"A Rose for Emily"

This story is great for class discussion. Being it has many different view points and after hearing a few of them from others, I find myself re-thinking mine. Having the setting begin in the late 1800's, you have to have a mind set in that era plus on top of that it was in the "deep" south. Women were viewed a lot differently as that are now. Being rich didn't necessary mean you have money but how much land and slaves you had. Being that Emily went from these kind of mind sets of changing generations, to me it seemed like she didn't welcome the changes that well.In the beginning of the story, I really didn't follow why Emily was so sheltered. Her father didn't think any man was good enough for her, that left her alone in the end. When her fathers passed away, Emily didn't know who to trust or how to handle conversation. Having that mindset that she is above to working class citizens set her apart for socialization. Through the times of change the townspeople didn't really know Emily well enough to understand her actions. So having the story told by them was a bit vague. We will never know why exactly she kept Homer in her house. A part of me thinks that she didn't want to get rid of someone that knew her, by Homer passing away, Emily would be alone again. I was trying to think of why she bought the rat poison. There was really no reason why she would have to kill Homer, but she did seem a bit crazy. I have a feeling the writer wanted us to get thrown off by that action and have us think that Emily was going to kill Homer but really she had rats she wanted to kill. In the long run, this story is both sad and confusing because you don't know what to think of Emily.