William
Faulkner’s short story A Rose for Emily masterfully
presents a tale of horror made all the more poignant through the fluid constructing
ambiguity in chronology and narrator. This ambiguity creates a literary frame
that poses an ethical question of social values in the ‘New South’. This will
be assessed in three parts. Most importantly: the construction of the character
of Emily Grierson. Though this can only be appraised after exploring the
necessary ambiguity of the narrator and its integral importance in reading the
character of Emily. Thirdly we see how the intersection of the characterization
of Emily and of narrative voice in tandem with vague and deliberately
delineated chronology produce a question of morality in the south of the
United States.
Narrative
theorist Helen Nebeker was one of the first scholars to publish on the implied
distinctions within the narrative voice. This reading identifies and
underscores an implicit importance in the distinctions between the narrative
use of they, we and us. If, rather than assuming that these
terms suggest an encompassing collective the reader ascribes different societal
roles to them the social critique masterfully sculpted through form becomes
apparent. While it takes a keen reader to endeavor this - Faulkner himself
throws his audience a red herring with the first personal term used by the
narrator is “our whole town” (Faulkner, 998) – it is fundamental in
understanding the broader social comment required in all literature.
The
distinctions between the voices can be identified by examining their placement
within narrative development and also in the emotion that they suggest. Despite
the introduction of the narrator as being a unified “our” we are also presented
with divisions within the group along gendered lines: “the men through a sort
of respectful affection … the women mostly out of curiosity…” (Faulkner, 998)
The acknowledgement of this distinction is what invites the reader to further
question the ambiguous point of view.
On
the first page, following the introduction of “our” the reader is also
presented with two different references of they:
both “the representatives of those august names” and also “the next
generation … mayors and aldermen” (Faulkner, 998) This effectively introduces
the thematic concern of the text, which appraises the ethical resonance of the
move from ‘Old’ to ‘New’ South following the Civil War. This also introduces
the narrative technique employed by Faulkner of a deliberately fluid
chronology. By seamlessly transitioning from one generation to the next the
reader is subtly made away of the broad reaching social implications that come
to be revealed as the text progresses towards its ‘horror.’
The
next narrative voice that the reader is presented with in section II is that of
we: “… after her sweetheart – the one
we believed would marry her – had
deserted her.” (Faulkner, 999) This voice offers a far more emotionally
connected and sympathetic response to the character of Emily: “we were glad
that Miss Emily would have an interest” and “we said it would be the best
thing.” (Faulkner, 1001) This is arguable the most important voice in shaping
the readers response to Miss Emily as it represents the Old South of which
Emily is constructed as a symbol of. This is evidenced in the introduction of
the narrative voice of we:
“We had long thought of them as a tableau; Miss
Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled
silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the
two of them framed by the back-flung front door.”
This quixotic
explanation of the we perception of
Miss Emily firmly cements this voice as the Old South. The construction of
Emily in white and overshadowed by a man plays into the heavily gendered values
of the Old South. By including this view in section II it allows the reader to
recognize the moral disparity between Old and New South that centered on Emily:
“Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of
hereditary obligation upon the town …” (Faulkner, 998) By placing this tableaux
in section II and contrasting it to section I the reader is further disoriented
by the chronology of the text. This technique is integral in shifting the guilt
– blame – for Miss Emily’s murder of her lover and allowing it to resonate as
an allusion to fundamental flaws of Southern society.
The
delineated chronology of A Rose for Emily
when combined with the blurred distinctions of narrative voice and point of
view are what alleviates and redirects the guilt of Miss Emily. This is largely
exercised by the aforementioned empathetic narrative voice of we as the ethical judgments it provides
are what call into question the direction of the blame. This is achieved
because the fluid chronology and the rejection of traditional linear narrative
form means that the reader is unable to correctly – or at least with certainty
– place these judgments in the narrative. The crux of this argument is seen
when the reader and the townspeople discover the body of Homer Barron: “Already
we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had
seen in forty years…” (Faulkner, 1003) This passage clearly and distinctly
articulates that this was not an exclusive secret of Emily. The poignancy of
the question of blame is heightened when the reader is left to consider of
which group Faulkner had intended this we
to represent.
The
reader now understands that the act of killing Homer occurred some 30 odd years
ago, some two years after the death of her Father. What complicates the
morality of this issue is the fact that Miss Emily has already been pardoned
for hoarding the body of her father:
“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, 1000)
By providing this
exemption to Miss Emily for her actions regarding her father the morality is
confused about the actions regarding Homer. Because isn’t she simply clinging
to that which has robbed her?
Nebeker
commented on this ethical grey zone:
“…the immediate post-war remnant of the Old Southern
hierarchy – symbolized in the person of Emily – lies dead, buried, even
pardoned in the light of her heritage, her madness, her incorruptible
endurance.” (Nebeker 10)
And this cuts to
the core of the ambiguity of blame in A
Rose for Emily. If the society had in fact known about this horrible secret
of Emily’s and kept it the reader is forced to acknowledge that this sick
perversion is not only contained within a dead symbol of the past but also in
the narrative presence. The reader is thus haunted more by we than by the actions of Miss Emily.
Works cited:
Faulkner, William “A Rose for Emily” in Norton Anthology of American Literature Shorter Eighth Edition Volume 2: 1865 to the Present, ed. Nina Baym, 2013, pp. 998-1004
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