By Dana Gioia (from The Longman Anthology of Short Fiction, eds. Dana Gioia and R. S. Gwynn, 2001)
The style of "A Rose for Emily" is unusually conventional for Faulkner. There are no elaborate periodic sentences or stream-of-consciousness techniques. The simple and direct style reflects the particular speaker Faulkner chose to tell the story. The unnamed narrator is a townsman of Jefferson, Mississippi, who has for some years watched Emily Grierson with considerable interest but also respectful distance. He openly describes his perspective as average; he always uses we in the story, never I. His tone and manner are informed but detached, and surprisingly cool given the horrific conclusion. He mixes his own observations with town gossip to provide a seeming reliable view of Jefferson's opinion of Miss Emily.
While the narrator notes and reports many things about Miss Emily's history and personality, he is not the man to analyze or ponder their significance. The careful reader, however, soon understands several important factors affecting her. Miss Emily's father has somehow kept her down—dominating her life and driving away suitors. She also has difficulty accepting loss or change. She will not, for example, initially admit that her father has died or let the doctors or minister dispose of the body. Miss Emily seems starved for affection and emotionally desperate enough to risk censure from the town when she took Homer Barron as her lover. At the end the reader also sees her determination in killing Barron, though her motives are open to question. Did she want to extract revenge for his apparent refusal to marry her? Or did she want to keep him with her forever?
The genre of the story is Gothic—more precisely Southern Gothic—which may be another factor in its popularity. Gothic fiction tries to create terror and suspense and is usually set in isolated old houses, castles, or monasteries, populated by mysterious individuals. Typical Gothic devices include locked rooms, ancient servants, dusty chambers, and decayed mansions—all properties found in "A Rose for Emily." Usually taking place in interior spaces of sinister buildings, Gothic fiction also thrives on cultivating an oppressively claustrophobic atmosphere of disturbing mystery and implicit evil. This story provides a good introduction to the genre, and compared to another Faulkner story like "Barn Burning," it demonstrates how powerfully genre can shape an author's work.