Love or Obsession?

In Faulkner's tale A Rose for Emily or even James Joyce's Araby, there is this seemingly common thread between one feeling infatuation (what they perhaps perceive as love) border lining perhaps, obsession.  Because of the points of view of the stories, both being from the first person, it gives the audience a sort of intimacy with the narrator and that we could perhaps understand their feelings and motivations behind actions.

However, Emily is the views of the people looking in. Emily seemed to have this obsession with not wanting to be alone. Why? We may never know. But as humans, we all have that fear that we will be alone because we need to be social in order to feel safe and she may have had that thought that "if I kill him, then he can never leave me," which as been the motivation to crimes like that in the past. In Araby, the love/obsession is with the narrator and another girl. The girl doesn't seem to show the same sort of affection but he tries to go on a sort of quest to perhaps change that sort of feeling from her toward him and in the process learns that not only does everything not go your way, but we must always be prepared for the letdowns that life repeatedly gives out.