We all say from time to time, "I could kill that person" when we are severely angered, but the actual act is something many could never have the heart to do. On the other hand, people actually do express the desire to see someone dead. Although every murder is different, some can even cause you to feel pity, or sympathy. In "A Rose for Emily" and "The Cask of Amontillado" both authors try to draw out sympathy from their audience for their main characters. Although Emily and Montresor are both equally murderous main characters, Emily is more of a sympathetic character.
Many different things can drive someone to commit the crime of murder. It can be pure hatred, jealousy, or love. In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," Emily Grierson is the main character responsible for the murder of her lover, Homer Barron. "What was left of him rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt,and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and binding dustwe then noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair" (Faulkner 134). This implies that Emily laid with the corpse of Homer quite frequently, from the time he died, to the time of her own death. Reading this, most readers would find this grotesque and out of the ordinary, but aside from the longing to be with her lover forever, there are many contributing factors that may lead to why she murdered Homer and why she is a more sympathetic character. .
In the story it is revealed that there is a history of mental illness in Emily's family. "People in town, remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great-aunt, had gone completely crazy at last," (Faulkner 130). In this story's time setting people didn't know much about mental illness so they didn't know how to react.
