Stereotyping people robs them of their individuality and classifies them into groups that society believes that

they belong to. In his story A Rose for Emily William Faulkner uses a Southern mentality to explore how stereotyping blind people from noticing the truth. His main character Emily is portrayed as a lonely woman who comes from a wealthy and arrogant family and after the death of her father she has lost everything and is being pitied by the entire town. Faulkner uses the Southern mentality that rich people possess super-human qualities and that a woman without a man is inadequate to explain the towns opinion of her odd behaviors and demonstrates how these stereotypes blind them of the fact that she might have been insane. Faulkner mentions in his story that Emily had a great-aunt that had gone completely crazy and makes it known that she has a history of insanity in the family. Instead of using this fact to explain her behavior and sedentary lifestyle, the town focuses on this being a reason why she shouldnt have turned down all her chances at marriage. We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will (Faulkner 393). It never crossed their mind, even after Emilys refusal to accept his death or give up his body, that Emily may be insane. All they thought was that with her father dead and her no longer having any money, that she would be forced to get married.