William Faulkner was an artist at his writing. He used many different tactics to tell his story; one of which is the point of view.
In his short story, “A Rose for Emily”, he successfully uses a first-person or people narrative that is evident in the first sentence of the story, “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral …”.
The use of the pronoun “our” indicates that this is a first-person narrative in which the narrator represents the entire people of the town, Jefferson and this narrator is not omniscient as there is not an all-knowing sense of the characters and most especially of Emily.
The narration of this story focuses on discovery and interest in Miss Emily and her life with the narration at times showing empathy and concern for her, while at other times showing jealousy and admonition in her life style of attempting to have some form of privacy in this small southern town in Mississippi to no avail even after she is dead.
The setting is perfect for this form of narration as the town people are used as the source of much of the dialog and information that is gleamed about Emily, her family, and her life.
To begin with, whether a made-up tale or not, the Grierson’s were a staple of this town with her father being a patron from the beginning and said to have loaned the town money thus the reason for Miss Emily not having to pay taxes.
The narrator states that Miss Emily, possibly for her father’s status and the act of Colonel Sartoris, “a tradition, a duty, a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town …” . This opens the door for the continued monitoring of what Miss Emily is doing and lends to the fact that she cannot move without some word spoken from a townsperson.
Faulkner perfectly uses the point of view of first-person narration through the town throughout this story by having an invasion of sorts into Emily’s life. The town people know about every time she leaves her home which may be part of the reason she secludes herself inside for years at a time.
When she was facing the issue of having her taxes reinstated and after receiving a number of letters to that effect, she responded, “… in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink, to the effect that she no longer went out at all”.
The people of the town would even dig into her family history and begin to believe that Emily herself had gone crazy like old lady Wyatt, a great-aunt. They would insinuate that the Griersons were not as high and mighty as they thought, and it is here that you get the feeling of great jealousy and indignation about Emily and her family.
Then something else would happen in Emily’s life that would evoke emotions falling at the other end of the spectrum. Emily is again seen outside when she begins courting Homer Barron, a northerner.
At first, the narration gives a sense of disgust in the fact that surely she would not date a northerner, and “..there were still others, older people, who said that even grief could not cause a real lady to forget about noblesse oblige (coming from nobleness)”.
Then, there were the constant, “Poor Emily” remarks of concern, all the while these townspeople really knew nothing about Miss Emily. Perfect narrative to leave one pondering about her life just as the townspeople had been doing for years.
The narrative in this story is one that reads like the entire town are detectives investigating the prestigious Emily Grierson and her doings; however, they do not solve the puzzle of her life until after she is dead.
Faulkner perfectly weaves this story by using the narrator to pry into Emily’s life through gossip and events experienced by different members of the community.
They continue to investigate only to find that Emily had kept her rose secluded and secure which may have been the one part of her life that no one knew about.
