A rose for Emily analysis

However, the present was expressed through Homer Barron, the new Board of Aldermen, and the new generation of the town's people. These particular characters supported progress and change for the community as well as for Miss Emily by representing the present time.
             Although not a named character, the narration is done in third person from the perspective of a resident from the town Emily resides in. The reader becomes a member of society understanding the views of the other town's people. If the story were told in first person through Miss Emily's perspective, the story would take on a new conflict. Since this is not the case, the reader is unable to fully understand Miss Emily's mindset and reasoning for her actions. Although the reader does not know what Miss Emily is thinking they learn about events in her past that help shape her character. Because the reader is held back from certain information, the story becomes a suspenseful mystery.
             The language of "A Rose for Emily- is descriptive as well as symbolic. Faulkner represents Emily's rejection to change and wish to live in the past through dialog and description of setting. For example, when the mayor comes to her house to discuss her taxes, after sending her three notices in the mail, she repeats that her father took care of it with Colonel Satoris and does not owe anything. The words the author chooses to describe the house and Emily coincide. The house is described as having a smell of dust and disuse. In the next paragraph she is described as looking bloated like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Both descriptions of the setting and of Miss Emily are dark and morbid. Faulkner's use of language and choice of words justify the tone and foreshadowing of the story. .
             The setting of Faulkner's short story takes place in a town called Jefferson. The house of Miss Emily was described on page 154 as a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been the most select street.