Narrator in a Rose for Emily by Faulkner

The essay that Iґm going to do is about A Rose for Emily, which was written by William Faulkner and was it was his first work published in a national magazine. In the introduction of the essay Iґm going to stablish the context in which we can find A Rose for Emily. It is a short story included in the collection called the Village, collection that also includes several works like DRY SEPTEMBER, HAIR OR THE EVENING SUN. The works in this collection have three things in common, the community, which as we are going to see a very important character as a whole, the solitude of human beings which in the case of Miss Emily is what makes us sympathize with this woman, but also is what makes us see her as a victim. Finally, something these works have in common is that they are built by the point of view of an uncommon narrator.

I say this in the sense that it is unusual to find a narrator which for example in the case of A ROSE FOR EMILY does not know everything about what is really happening during the story.

In this essay the main task is going to be to develop all the characteristics about this strange narrator.

The first question Iґve thought the most important to start with is WHAT’S THE TYPE OF NARRATOR, does he or she know everything in the story? This question has to possible answers, as the narrator does not know everythin about Miss Emily, he doesnґt know what is her thinking or what are her fellings. On the other hand, the narrator seems to know everything from the point of view of the community, he knows what women think about Emily he knows that people in the community are going to ask her to pay her taxes, etc. but the things is that he doesn’t know what each member of the community thinks, or what each member of the community does, speaks, feels, etc.

The conclusion to which iґve arrived is that the narrator knows some things, but not everything, neither by the point of view of Miss Emily neither by the point of view of the community.

The second question is... is the narrator inside the story (intradiegetic) or outside? The alternance of the pronouns “we”, and “they” might be confussing but even sometimes he says “they” making refference to the community is not because he is not there, but to be more objective, not to be fully involved in everything the community did. It might be because in my opinion the community is responsible for Miss Emily’s solitude and consequently of her bizarre behaviour, and the narrator wants to be apart, not involved.

Taking into account this, we might ask ourselves if the narrator is objective in the story. He appears as a mere spectator of Miss Emily and the community. Also, he does not criticise her, so in this way he is objective. However, if we again take into account that is a member of the community we cannot consider him objective at all, as in the story we can see what’s the opinion of the community: We had long thought of them as a tableau.

We have talk about the type of narrator, and the second point for a further study is WHO’S REALLY THE NARRATOR? Do we know if the narrator is a man or a woman? It’s age?

In the first lines of the story we find to different attitudes towards Emily depending on the gender of the community members. The men are described as respectful, while women are considered curious gossiping everytime they can. So know, if we take into account that sometimes the narrator is very curious and that she knows what women in the community say to each other, just as if she is one of the women in the community that goes to have some tea to her neighbour’s house (“"Just as if a man--any man--could keep a kitchen properly, "the ladies said”). On the other hand, he is very respectful with her, like men in the community treat her. He does not state any clear opinion about Miss Grieson. We can even claim that it is a group of the people, that itґs not just a person the one that is telling the story.

All in all, we don’t arrive to a clear conclusion,