In the short story "A Rose for Emily", by William Faulkner, the reader is introduced into an "upside down" way of exposing the plot. The author chooses to open the story with the setting as the main character's (Emily Grierson) funeral. The beginning paragraph gives an overall description of the townspeople and their reason for attending the funeral, thus clueing the reader in that Emily lived in a small town.
Miss Emily had obviously grown up among the upper class, as Faulkner illustrates in the second paragraph, with such descriptions of a wealthy neighborhood and a beautiful estate for the time. The focus quickly changes to the author's use of past tense. Not only is Miss Emily deceased, but also all of her possessions had died long before she did. The audience first makes note of the matter when Faulkner writes, "...set on what had once been our most select street"(The Bedford Introduction to Literature 72). The preceding line reveals to us that Miss Emily is no longer considered part of the upper class. The next few lines paint a picture of a decaying, rundown house set in the middle of an up and coming town. In fact Faulkner describes it as "...an eyesore among eyesores"(73).
At the start of the third paragraph Miss Emily, when she was still alive, is described as a "tradition" and a "duty". An important fact to the story is also exposed when the narrator describes how the mayor, Colonel Sartoris, informs Emily that she no longer has to pay taxes. The death of Emily's father was the underlying reason behind Colonel Sartoris' logic, though once word spread the news would certainly cause a commotion from the townspeople. To prevent that from happening the Colonel conjures up a story alluding to the fact that the town owed a debt to Miss Emily's father and by omitting her taxes this was the town's way of repaying. Faulkn
...