A Rose for Emily

In Faulkners' A Rose for Emily the narrator seems to be a randon outside townsperson, not directly involved with the plot but an onlooker watching the story unfold. I believe that the reason the story is not told chronologically is due to the recollection and memory of the narrator. It is almost as if the narrator is trying to piece together and make sense of the story himself, trying figure out why details happened as they did. The narrator did know details about converstaion amond Emily and the druggist, "I want some poison," said Emily. "Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such? I'd recom--" responded the druggist (212). The narrator seemed to be there, for those conversations, but was not involved in them. The drugs were for killing her husband. But why did she do it? I have two theories. Emily did love Homer, but she was a proud woman. Maybe she killed him because he was not as high in the caste as she was. "Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, as a day laborer." (212) But she left him in the house and slept next to him. But, was ashamed of herself and about her name in town. The other theory is that he was gay. Maybe the terminology and circumstances was different in this stories time, but there is a curious excerpt in the plot "Then we said, " She will persuade him yet," because Homer himself had remarked -- he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elk's club-- that he was not a marrying man." (213) It could be a difference between the phrasing not and then, but that line stood out.