Sharon Mitchell
English 4320
Dr. Lopez
September 17, 2009
Annotated Bibliography
The Unknown Voice Behind William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”
“A Rose for Emily” is a short story by author William Faulkner. An unnamed
narrator who claimed to have a repository of information about the main character, Emily
Grierson, told the story. Faulkner used a first-person narrator and then switched to the
first person plural “we.” "We" in this sense referred to "the narrator and the
townspeople," and the narrator often assumed that the townspeople knew Miss Emily
intimately.
The common theme in the sources are the credibility of the narrator’s information
about Miss Emily. One critic, Ruth Sullivan, stated that you have to fully comprehend
the narrator before you can understand the main character, Miss Emily. Until you
understand the narrator, everything remains an enigma. Whereas, another critic, Thomas
Klein, stated that Faulkner never revealed the true identify of the narrator, so this would
made it hard to truly understand the main character, Miss Emily.
The narrator and townspeople constantly watched Miss Emily. The narrator’s goal
was to know every detail about Miss Emily’s appearance, conduct, family life and
environment; however, the narrator sometimes reported incidents after the fact. As a
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result, the narrator cannot be omniscient. For example, the narrator did not have the
ability to reveal Miss Emily’s actions inside her household.
Getty, Laura. “Faulkner's A Rose for Emily.” J. Source Explicator 63 (2005):
230-34.
Laura Getty a critic at the North Georgia College and State University explored
the true meaning of the rose in Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily.” The author stated
that the rose in the title was not a literal rose but it represented secrecy because Faulkner
did not reveal all the important information of Emily’s character until the end of the story.
Getty argued it was inconceivable to give a single meaning to the rose as some critic tried
to do over the years. One implication of the rose could be Homer dating Miss Emily or
Homer’s dead body pressed between the pages of a book. Another implication could be
the author, Faulkner, giving the rose to Emily as a finally tribute or it could be Emily’s
mental state of mind.
Getty felt that the story was a literary constructed under the title 'Rose' or in this
case sub-rosa. She agreed with Jack Schertig's Freudian interpretation of “A Rose for
Emily” that used the sub-rosa concept. The sub-rose concept dealt with Miss Emily
attachment to the past, which had lasting consequences throughout her life.
Klein, Thomas. “The Ghostly Voice of Gossip in Faulkner’s Rose for Emily.” Explicator
65 (2007): 229-32.
The author Thomas Klein is a researcher at Idaho State University. He explored
the unusual voice of the narrator in Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily.” Thomas
explained how the narrator was never identified as being either male or female, and the
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narrator never committed to a particular generation. The author felt that the unmanned
narrator was very complicated because of the shifting from third to first person
throughout the story. The shifting from third to first person showed that the entire
townspeople were in agreement with the details of Miss Emily’s life.
Rodman, Isaac. “Irony and Isolation narrative Distance in Faulkner’s “A Rose for
Emily.” The Faulkner Journal 3.2 (1993): 3-12.
Isaac Rodman criticism focused on the narrator speaking for the community. He
stated that the narrator was a community representative and played an active role in
telling the story. First, the narrator spoke for the whole town but never offered his/her
personal opinions regarding Miss Emily’s life. Second, the narrator viewed Miss Emily
as a fallen monument, which represented her past glory. Third, the narrator highlighted
Emily's struggle with traditions and conventional expectations. According to Rodman,
the narrator was fascinated by Emily's complex behavior and actions.
Rodman illustrated that the narrator’s knowledge of Miss Emily was limited an
inaccurate. For example, the narrator made an incorrect statement that Miss Emily was
married.
Also, Rodman showed the narrator’s inability to report information in
chronological order. Some examples are, the narrator stated that Homer had returned to
town before reporting the smell from Emily’s house. Also, the townspeople saw Homer
arrival into town but they did not see him leave again. If Homer had left the town,
someone would have seen him between Emily’s house and the train station.
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Schwab, Milinda. “A Watch for Emily.” Studies in Short Fiction 28 (1991): 215-17.
In Faulkner's story “A Rose for Emily,” Schwab decided to examine Miss Emily’s
watch. According to Schwab, if you examined the watch, this will help the reader to
comprehend Miss Emily. When Miss Emily was first discussed, she was seemed with a
watch ticking at the end of a gold chain. Since Miss Emily was unconcerned with the
passing of time, why did the narrator pointed out the watch to the readers? In fact, the
loud ticking watch with the gold chain was Emily's ability to control the passage of the
years, which resulted in a wasteful task.
Miss Emily did not have the watch pinned on her bodily or on her waist; as a
result, she was able to bring time under her control. Miss Emily had to control time
because the changing of time meant she had to give up things that really mattered to her.
She stared down at the watch just like she stared down at the aldermen informing them
she would not pay taxes. By having the watch located in her pocket showed Emily’s
removal from the sight of the watch; thus, she was unaware of the time.
According to Schwab, Faulkner told the story after Emily's death in a series of
flashbacks to show time standing still for Emily.
Sullivan, Ruth. “The Narrator in “A Rose for Emily.” The Journal of Narrative Technique
1(1971): 159-78.
Sullivan explored Faulkner’s narrative technique in the story “A Rose for Emily.”
According to Sullivan, Faulkner decided to have the narrator analyze the protagonist,
Miss Emily, in full details. The narrative voice was in first person plural point of view,
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“we” as in the townspeople. Sullivan stated that you have to analysis the narrator before
you can fully understand Miss Emily’s character.
The narrator had more than surface knowledge of Emily because he/she watched
and talked about Emily for fifty or sixty years; still, the narrator told the story after things
happened. Since the story was told after it happened was proof that the narrator did not
fully understand the meaning of the events as they occurred. This revealed some of the
limitations of the first person narrative. Sullivan stated that Miss Emily had no privacy,
because the narrator constantly kept tabs on her. The narrator told about Emily’s intimate
relationship with Homer Barron from the time they started dating until the time the
narrator thought Emily married Homer.
The narrator seemed to adopt the thoughts and attitudes of the townspeople.
Throughout the story, the narrator compared Miss Emily to timeless and immortal
symbols. Emily was described as being stubborn and coquettish decay. The narrator
stated that she had fallen from purity.
Watkins, Floyd. “The Structure of A Rose for Emily.” Modern Language Notes 69
(1954): 508-10.
Floyd Watkins from Emory University explained how Faulkner’s story, “A Rose
for Emily,” was divided into five parts. The narrator illustrated that these parts were
“based on incidents of isolation and intrusion" from the community. He stated that the
structural patterns are noted from the conflicts in the story. The conflicts included “the
past and the present, the South and the North, the old and the new, the traditional and the
nontraditional, and the gentility and the middle-lower class” (508). Faulkner divided the
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story into different sections, which included Emily isolating herself from the community,
detailing the past and the invasions from the community.
Watkins explored all the invasions into Emily’s house from the Board of
Aldermen trying to collect taxes to the two forced entrances into Miss Emily’s house.
Also, as Miss Emily grew older, she became more secluded from society, which left her
open to personal invasion from the townspeople. These invasions of Emily’s life led to
the overall suspense in the story.
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