A Rose for Emily

What is most striking to me about Faulkner's tale, is that upon completing the story, I was left with the feeling that nothing had been resolved. What exactly happens at the end? I was confused as to whether Emily had in fact murdered her lover, and more importantly, if she had- WHY? Faulkner doesn't provide obvious answers to these questions. There is nothing in the story to indicate that Emily had any motive to kill Barron. In fact, it would seem from what Faulkner has written that Emily would have wanted Barron to live. Barron would have served to bring happiness to an otherwise lonely and unstable woman, and additionally, would have provided monetary support to her and saved her from her state as a pauper.
If in fact, Emily DID murder her lover, the question is why. The trouble with the story however, is that the reader never gets a glimpse into the mind of Emily herself. Faulkner, using a first person narrator, ensures that the reader is well aware of what the townspeople think and assume about Emily, but never of what or how Emily herself thinks or feels. Everything the townspeople (and subsequently, the reader) believe about Emily then, is merely speculative. Whatever we may think we know about Emily, however much evidence or vignettes about her life the townspeople provide us with, we never really do understand anything about her in the end. The townspeople, and the reader, never really do know Emily at all. This is why, although Faulkner clearly indicates that the smell begins to pervade her house shortly after the disappearance of her lover, neither the people in the town, nor the reader, suspect that the two incidents are related. Emily eludes and deceives us all.