The Narrator In A Rose For Emily By Faulkner

The essay that I´m 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 I´m 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 I´ve 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 doesn´t 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 i´ve 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.