Faulkner takes us through his short story "A Rose for Miss Emily", with its unique form of third-person limited narration. This narrative allows the audience to follow the narrator's opinions and develop the mindset that the author wants his audience to have. Specifically, William's choice to begin the story with the description of Emily's funeral gives the reader a kind of inherent sympathy for Miss Emily, which we readers naturally carry through the story as we build our opinion of Emily. Faulkner then continues to construct our opinion of Emily through the metaphorical comparison of her to a "War Memorial." Such a comparison unsurprisingly leads the reader to think of Miss Emily as a kind of tarnished nobleman, or, more appropriately, a tarnished aristocrat. The idea that Miss Emily is part of the aristocracy is then explicitly reinforced with the description of Miss Emily's residence in the second paragraph (Page 391 Norton Introduction to Literature). Such a “large and boxy” house (Page 391 Norton) would not be something owned by someone of middling social class, especially a woman of lower than upper class when the contextual chronology of this piece is consulted. Faulkner's pitiful description of the house leads the audience, once again, to feel a sense of pity for her. As the story continues we begin to realize that the feelings of the citizens are congruent with the feelings that the reader is forced to realize. “Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation to the city” (Page 391 Norton). This niche as “tradition, duty” allows Miss Emily to qualify for some questionable privileges, starting with paying taxes by…middle of paper……the ability to interrogate Miss Emily, being “the high and mighty Grierson" that he was. If someone had simply investigated this smell a little deeper, if the pharmacist had stood his ground and not sold the poison to Miss Emily (page 394 lines 35-48 Norton), or even if someone had had the compassion to come and ask Miss Emily about Homer Baron's sudden passing, the story could very well have had a different outcome. Instead the citizens did everything they could to avoid any kind of confrontation with Miss Emily, in hindsight, this was their biggest mistake, it cost a man his life and drained the town of what they were worth. law (taxes). This then produces the theme that no one should be above the law. No measure of intimidation or status should replace justice, because if it does, those who empower it will suffer the consequences.