Compare And Contrast Killings And A Rose For Emily

Comparing Murders in “Killings” and “A Rose for Emily”
“Killings” by Andre Dubus and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner are two short stories where each protagonist commits a murder. Each author uses point of view and a small town setting in their stories to have the reader sympathize and form an attachment to the protagonist. However, while Dubus focuses primarily on the protagonist point of view, Faulkner separates the reader from the main character completely by using an outside perspective to tell their story.
Within the opening paragraphs of “Killings”, Dubus introduces Matt Fowler and his family during the grieving process for his son, Frank. Dubus keeps the emotions of the family central in the beginning of the story, providing no concrete background information for Frank’s cause of death. Matt’s other son, Steve, repeats the words “I should kill him”, which suggest that the cause of death may have been by another human, but no name or explanation is provided for the reader. Instead the author chooses to describe Steve’s wide-eyed, angry expression as he continues repeating the phrase. Emotions of Matt are described in a different way, through basic reflection of the eulogy and observations made of the scenery around the grave. This small addition creates a slow and hazy tone,

The two discuss the unsettling presence of an unnamed man around town, and Matt tells his friend how his wife, Ruth, “can’t go out for cigarettes and aspirin” without seeing him, and conveys how “it kills her” (1). Until background information is finally given for the reader, Dubus continues to focus on emotions of the protagonist and his family, and adds the small town setting to support emotions of the protagonist and related characters to make the reader sympathize with him even after the murder is