Faulkner uses an unusual point-of-view: the first person plural, the point-of-view of the community in which Emily Grierson lived. Faulkner combines modernism with a few naturalistic elements in his story: Mrs. Emily's life is witnessed from the outside by the community, and the reader has no access to the story itself, but through the hearsay of the country folk. A Rose for Emily also has a surprise and grotesque ending: after Emily's death, the people find in one of the rooms of her house the body of Homer, Mrs. Emily' lover. Thus, Faulkner's style is very interesting, because he tells the story from the point-of-view of an ignorant narrator but impersonal narrator, the community itself, leaving the reader equally ignorant. Both stories thus have naturalistic or pathological elements and manage to keep the reader at a distance from the story itself.

Works Cited

Bierce, Ambrose. Collected Works. New York: Doubleday,...
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