A Rose For Emily Responce

In his short story “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner employs the rare point of view of first person plural, using the word “we” in replacement of the normal first person narrator “I”. This allows the point of view to come from the community from which the stories main character Miss Emily Grierson lived in, and though this particular point of view is unusual, it aided in the ability of the author to tell the story.
This first person plural point of view may have been chosen because unlike the ordinary first person using the pronoun “I” it allows a broader spectrum of knowledge. This helps tell the story because of the amount of time it spans over and the many events that are necessary in the telling of the story, such as the scene with the pharmacist and the rat poison. In that scene there is no evidence of other characters standing around to witness the scene for retelling, thus the reader can assume that everything told is gossip throughout a town, or “we”.

This point of view goes well the amount of gossip present in the story. In fact, the piece seems to thrive on gossip and without it this particular point of view would not be effective in the same way that it is. With little statements like “So the next day we all said, “She will kill herself’; and we said it would be the best thing.” (33). Statements like this and many following moments like it are proof of the gossip around town and the amount of time people spent talking about Miss Emily, and this is what made the point of view effective.

In addition to that, the use of the word ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ further increases the distance between Miss Emily and the rest of society by inferring that she is not a part of them in any way. She becomes seperated from the “we” and her character stands out even futher. Faulkner’s use of perspective through this strange point of view strengthened his story in many ways which allowed the reader to get a better grasp on not just the character of Emily, but of the world she lived in as well.