Use Of Mental Illness In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

The story “A Rose for Emily” is a horror story. In the story, there is death and fear. The story is a genre of horror that has ancient origins with roots in folklore and mystery, focusing on death in a person. A Rose for Emily is a horror story because Emily, who is mentally ill, is a woman whom many people are afraid of. She is a very mysterious woman who also has a strong smell because of the dead body she had in her house. No one ever knew the strong smell was the corpse. It is scary how a mentally ill woman had a corpse hidden in her house denying that it was dead. She also committed murder but got away with it. The combination of Emily’s actions describes the story as a horror genre.

In some of my favorite films, I like the use of horror because it makes the story interesting and mysterious by creating an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. In

Mental illness is disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behavior. According to statistics, “an estimated 54 million Americans suffer from some form of mental disorder in a given year “(“Mental Health America”). Emily’s mental illness lead her to be with a dead body for thirty years. She thought that her fiancé was still alive. That body was laid on her bed for a long period of time with a very strong smell. “Decomposition begins several minutes after death, with a process called autolysis, or self-digestion” ("Life after Death”). Which means that the corpse in Emily’s bed was broken down. After 3 weeks, “decomposition will continue until the body is nothing but skeletal remains, which can take as little as a month in hot climates and two months in cold climates. The teeth are often the only thing left, years and centuries later, because tooth enamel is the strongest substance in the body. The jawbone is the densest so that usually will also remain” ("The 26 Stagers of