"A Rose For Emily"

A Rose for Emily is a very interesting story told from a nonparticipant narrator. Emily Grierson had a very mysterious life, which took the interest of people in town. William Faulkner's decision to write "A Rose for Emily" in a third person point of view fits perfectly because Emily was so introverted, that no one was able to understand the events occurring in her life. The story being written in a third person point of view, captures the confusion of the people who lived in town with Emily. Emily let very few people into her life, so the things she did to pass the day were unknown to almost everyone. Since she did not let many people get to know her, it made the people of the town almost obsessed with her life. The people of the town were determined to find underlying reasons as to why she did  things the way she did, "So the next day we all said, 'She will kill herself'; and we said it would be the best thing"(pg. 38). The townspeople judged Emily's every move, and when they did not have a true explanation for the things she did, they would make their own explanation, most of which were negative.
Since Emily's life was very private, a nonparticipant narrator goes well with the theme of the story because it keeps her life private and discreet towards the audience. The audience does not get more information about Emily's life than what the people in the town saw. If this story were written as participant narrator, the secret life of Emily would be exposed. We would be able to understand what she did and why she did it, which eliminates the audience's sense of wonder.
I believe the narrator is a lady who lived in the same small town as Emily because the narrator includes themself in conversations that other people in town had said about Emily, "When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, we had said..."(pg.38). There were several times where the narrator says "we", when the people of the town had something to say about Emily. It seems as though the narrator were watching Emily, like the other townspeople, "Daily, monthly, yearly, we watched the Negro grow grayer and more stooped, going in and out with the market basket," (pg.39). The narrator does not go into much detail about the events that happened in Emily's life, just like the other townspeople, so that means that the narrator was not close to Emily. One thing the narrator and the townspeople had in common was that one did not no more than the other about Emily's odd life.
A Rose for Emily was a very interesting story for me. Emily's life was very confusing and I could not compare her to anyone I know. However, the more I read about her life, the more I too, wanted to know why she did the things she did. I was hooked as to why she never wanted to leave her house, or why she liked to be alone so much. I wish that William Faulkner had also written another story, but with Emily's point of view. There's just little explanation about her secretive life, that I am taking much interest in.