The unnamed narrator is writing from the first person plural point of view—an interesting choice on the part of the author, William Faulkner. The narrator seems to represent the entire town, which stands in opposition to Emily. The narrator is a member of the "next generation, with its more modern ideas, while Emily is more closely affiliated with "the ranked and anonymous . . . Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson." The narrator speaks with a mingled sense of sympathy but also satisfaction as they watch Emily descend into madness induced by isolation. Faulkner writes,
When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad. At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less.
This line perfectly encapsulates the "pity" that Emily arouses in the narrator and the other townspeople but also the schadenfreude evoked by seeing Emily lose her status as a member of the southern elite society.
Although the unnamed narrator does not directly profess to be speaking for anyone in particular in the story, there has been much conjecture on the question of whom he or she represents. The enotes link below refers to Rodman's article in The Faulkner Journal, which concludes that the narrator, who uses collective pronouns such as "us" and "we", speaks for the majority of the average people, or the community, in which Emily Grierson lived.
In the critical essay also cited below, Burdick poses the interesting possiblity that the narrator may in fact be a woman. He reasons that the sympathetic tone as well as the intimate familiarity and concern for the minute details for Emily's life would be more likely noted and expressed by a woman of her time than a male.
Who is the unnamed narrator in “A Rose for Emily”and for whom does he profess to be speaking?
It is worth remembering,when considering the voice of the unnamed narrator in the short story "A Rose For Emily", that the author, Faulkner himself, knew a lot about the small town characteristics of populations such as the one Miss Emily belonged to. Everyone has a different,subjective, view on a piece of literature, so for me, I always feel as if I know the narrator personally. I feel as if he is an old resident or native of the town retelling an old story about a town and a family whose history is common knowledge round those parts. He seems like a journalist - or a writer! - because the viewpoints of the characters seem almost like they were interviewed about what they saw, heard, smelt, visited etc.
Who is the unnamed narrator in “A Rose for Emily”and for whom does he profess to be speaking?
The narrator in "A Rose for Emily" is definitely a townsperson, or the townspeople themselves.
The narrator tells the story from the point of view that the townspeople would have had when originally witnessing the events that are told...
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about. Notice that nothing is mentioned that wouldn't have been seen or heard or smelled by the townspeople.
When Emily buys poison, we get the details from the point of view of the pharmacist. When the house smells, we get the story from the point of view of the people that smelled the stink, and from the people that put down the lime. When town leaders go to Emily to collect taxes, we get the version of the events from the point of view of the people that went.
Since townspeople never went upstairs to the bedroom where the skeleton was kept, we don't get that detail until they finally do go in the bedroom--after Emily's death.
I don't know that there is much disagreement about the narrator. From what I've read, the only disagreement that exists today is whether the narrator is a single person from the town, or the collective voice of the town itself.
Who is the unnamed narrator in “A Rose for Emily”and for whom does he profess to be speaking?
As you say, the narrator is unnamed. Because of this, there is no way of knowing who he is. In fact, there is no way to even know if "he" is a he. The narrator could just as well be a woman. Scholars disagree a great deal on the characteristics of the narrator.
However, I think it is clear that the narrator speaks (or professes to speak) for the people of the town as opposed to Emily. I think that the narrator is most likely professing to speak for the more upper class of the community. I think that because he often speaks of Miss Emily in a sort of pitying way, as if she is higher than her socially.
Who is the unnamed narrator in "A Rose for Emily"?
The unnamed narrator in "A Rose for Emily" is a plural, first person "we" narrator--the townspeople. It's a collective or communal "we" narrator.
That's why, presumably, information comes haphazardly to the reader. It's presented in a fragmented way that mimics the way information passes through a small town. The narrator gets the information about Emily buying poison from the pharmacist, presumably. The narrator gets information about the inside of the house from someone that was in the group that visited her to try to get her to pay taxes, presumably. The narrator hears about problems updating Emily's house for modern postal delivery from someone who had to hassle with her, presumably. The narrator is the townspeople.
This, of course, is all a construct created by Faulkner to enable him to pull off the surprise ending. The plot details, told in chronological order, obviously feature Emily murdering Homer, etc. Told chronologically, the feature cannot create a surprise ending. That is only possible if the plot details are manipulated. That's the purpose the "we" narrator serves.
Who is the unnamed narrator of "A Rose for Emily"? Whom does he profess to speak for?
In "A Rose for Emily," the narrator is not really identified as a single individual (nor is it a "he," as the question asks.) Rather, Faulkner chooses to tell the story from the perspective of the entire town, as is revealed in the first line: "When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral..." This seems to be deliberate, and the effect is that the reader gets a sense of the cohesiveness (but also the exclusionary and borderline dysfunctional nature) of small towns in the South.
The townspeople gossip about Miss Emily and view her with a sort of bemusement. They talk about the dilapidated condition of her home, and about the horrible smell emanating from her property. They gossip about the condition her father, who kept her from marrying, left her in—penniless, but forced to try to keep up appearances. Some even felt "really sorry for her." Throughout the story, the narrator uses the term "we," or, at times, "the ladies," or "the men." The point is that Miss Emily and her home become set apart from the rest of the small-town community. This seems to play a role in her unwillingness to engage with the community, and it adds to the air of bemused fascination the town (and therefore the reader) has with the goings-on at the Grierson house.
When she buys poison from the local drugstore, the townspeople speculate:
The next day we all said, "She will kill herself"; and we said it would be the best thing.
At the end of the story, when the fate of Homer Barron is revealed, the narrator again underscores the sense of collective fascination:
For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin.
Of course, the entire town did not enter Miss Emily's house. The point is that, in a small town, everyone instantly knew what happened there.