Why Faulkner chose to tell a story out of order

Art · Published 19 October 2026 · Updated 25 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: If William Faulkner had told the story of Emily Grierson chronologically, you might have seen her as a twisted necrophiliac. Instead, by fracturing time, he forces you to see her as a tragic product of her environment—a woman desperately trying to freeze a dying world in place.

Published in 1930, "A Rose for Emily" utilizes a non-linear structure to explore the decay of the Southern aristocracy. By weaving together flashbacks and objective observations, Faulkner prevents the reader from judging Emily's actions through a simple linear lens. Instead, the narrative highlights how her past—specifically her father's suffocating control—dictates her present. Her father kept her in isolation until his death at age 30, effectively preventing her from ever learning to live independently or adapt to change.

The narrative's structure mirrors the theme of resistance to change. Emily’s refusal to admit her father's death for three days, her refusal to pay taxes, and her ultimate act of poisoning Homer Barron are all presented as symptoms of a 'decayed mental stability' or a desperate attempt to maintain the status quo. The townspeople, represented by a first-person plural narrator, view her as a 'hereditary obligation.' This perspective allows the reader to see her not just as a villain, but as a figure trapped by 'noblesse oblige' and a 'cursed land' of rigid class structures.

The story's climax—the discovery of Homer Barron's decomposed body in a locked room—serves as a grim metaphor for the South's relationship with the North. Some scholars interpret Homer's death as the North's rejection of Southern tradition, with Emily's act of murder and subsequent 'living' with his corpse representing the South's refusal to let go of an impossible ideal. By manipulating time, Faulkner ensures that the reader experiences the 'inevitable death and decay' of these traditions as a lived, subjective reality rather than a mere sequence of events.

Literary analysis also highlights the strategic placement of language within this structure. For instance, a specific sentence in Part IV uses five adjectives that correspond to the five parts of the story in order. This technique provides a hidden layer of foreshadowing and unification, connecting the minute details of Emily's life into a singular, cohesive tragedy of determinism.

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