And this town, understood as setting, character, and narrative voice, controls "A Rose for Emily" from opening through closing sentence. Ultimately, we know more about the town and its attitudes than we know about Emily Grierson herself.
Most of what we learn about Jefferson involves its attitude regarding Emily. Faulkner's means of conveying this attitude is interesting. After informing us Emily has died, the narrator tells usthe whole town went to her funeral.? Immediately, several questions and assumptions about Emily run through the reader's mind. One would assume only a prominent or well-loved member of a community would garner this type of respect. Although many of the obvious questions are immediately answered by the narrator, this allows Faulkner to quickly give the main character an interesting persona, while leaving room to develop those attributes. In one sentence we find out she is well-known, respected, most likely well-to-do, reclusive, divisive, mysterious, and bound to some sort of inauspicious past. .
A bit a foreshadowing and symbolism occur in the first sentence, as well. The narrator splits the town's perception of Emily along the lines of gender. While the men attend her funeral out ofa sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument,? the women attendmostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house.? Obviously, this paints the women as unsympathetic and nosey. But more importantly, it creates a sense of mystery about Emily and her house. The symbolic relationship continues to develop in the second paragraph. Emily's house, once a grand Victorian home on a prominent street, has fallen into disrepair and sits alone among a row of unsightly gas pumps and garages. Emily, like her house is described as the end of a grand era in her town. Her house, like the narrator's description of her in the first sentence, has become a fallen monument. .
Emily and the house share a similar decline.