Point Of View In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily is written in the third person limited point of view. Third person limited point of view is when the narrator focuses on the thoughts, feelings, and mind of one character. This point of view presented Faulkner more freedom when writing this piece of literature than he would have had if he used the first person point of view (Wiehardt 3). In his story, Faulkner uses the words “he” and “she” a majority of the time. The use of these words indicate he is using the third person; however, he also writes some parts of the story in the first-person point of view. The author uses the third person limited when he states, “We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would

Though he talks about Emily, the narrator does not seem to know her secrets and instead hides behind the collective pronouns that he uses. The narrator could be revealing his or her thoughts as the townspeople when he or she uses the collective pronoun “we”. The narrator deepens the mystery towards the end of the story when Homer’s body is found by the townspeople. Though the narrator already knew about the closed room where Homer’s body was held, the readers have no clue of how the narrator knew this information. He also refers to the townspeople as “they” instead of “we”. His use of “we” to “they” is swift, but he soon just sticks with using “we: throughout the rest of the story. The narrator accepts the community’s actions as his own and joins the rest of the townspeople. If the narrator was to write the story in Emily’s or Homer’s point of view the whole story would be entirely different. If it was Homer’s point of view he would make the readers think that he was Emily’s target, and if it was Emily’s point of view she would make it seem that killing Homer was her only