A Rose For Emily Narrator Analysis

In most traditional works of literature, the existence of narration is both a crucial and mandatory element in order to fulfill the writer's purpose. Such works of literature include short stories and novels. The importance of the narrator goes beyond the act of simply telling a story that happens in a specific place at one particular point in time. Through the course of the years, famous writers have used the narrator as a tool to create suspense and force the audience to read the story from a specific point of view. Within this group of writers, William Faulkner and Charlotte Perkins Gilman have used the narrator to allow the reader to interpret the story from a desired point of view. Faulkner achieves this by using first person narrator
The narrator begins introducing the fact that Emily has passed away, but there is still a lot of speculation about her mysterious life "When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant—a combined gardener and cook—had seen in at least ten years"(Faulkner, 1). Faulkner chooses to reveal Emily through the eyes of whom regards her to be the most important character in the story. According to Ruth Sullivan "A Rose for Emily" is first-person narration, hence subject to the questions one usually puts in understanding such a story. For instance, who is the narrator and what is his relationship to the main action? Why did the author choose this particular narrator for this particular story? (Sullivan, 159). From the introduction in the story, it is possible to make the assumption that the narrator might be one of Emily's neighbors who somehow has witnessed every single event as narrated in the story. Despite this assumption it is not clear whether he/she is a close neighbor or a complete outsider as he/she remains in anonymity during the whole