Compare And Contrast A Rose For Emily And The Tell-Tale Heart

In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner both main characters are portrayed as irrational and are isolated from reality. The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” murders an elderly man, as he is fearful of the man’s eye. Emily Grierson in “A Rose for Emily” lives secluded from society, until she marries a man, Homer. She ultimately kills Homer in his bed and leaves his body to decompose for many years. Both the narrator in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Emily Grierson in William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” deny reality so vehemently that they isolate themselves from reality. Their isolation and denial of reality cause both to commit murder.
The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” murders an elderly man because he is fearful of the man’s “evil eye.” “He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe 37). The narrator explains that he is haunted by the man’s eye and the only way to

She is portrayed throughout the story as a hermit, only being seen outside her home a handful of times. In the beginning of the story, Miss Emily refuses to pay her taxes as she denies she has any taxes to pay. “ ‘See Colonel Sartoris.’ (Colonel Sartoris has been dead almost ten years.) ‘I have no taxes in Jefferson. Tobe!’ The Negro appeared. ‘Show these gentlemen out.’ (Faulkner 31)” She believes that she is responsible for no taxes, as the Colonel stated that her father had lent money to the town years ago; however the townspeople still arrive at her home to collect the taxes. She tells them to ask the Colonel, though he has been dead for almost ten years. She refuses to acknowledge the reality around