I think there is a mood of depression and sadness throughout "A Rose for Emily." One way Faulkner does this is by the story's structure. He begins with Emily's death. Then he flashes back and forth through time illustrating the bleak nature of Emily's life (how she refuses to pay property taxes, how her love abandons her, how her father monopolizes her life and dies leaving her with next to nothing, her defiance of kowtowing to the ways of the town and its people). Then he brings the story full circle with the final segment in which we learn that Emily has - most likely - murdered her love and kept his corpse in her bedroom all of these and slept beside him.
The point of view, told from an unidentified first person narrator, also influences the mood of desperation and sadness. For it is through this narrator that we learn how people feel sorry for Emily, yet she is never aware of this. We also learn how pathetic her plight really is, yet Emily doesn't feel this way nor is she aware of it. All of these tie into the mood.
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