The town is basically its own character and plays a highly important role in the story. One wouldn't call the townspeople the story's antagonist necessarily. An antagonist acts against the protagonist's desires or seeks to thwart their goals. The townspeople do not offer much resistance to Emily's goals. They basically humor her assertion that she is exempt from paying taxes. When she buys enough arsenic to kill a man, Homer disappears without a trace, and then a strange smell comes from the Grierson house, no one even bothers to investigate, more out of politeness than anything else.
It would be more appropriate to say the townspeople are the viewpoint characters. The reader's perspective most closely aligns with theirs. Like the townspeople, the reader views the Gierson drama from the outside looking inside. Emily remains an enigma to the townspeople, the ultimate outsider. She is a curiosity, a leftover from the Old South.
The townspeople's perspective is essential to the mystery element of the story. By sharing what people observed during Emily's life, such as her devotion to Homer or her buying arsenic shortly before his disappearance, both we and the town can only speculate as to Emily's activities and character until the shocking revelation in the last scene. So, the townspeople are a very important element of the story, acting as a collective audience surrogate.
The town of Jefferson certainly plays an important role in "A Rose for Emily." Readers experience the entire story through the eyes of the townsfolk, especially as embodied in the unnamed narrator, whom we assume is one of the aldermen chosen from the younger generation of citizens. While the "town" provides the point of view for the story and creates the narrative structure, it doesn't do anything to drive the actions of Miss Emily. Therefore, its role is more an observer in the tale than an active participant or antagonist.
First, the town provides the narrative structure of the story. The story consists of five sections, separate vignettes describing the town's reaction toward something Miss Emily was doing. In the first section, the narrator describes the delegation of aldermen who visit Miss Emily to collect taxes. The second section relates in flashback an incident from thirty years previous when townsfolk noticed an odd smell at Miss Emily's and sent aldermen to spread lime around at night. The next section goes even further back to Emily's relationship with Homer Barron and her purchasing poison. The fourth section describes what the townspeople gleaned about Homer leaving town, returning, and disappearing again. The last section reveals what the town discovered upon Emily's death. All the information for these sections is garnered from town gossip or comes from the narrator's experience as one of the townsfolk.
Second, the town provides the point of view for the story. The only things readers know about Emily are what the townspeople believe, say, and feel about her. Phrases like "we believed," "we said," "we were glad," and "we were surprised" pepper the story, giving the impression that Emily is a major topic of conversation around town. The story never shares Emily's internal thoughts or dialogue.
Despite the town's interest in Emily, she paid little mind to what people thought or said about her. She dismissed the tax collectors with the terse and repetitious statement, "I have no taxes in Jefferson." She didn't receive women callers; she wasn't influenced by the Baptist minister, who refused to tell anyone about their meeting. She wasn't put off by the druggist's reluctance to sell her arsenic. Miss Emily did what she desired and never seemed impeded by town actions or opinions. For that reason, the town can't be considered an antagonist.
One might make the argument that the town is a character in the story, but if so, it plays a minor role and does not influence the way events unfold in Emily's life. However, the town is a major factor in the story because it provides the point of view and the narrative structure.
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