a rose for emily

By shifting the point of view from an all-encompassing “we” to the view of either Tobe or Homer, a few major and minor changes would occur in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”. 

If the story was told by Tobe, one of the major differences would be word choice.  The use of certain derogatory terms for African Americans probably would not have been used.  In addition, the reader gets the feeling like Tobe would not have made as many assumptions about Ms. Emily, seeing as he had the greatest number of interactions with her.  When the narrator’s in the story say, “we said, ‘She will kill herself”; and we said it would be the best thing” it gives the reader the impression that the narrator does not think very highly of Ms. Emily, maybe because they do not know enough about her or for being a shut in.  Whatever the reason, the narrator does not seem too knowledgeable about Ms. Emily’s feelings, so I feel that the story telling is a bit skewed. 

If the story were presented by Homer, I feel that other differences would arise.  I feel that Homer did not think too highly of Ms. Emily either.  He did not intend to marry her, and he was just using her while he was in town.  If the story were told by him, the reader would get a more negative view of Ms. Emily, maybe one with less pity and more insult.