By paying close attention to every detail of Miss Emily, it becomes clear that the ending of the story is the only plausible one. Faulkner recounts Miss Emily's sad and sickening state after her father's death, not so that the reader feels sympathy for her, but so that the reader recognizes that Miss Emily may not be the old woman mentally healthy as they predicted. Telling the story of a woman who stays with a corpse for three days shows the reader a character capable of being somewhat crazy and incapable of letting go.