In the following essay, Davis discusses Faulkner's use of time and narrative structure in "A Rose for Emily," commenting that together they "provide some of the most lucid and meaningful understandings of Faulkner's fiction."
Nearly everyone familiar with the writings of William Faulkner is aware of the fracturings of time so common in his work. Many of his major characters spend much of their fictional lives trying to piece together their experiences and lives, to put them in some kind of chronological or existential order. Few of them succeed; and when they do, as is perhaps the case with Quentin Compson (The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom!), they most often find that to make sense of their lives is to create the necessity for self-destruction. But, most often, Faulkner's characters are like Charles Bon.....
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