Not seeing the light

I am going to be honest, when reading Faulkner's, "There was a Queen," I had no epiphanies or moments of making connections that were crucial in the story. Reading through it, I simply saw it as a sort of odd story. Although I did not find some great deeper meaning within the story, I did come across a few points worthy of discussion. The first is Elnora. The story begins with her walking up to the house from her cabin. Being a servant of the house (by this time slavery had ended), it was implied that she didn't ask questions about what Narcissa, the young white woman living in the house, did or why. It seemed that throughout this story, there was a constant stress of the black servants not listening to or questioning what the white people did. For instance, when Elnora was questioning Isom in order to find out what Narcissa had spoken about with the old Aunt, he responded, "I don't know'm. You the one taught me not to listen to white folks." Although they both had it in their head that it was unacceptable to eavesdrop or question "white folks," Isom still had the answer to her question and Narcissa still desired to know. It's as if they felt as if they shouldn't listen, but it was something they consistently did anyways.
In addition, Elnora harbored a lot of bitterness an enmity toward Narcissa. It seemed as if Elnora was angry at the laziness of Narcissa, or perhaps there could have been more to the story. Elnora even goes as far as to call Narcissa, "Trash. Town trash." One part that I did not understand was how the entire family tree fit together. I did not understand what made someone a Sartoris man or woman and what the significance of that was. However, Elnora, with her enmity toward Narcissa stated that, "She won't ever be a Sartoris woman." I have received the connotation that being a Sartoris man or woman is something of prestige or personal pride. I feel as if one must understand how this entire family tree is put together in order to understand the true significance of a Sartoris man or woman.
I am not really sure what themes Faulkner is trying to convey in this story. There are so many dynamics running at once in the story that I am not quite sure how to translate them. I see Narcissa's struggle with her self image because of certain explicit letters written about her. I also see Elnora's struggle with herself as a half-black woman. She is constantly dictating who is "quality" and who is "trash." I also did not understand the significance of Aunt Jenny's death in the end or who the "old woman" was sitting next to the "dead widow." I'm sure once this is discussed in class I will gain a better understanding of how Faulkner put all of this together. However for now, I am still a bit in the dark.