Narrator in "A Rose for Emily"

The Narrator Sets the Tone Authors often use narrative to influence the way the reader perceives a given topic. Using different types of narrators, for example first person or omnipotent, the author can control the information available to the reader, which causes the reader to draw conclusions based solely on the information as presented. In “A Rose for Emily”( 84 ) the author uses a limited omnipotent narrator to relay the events over a period of several decades that relate to Miss Emily Grierson. Use of a limited omnipotent narrator allows the reader to be ‘present’ for several unusual occurrences, but invites the reader to let their imagination drive what those occurrences might mean. “After her father’s death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all”.(85) This statement allows the reader to understand that the main character is withdrawn from the world, but it does not explain why she has chosen to do so. If the author had used a different type of narrator the reader would have been supplied the information in a different manor; for example a first person narrator might have explained the reasons she chose not to go out. In doing so the ‘unknown’ portion would have been lost and the mystery would be less prominent. “…so they were not surprised when the smell developed. It was another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons”(85) “So the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily’s lawn and slunk about the house like burglars…they broke open the cellar door and sprinkled lime there, and in all the outbuildings” (86). Here the author has opened the door to some of the mysterious happenings at Emily’s house, but again, he has left to interpretation what they mean. Is the smell a normal household smell that has simply gotten out of control? Is it something more sinister? The narrator doesn’t know what is going on inside the house, so neither does the

Cited: Faulkner, William “A Rose for Emiliy” Michael, Meyer, and Van Der Zee Karen. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2012. Print. 84-90