A Rose for Emily

1. How is the issue of chronology related to the larger thematic design of the story?

"When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in at least ten years."

In order to create suspense for the reader, Faulkner changed the normal chronological order of the story. The reader is continually questioning and curious as to what will happen next based on the chronological order of the story. The already eerie mood of the story is further added to by this suspenseful order. The climax is at the very end of the story. A story written in the regular order would not have created so much suspense and curiosity in the last part and most specifically the last paragraph of the story. The reader is able to put themselves in the same situation as the people in Jefferson and find out the surprise at the same time as everyone else. This simple fact also adds to the thematic design of suspense and curiosity in the story. Without a reverse chronological order in the story, the mood would be completely different.