A Rose For Emily Point Of View Analysis

In the short story, “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner establishes depth in characters and scenes by using long, descriptive lists. Faulkner also uses point of view to express his feelings of sympathy for Miss Emily. Faulkner juxtaposes past events with present ones, jumping from one time period to another, to tie the scenes together. Faulkner’s style of using lengthy descriptions adds depth and complexity to each of the characters and the scene. He paints Emily’s house as a “big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street… Only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and
By the use of “we,” throughout the story, the reader presumes that the narrator is someone who also lived in the town. “We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will,” (Faulkner 101). The narrator has a compassionate attitude towards Emily, and tells her story with an essence of pity and a tinge of admiration. Although the narrator is presumed to be a resident of the town, his opinion is not always parallel with those of the masses. The narrator’s attitude towards Miss Emily brings to light Faulkner’s feelings of pity towards her. The story of “A Rose for Emily” does not occur in chronological order. Faulkner jumps from one point in time to another. For example, when men come to collect her taxes, it prompts a flashback to a point thirty years earlier when their fathers came to complain of a smell. The transition is held together by the word “vanquished.” “So, she vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell.” (Faulkner 100) This juxtaposition is used to tie the two scenes