That may be. HOWEVER, let's not look at the story through the lens of the modern world. The story takes place in the South in the 1930s. Open homosexuality in the context of the story's setting would probably not be encouraged, to say the least. The text reads exactly as follows: "When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, we said, 'She will marry him.' Then we said, 'She will persuade him yet,' because Homer had remarked--he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks' Club--that he was not a marrying man." That doesn't automatically mean he is gay. Let's take the text at face value. Perhaps he just prefers the company of men. There are plenty of men who choose to not marry or have families. That doesn't mean they are gay. They date and have relationships, but fail to commit. Now, if we put a contemporary spin on Faulkner's words, then a man who likes to hang out and drink with younger men and specifically states that he likes men, well that is hard to ignore. Perhaps he is bisexual. This brings up the classic example of how important it is to work with the text and only the text. Faulkner may have written these lines without giving any thought to Barron's sexuality. He may have wanted to just establish that there would be no way that Homer Barron was going to marry Emily Grierson or anyone else for that matter. In this sense, we must view Barron as a "free spirit" and nothing more. We have to be careful when discussing what an author "intends." The text is the ultimate authority, and in this case, there is clearly more than one way to interpret Faulkner's words. Ultimately, gay, straight, or otherwise, Homer Barron ends up absolutely dead!
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