a desperate woman who lost everything. Her father, the only man in her life, kept her from marriage and happiness. Abandoned by her sweetheart and ostracized society after the family fortune was gone and her father died, she spent most of her days isolated in the family mansion, too proud to socialize with anyone lower than herself. Being alone for that long with so much sorrow can coax anyone into dementia, so when she found a new sweetheart, she poisoned him before he could leave her, like everyone else in her life had done. Now she could recapture the past that had been stolen from her and have her love, well his corpse at least, by her side forever. Homer Barron ended up as "a rose for Emily" (28) that she pressed and kept forever, hence the title of the story.
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