"A Rose for Emily"

The narrator of story is an observer, a townsperson, someone who witnessed the events of the story first hand, giving readers a third person point of view. The narrator explains events using “we” and “our whole town” (Faulkner, 1930). Multiple times the narrator gives thought and feelings about Miss Emily that give perspective of what the entire towns’ thought and feelings are toward her. “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town…” (Faulkner, 1930). Here the narrator is echoing the whole towns’ feelings of Miss Emily. When the narrator states, “the young men” and “the ladies” (Faulkner, 1930) throughout the story, it leaves readers unknown to whether the narrator is a male or a female.
Emily murdered Homer Barron by poisoning him. She went to the druggist and asked for some arsenic. The druggist said, “…the law requires you to tell what you are going to use it for” and “Miss Emily just stares at him…until he looked away” (Faulkner, 1930). In this gesture, it is my opinion that Miss Emily feels that she is better that others and does not need to give an explanation to her purchase of the poison that she is above the law. Emily used the arsenic to poison Homer, because as stated in the book, “…Homer himself had remarked-he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elk’s Club-that he was not a marrying man” (Faulkner, 1930). Emily did not want Homer to leave her so if she killed him in her house he would be there forever.