Containing the Threat of Monstrosity in William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"

 This papers tries to investigate the readers' sympathetic, even reverential, response to Emily in William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" by reading it as a dialogic work. In spite of the fact that she occupies an object position as the narratee, the narrative could not be considered as a monologic work in which the dominant discourse of her community prevails. Instead, all the characters create a polyphony of voices that emerge in a dialogue with Emily's. In her proud seclusion, she does not merely answer, correct, silence, or extend their voices, but informs and is continually informed by them. It is this capacity to engage in a constant dialogue with the dominant viewpoint of her community that prevents Emily from being dismissed as a monstrous character sleeping in the same bed with a corpse