A Rose for Emily, a story of horror first published in 1930, is considered by many scholars one of the most authentic and the best narratives ever written by William Faulkner. It is a story of a woman, Emily Grierson, and her relationships with her father, the man she was in love with and the community of Jefferson, the town she lived in. While discussing any narrative text it is crucial to mention the implied author of a text.
As Wayne C. Booth, the most famous follower of the Chicago School believed, it is possible and acceptable to interpret and criticize the narrative worlds of literary works without stepping beyond the limits of the text and falling victim to a fallacy , without confusing the narrator with the implied author. Even though the plot or characters may be clearly described in literary works, only by interpretation can their intended nature be determined and the concept of an implied author is the one to bring together both: description and interpretation.
There are many variations of the concept of an implied author, however most of them usually come down to two suggestions: first, that the implied author is a nexus of values and norms in the textual world and second, that he selects and orders the elements of narrative texts . Thus, it may be said that through the mentioned selection (of, for example, the narrator, the title, the symbols or the language of events) and ordering the implied author passes on the information which the implied reader needs for the interpretation of the text.
In this way, every literary text, as in this case A Rose for Emily, becomes a form of communication between the writer and the reader. The aforementioned information may be passed in various ways, two of them being the structure of the narrative text and its title. The title of A Rose for Emily is ambiguous. As there are no roses in the story, it may be safely assumed that the title is purely symbolic, however the meaning of this particular symbol remains unclear for readers. The word rose brings to mind a flower of a deep red colour, beautiful, but always surrounded by thorns.
Red colour may symbolize love and passion, but it is also the colour of hate and revenge. Therefore, the rose may be the symbol of Emilys feelings, her passion towards Homer, her desperation, as well as the darker, though not less passionate, side of her personality which eventually lets the protagonist find a way to keep the love of her life forever by her side. It may be also the symbol of a true, reciprocated love which Emily never experienced, even though she probably dreamt about it for her entire life. The rose in the title is not the only symbol in the story, though.
There are others, which play equally important roles in the narrative, as their task is to let readers get to know the protagonist from the only possible point of view: the external one. This issue will be discussed in more details in the remaining chapters of this work; however it needs to be mentioned that throughout the entire story, readers never come to know Miss Emily Griersons thoughts and feelings. They rather come to certain conclusions about her, thanks to the subtle clues which the implied author leaves for them to discover.
Such a clue may be, for example, the crayon portrait of Emilys father, standing near the fireplace on the day of her funeral, as it stood thirty days earlier, symbolizing Miss Griersons unwillingness to let go of the past, to leave the authority of her father behind, to forget about the only man who had such a great influence on her life and to be truly alive for once. Another symbol providing readers with valid information about the protagonist is the Griersons family home. In a very interesting way the reader is presented with an image of a house which immediately brings to mind its occupant, Miss Emily:
It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated [], set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emilys house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps an eyesore among eyesores. (pp. 56-57) The house, which had once been magnificent and glorious, is now nothing more than a proud ruin, neglected, grim, depressing, standing in a place abandoned by all neighbours.
Similarly, the lady of the house found herself in a position, in which no other citizen of Jefferson would like to be: alone, old, miserable and, as some of the townspeople thought, perhaps even insane. It may be safely concluded, that there is no item symbolizing Miss Griersons fall from grace more efficiently that her family home. The aforementioned house and portrait of Emilys father belong to the elements which introduce the protagonist to the readers in a very proficient way. On the one hand, the readers learn numerous personal details about Miss Emilys life.
They are privileged to know Miss Emily in the same way as her neighbours knew her. On the other hand, they realize how limited this knowledge can be. The narrator of this story is not omniscient and does not allow the readers to know any of Miss Griersons thoughts. All the information they get come from the observer, solely from an external point of view. This peculiar narrative technique prevents the readers from getting all the facts about the protagonist and making judgements about her.
As Jonathan Culler, one of the most famous semioticians claimed, discussing different points of view and narrative techniques actually means discussing the relationship between the discourse of a text and the story it tells. In this way, the concept of fabula (plot, action) makes the study of point of view possible and the concept of story (a sequence of actions retold in various ways) gives sense to the study of fabula . Readers need to realize that action of a story exists independently of the way it is presented, as for there being a narrative, there must be action in the first place.
The way of presenting the events in A Rose for Emily is not chronological. The story is divided into five chapters of similar length. In an interesting way chapters number one and five, dealing with the death of the protagonist, form a kind of a bracketing frame for the three middle, retrospective chapters. The function of such a frame is usually to introduce a story, make readers focus on the main character and encourage them to read the story with interest. However, it also should be taken into account that the role of such a frame can often be misleading, as it creates the impression that the story is actually real.
In relation to the bracketing chapters, the three remaining ones are told with respect to the narrative into which they are inserted (here: the retelling of Miss Emilys funeral). They become the anachrony called analepses and form a narrative that is temporally second, subordinate to the first. What is even more peculiar, the events within the chapters are not chronological either. In chapter one Emilys death, her youth and the incident with taxes are retold. Similarly, for example in chapter two there is the incident with the smell, then the death of Emilys father and her unwillingness to admit that Mr Grierson is dead.
In a narrative this kind of organization is supposed to serve some important purposes. On the one hand, the fact that the implied author reveals the protagonists death at the very beginning of the story is to create special, mysterious atmosphere, which would encourage people to read the story. It may be anticipated that having read an introduction about someones death, the readers will want to see for themselves what caused the death and why. The author thus expects that human curiosity will not allow people walk away from the story without finding out what actually happened.
On the other hand the situation where the readers are not allowed to know all the details of particular proceedings at once, where they have to wait to read more about a certain issue, even if it is for example murder, they are not in the position to judge the protagonists actions prematurely. They cannot actually draw any conclusions for themselves about something until they know full details of the mentioned issue. It may be even concluded, that the readers are not allowed to come to their opinions until the implied author indicates that they can.
This is an archetypal example of the implied authors influencing the implied readers opinions, or what is more, even planting his or her own thoughts in the readers mind. The question why the implied author of A Rose for Emily would like to influence the implied readers opinion may be actually answered in several ways, depending on the interpretation of the text. On the one hand, by using the aforementioned technique of not allowing the readers to know all details about the protagonist at once, the implied author creates the impression that he does not wish for the readers to condemn Emily too hastily and inconsiderately.
Perhaps he wants to pay the readers attention to Miss Griersons motives, to her upbringing and her fathers influence on her future life. On the other hand, if the readers of the story take into account the fact that the implied author is supposed to be the nexus of values and norms in the textual world , they automatically need to assume that he, in fact, does disapprove of Miss Griersons deeds and places an unreliable narrator in the story in order to direct the attention of the readers towards the irony of a particular situation.
The irony is in this case relatively clear: a woman refuses to pay taxes to the town, does not want to bury her deceased father, eventually kills her suitor in order to be with him forever, yet the town still considers her as an eccentric, poor, hurt old lady. Finally, it should be added that it is probably every authors wish that his or her story is fully understood by its readers, not only in terms of language, but also in terms of the already mentioned symbols, allusions and clues.
That is why, every narrative text has its own model reader, the one who meets all of the authors requirements. And although not much can be said about the model reader of A Rose for Emily, as about any other model reader for the matter, they all share certain characteristic features. First of all, a model reader speaks the authors language and does not have any problems with discovering even the hidden meanings of particular words or expressions.
What is equally important, is that the model reader possesses the knowledge of the external reality, in which the story is rooted, and is aware of the values cherished in the described society. As far as Faulkners Emily is concerned, the model reader knows that the story is set in post civil-war reality and realizes what changes occurred in the United States at that time. This knowledge, together with the awareness of the narrative techniques applied by the author, is usually sufficient for the accurate interpretation of the text.
