The plot structure of "A Rose for Emily" is non-linear. Does this help or hinder the ending? How so?

William Faulkner's use of a non-linear time frame, with
constant flashbacks and foreshadowing, is one of the most distinctive aspects of "A Rose
for Emily." Opening the story with the death of Miss Emily and then concluding it with
her funeral (and the bizarre aftermath), Faulkner fills in the gaps of Emily's life in a
series of non-sequential flashbacks, explaining her actions and events that led to the
macabre discovery in the final paragraphs. In doing so, Faulkner's narrative, apparently
through the eyes of a detached member of the community, creates an apprehensive mood
that adds to the mystery of the story. The opening paragraph, describing the funeral
(but not the townspeople's inspection of the inside of her house), suggests that there
is more to the story than just her death. It immediately builds suspense, an element
that would be absent if the story had been told in chronological fashion. The narrative,
with its leaps forward and backward in time, creates the impression of a story being
told long after the event, much in the way an aging storyteller might hesitatingly
recall the facts many years in the future. 

Faulkner's
deliberate shifts in time may also be a way of emphasizing Miss Emily's own refusal to
change with the times. Miss Emily was a relic of the past, living in a decrepit old
house, witnessing the changing world of Jefferson--and the disappearing ways of the Old
South--around her. Her one attempt at change was rebuffed when Homer refused to marry
her, and she retreated to her old ways--scorning visitors and neighbors and watching the
world around her from the limited view of her window.