Study Guide to
William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"

During your first reading, see how quickly you can come to a conclusion with the following questions:

(1)  What is the point of view from which the story is being told?  (Try to characterize the point of view in terms of the categories we've been trying to get familiar with:

• Participant narrator vs. non-participant narrator
  • If participant, then marginal or central, and how, exactly?
    • In either case:  reliable or unreliable?  (Can you give an account of your answer?)
  • If non-participant, then "omniscient"?  "limited omniscient"?  "dramatic"? "fly-on-the-wallpaper"?  interior monologue or stream-of-consciousness?

(2)  What exactly seems to be the niche, within the history of the American South, within which the action of this story takes place?  What traumatic change has occurred in the past that affects the society in which this story is set?  Why was this traumatic for Emily's family?  

How did her father react to it?  

How does this affect the protagonist's predicament in life?

How do the implications or effects of this predicament help explain Emily's decisions?

(3)  What do you take to be the climactic moment in the story's plot?

Don't read further in this Study Guide until you have completed the second reading of the story.

(1)  When you re-read the story, be alert for ways in which the outcome is foreshadowed by some facts the narrator conveys in the course of leading up to the story's ending.

(2)  What questions are raised by the discovery the townspeople make when they visit Emily's house after the funeral?

What material does the story provide that might serve as evidence for answers to what is discovered?

Here are some questions to be mulling over after you've finished your second reading.

(1)  On reflection, what can you point to about the way the narrator talks that inclines you to suppose that we're hearing from a man, rather than a woman?

(2)  In how many ways is Emily different from the rest of the town's residents?

(3)  On reflection, what attitudes do you detect on the part of the narrator towards

Emily

Emily's father

Homer Baron

different sectors of the townspeople:

men / women / 

older generation / younger generation

How do these attitudes affect your sense of how trustworthy the narrator is?

(4) What do you infer is Faulkner's own attitude towards Emily?  (Is it complex?  Is it simple?)

What leads you to these conclusions?

  Suggestions are welcome.  Please send your comments to lyman@ksu.edu .

   Contents copyright © 2000 by Lyman A. Baker.

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