A Rose for Emily
By: William Faulkner
William Faulkners bizarre short story A Rose for Emily uses not only first person point of view, but first person plural point of view to employ the tradition of a communitys gossiping nature trying to protect their identity as an upstanding, traditional Southern community.
Faulkner first introduces the community going to Miss Emily Griersons funeral. The town recognizes Emily alive as a tradition, a duty because the town was made to believe that her father loaned money to the town, which was a way to explain why he remitted her taxes. Miss Emily was a southern belle that the town pitied because of her fathers death and her three day denial of his death, which was the first sign of her insanity. When her father died the town felt that at last they could pity Miss Emily since the family house was all she had left. When her father was alive, he would chase away any men that came asking for Emilys hand, which ruined her chances of finding a suitor until Homer Barron, a Northerner came. Since he and Miss Emily spent all their time together, the town assumed they would get married. The town didnt see them after that anymore only though the window and one man saw Homer at the kitchen door one evening but other than that they didnt go out or speak to anyone. Miss Emily went to buy arsenic but wouldnt explain what she would use it for. The town supposed that she was going to kill herself but really she used it to kill Homer because she couldnt persuade him to marry her, the town thought because he was never seen again.
First person plural point of view showed through the eyes of a southern community that had its own tradition and anytime one of the members would act different they would have pity on them. Miss Emily was crazy from all the gossiping that went on behind her back from the townspeople. They watched every move she made and one day she broke and killed Homer Barron.
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