Abstract:William Faulkner is a famous novelist of the “Southern Renaissance” of America. Throughout his life, he has written nineteen novels, hundreds of short stories, and built up a unique system called “Yoknapatawpha County”. “Jefferson town” is the writing background of the story A Rose for Emily. This famous short story which shaped the main role Emily from multiple angles is defied as a typical among short stories. It embodies a concentrated reflection of William Faulkner’s narrative technique.

Normally, domestic and overseas scholars study this novel from the angle of female consciousness, southern feelings, symbolism, gothic style, tragedy causes, or narrative structure; and so on .This paper chooses “Unreliable Narration” as a breakthrough to judge the reliability of the narrator. By means of the clearness of the Unreliable Narration, it will analyze the narrator’s identity and emotional change, and then reshape heroine’s real image and uncover the real work theme.

Key words: narrator; Unreliable Narration; identity; emotion; theme

Table of Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction-1

1.1A Brief Introduction of A Rose for Emily-1

1.2 A Brief Introduction of this dissertation-1

2. Literature Review-2

2.1 Studies on Unreliable Narration-2

2.2 Reason for choosing rhetoric approach-2

3. Unreliable Narration in the Text-4

3.1 Unreliable identity of the narrator-4

3.2 Narration of the appearance of Emily’s house-5

3.3 Unreliable Narration of Emily’s appearance-6

3.4 Narration of Emily’s personality-8

4. Uncover the Narrator’s Emotions-10

4.1 Necessity of uncovering the narrator’s emotions-10

4.2Narrator’s obvious attitude about Emily-10

4.3 Narrator’s reliable attitude about Emily’s father-10

4.4 Emotions of the narrator-11

5. An Analysis of the Theme-13

5.1 Positive image of Emily- 13 

5.2 Root of Emily’s tragedy-13

5.3 Praise for Emily-14

5.4 Summary-15

6. Conclusion-16

References-17

Acknowledgments-18