Analysis of A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner - Essay Example

The person who tells the story in A Rose for Emily remains unidentified throughout the story. Some readers may be of the view that the narrator is the boy that stores memories of Mr. Grierson as he stood in the doorway. Some readers may also identify the narrator as the former servant of Emily, named Tobe, given he had spent quite some time with Emily watching her intimately. However, Tobe gets vanished in the end while the narrator keeps narrating. This provides assurance for the idea that the narrator can not be Tobe.

In fact, the voice of the narrator is the gossip of the town that tends to make its way through the door of Emily’s house. A deep analysis of the story suggests that the unnamed narrator is true, the collective and unified voice of the whole town because it is no one but the townspeople, who stay until the end of the story and explore Emily’s secret. Many events that have a fundamental role in the building up of the plot happen to occur inside Emily Grierson’s house. The outsiders often have no access to the events that happen behind closed doors, though the curiosity among the townspeople to learn about the world inside Emily’s house is immense.

This point of view is true, a very strong feature of the story and it actually makes it different from conventional stories with similar plots. The author has cultivated suspense in the story by keeping the townspeople away from Emily’s secrets until the end of the story when the town people, moved by their unbearable curiosity break into Emily’s house and discover her dreadful secrets by making their way up to the bedroom in the second floor and unsealing it. Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head.

One of us lifted something from it and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair. (Faulkner 135). These lines form the ending of the story and essentially tell that the point of view of displaying Emily’s hidden life as full of secrets does remain consistent throughout Emily’s life until she dies and people discover her secrets. Having discovered her secrets, people become more remorseful. Their most regretful imaginations have materialized by their discovery.