“A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner, has stupendous use of the foreshadowing writing technique while showing Emily Grierson’s path and the complications she had with the town. Throughout the five sections of the story the narrator shows the reader Emily’s poor journey through life and many of the struggles she had with the town. Faulkner also ordered the sections of the story to be out of chronological order for the reader. The main conflicts of the story are Emily not paying taxes after the previous mayor relieved her of those responsibilities, she was in denial for three days about her fathers death and kept his body, as well as, she bought arsenic without giving a reason for this action. In the beginning of the story, the narrator…show more content… These significant examples from the story are some of the ways Faulkner used the foreshadowing technique to lead the reader through the story allowing them to be consumed by suspense for the Homers death at the end. Susan Hurn, a college professor states “Several examples of foreshadowing that point to Homer's fate are found throughout the story” and “The story is divided into five parts, and the events in the plot are rearranged so that they do not come to us in chronological order. Thus each detail that foreshadows the story's conclusion becomes a piece in the puzzle that is Emily's life after her father's death” (Hurn). These statements by Hurn are significant because they also suggest that Faulkner’s foreshadowing was well used throughout this story. An article on Cliff Notes, states “One way of explaining the excellence of ‘A Rose for Emily’ is by considering its lack of chronological order” and “Such a dissection of the short story initially might appear to weaken it, but this approach allows us to see Faulkner's genius at work” (“Faulkner’s Chronology”). This suggests that another reason that this is a well formed story is through the use of Faulkner’s organization. The organization of the story can be considered the “climatic order.” According to the website “grammer.ccc” climatic order is defined as “items, events, or even ideas are arranged in the order in which they occur” (“Principles of Organization”). Which is how Faulkner has arranged the sections, only giving the reader the details he wants them to have in order to create suspense and
