What is Wrong with Society?

I just finished reading the famous short story called A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner. Even though it was written and based in the 1930s, one can see all of the hypocrital gossip that is still in the modern world. Except, during this past decade, it is not nearly as bad as the current times. During this short story, the reader receives all of the information through the mouths of the neighbors: "Emily did this" *speculate* "Oh crap! She did this!" *speculate*. Yet, their imaginative educated guesses were never correct. Want to know why? Because they never heard from Emily's own mouth what was happening in EMILY's world. (Ironically, Faulkner's dry sense of humor shows up at the end of the story with an amusing cliffhanger.) Either way, the endless chattering of the noisy neighbors that kept inquiring about Emily's exclusive life, relentlessly annoyed me the entire eight pages. Probably because I find it very relative on a personal level. When I first transferred to St. Mark's in the middle of sophomore year, I did not expect this type of social atmosphere. See, I have always gone to public school since kindergarten, so at the time, a "Catholic" education was beyond my level of comprehension. As a transfer, I didn't have many friends at first, so I just sat around and listened to the conversations going on around me. Man, I was so disgusted. The nerve some of the kids had at this school, just put me into disbelief. They called themselves Christians, yet they did so many unholy things, that it became totally hypocritical. As I have just now realized, even though I might have thought they were the contradictions in the beginning, I was really the hypocrite at the end. I didn't know these strangers on any personal level; they might have misbehaved this way because they were going through their own troubling times. Who am I to judge? This is the epiphany I wished Emily's neighbors would have come to realize. Obviously, Emily knew they were slandering her actions, but she had the right mind to not saying anything. And for this, I respect her strong character. I just dislike the neighbors that didn't mind their own business. If I learned how to be more open-minded and not judge the kids at St. Mark's during this modern world, the neighbors from a century ago, could have grown up a little bit too.