Ghostly Voice Of Gossip In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

In “The Ghostly Voice of Gossip in Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily”” author Thomas Klein argues that William Faulkner’s use of an unconventional narrator enhances the story’s complicated timeline and uses examples throughout the text to propose a model as to who the narrator really is. Doing so, Klein focuses in on the reasoning to Faulkner’s claim of “A Rose For Emily” was written as a ghost story. Klein focuses on how the narrator does not claim what gender he or she is. He states that the narrator keeps the main tone of the entire text as either “we” or “our”, never identifying who they are. He expresses that the narrator never declares from what generation he or she is from. When stating the different generations throughout “A Rose For Emily”, Klein points out that they use “the next generation” or similar terms making it impossible for the readers to decide on who the narrator actually is. Klein concentrates on how and when the narrator changes different viewpoints throughout “A Rose For

He states that the constant back and forth change of view the narrator uses justifies them as the ghost that William Faulkner intended. I am not as convinced. There are too many questions that arise while reading “A Rose For Emily” that direct my attention onto an actual character in the story as being the ghost. The story begins with everyone at Emily Grierson’s funeral in her home. It is stated that nobody has been inside the house for the last decade except for her only servant, Tobe (Faulkner 133-34). With this being said, it is also stated in section one, that nobody ever saw Miss Emily outside either. The townspeople would only see Tobe in the market. Even then, Tobe did not really speak to the townspeople when they questioned him about Emily. They only knew one thing, if he kept coming to the market; she was alive