Teaching Aims: The teaching of this
lesson aims to enable students to master:
• 1 20 key words and about 100 other new words
• 2 20 key phrases and their translations
• 3 the way of analyzing the usage of Gothic
cultures in this lesson
• 4 the way of dividing the lesson
• 5 the skills of translation in ten sentences
• 6 the main idea stated by the author
• The teaching of this lesson is divided into five
parts
Part One: Background Information
(in one period)
• In this part, the teacher and the students are working together to offer
as much information as possible in one period. Information comes in
all directions. In this way , views of the students can be broadened
and versions of the world can be easily seen. We follow two
procedures:
• I: The teacher gives a brief introduction about the background
information and guides the students to the text by asking some
questions.
• II: Some students are asked to introduce some important notes
because they have got some relevant information from the internet to
help understand the lesson.
• 1 About the author:
• Present the picture downloaded from the internet and try to make the
author impressive in the students’ minds.
• 2 Baptist minister and Episcopal
• 3 horse and foot
• 4 the Elks’ Club
Part Two Detailed Study of the Text
(in six periods)
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In this part, the teacher finishes the explanation of words,
sentences, grammar in six periods.
Approaches used in this part:
1 Raising questions to make the students think differently;
2 Explaining some points;
3 Discussing some topics in pairs or with the teacher
4 Communicating with the students by repeating some words,
some sentences or some explanations.
5 Asking volunteers to read each paragraph or asking them to
read together.
6 Asking them to summarize the main idea in each paragraph and
in each section separately
7 Asking them to seek some transitional paragraphs or sentences
8 Asking them to analyze the rhetorical speeches used in some
sentences and master the skills used in organizing the ideas.
9 Asking them to paraphrase as many sentences as possible
10 Making them pay attention to the special usages of some
common words
Detailed Study of the Text
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What is the meaning of the title “A Rose for Emily?”
The meaning of the title is ambiguous, capable of
various interpretations. A rose is a cliche, symbolizing
love and a pledge of faithfulness. From the story, we
can see Miss Emily was denied love. So, in this
sense, the title has an ironic meaning. A rose for
somebody can also mean a kind of memorial, an
offering, in memory of somebody. Then ,who offered a
rose for Emily? Faulkner intentionally leaves the
answer for the readers to find. But different readers
may come up with different answers. Ambiguity is one
of the characteristics of this story. Students should be
encouraged to give their own interpretations and give
answers to questions that may come up during their
reading and class discussion.
• Para.1
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Part I (paras.1—14)
What does Paragraph 1 tell us?
It tells us who is the main character (Miss Emily) and who is telling the story.
Who tells the story?
You learn a lot about any 20th century literary text by asking “who tells the
story?” That is not a very important question for 18th century fiction or even
19th century fiction because stories written then are usually told by a person
who knows everything at any moment. Ti is stories written then are usually told
by a person who knows everything at any moment. It is called the omniscient
(all-knowing) narrator. Modern writers of the 20th century like to experiment
with different narrative voices. Faulkner is one of them. In “A Rose for Emily?”
he chooses “we”, the people of the town, as the collective narrator. The first
sentence of the story says, “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town
went to the funeral...” In the following parts “we” frequently appear as the
narrator.
why does the author choose this collective narrator?
“We” are the ordinary people of the town, representing the gossip of the town.
They are, most of the time, not participants but observers of the events. They
are rather detached from Miss Emily and therefore different from the “ladies”
or “older people” mentioned in Paragraph 31 who are more socially involved
with Miss Emily and thus tending to be more judgmental. The townspeople are
mainly interested in keeping track of the events and sharing the information
with people coming from outside the town. Yet, as people living in a small town
in the South, they have their own values and attitudes. On the whole “we”
should be
• regarded as a reliable narrator. However, “we” are unable to tell the
story in a straightforward and systematic manner. As non-participants
of the major events, this collective narrator does not know everything,
and thus the narrative point of view is limited. For instance none of “us:
have been inside Miss Emily’ house until her death. So inevitably there
are gaps in the narration that are bound to cause confusion on the part
of the reader or the listener of the story. That leaves a lot of room for
reader participation. As readers, we have to fill in the gaps and piece
the scattered bits of information together by ourselves. This is the
burden the author places on us readers, and at the same time, it is part
of the fun of reading such a story.
• When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral:
the man through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument,
the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which
no one save an old manservant—a combined gardener and cook—had
seen in at least ten years.
• save: (prep.)(formal) except for
• e.g. : She answered all the questions save one.
• (2)埃米莉.格里尔森小姐去世时,全镇的人都去送丧了.男人们去是处于
一种尊重,因为一个纪念碑倒下了.女人们则是处于好奇,想看看埃米莉
小姐的房子里面到底是什么样子的，因为除了一个作花匠兼厨师的老
男仆之外,起码有10年没别人踏进过她家的大门了.
• Para.2
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What is the function of paragraph 2?
This paragraph provides details about the setting of the story—the place being
the Southern town of Jefferson and the time being after the south lost in the
American Civil War. From the descriptions of the appearance of Miss Emily’s
house we learn something about her family and her character, and from the
visible changes that were taking place then.
It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with
cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the
seventies, set on what had once been our most select street.
– frame house: a house made of wood
– decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies: see Note 1 to the
text
– the heavily lightsome style of the seventies: this house was built in the 1870s
after the end of the Civil War. Compared with houses of the Greek revival
style with columns built before the war like those we see in the movie “Gone
with the Wind”, this Gothic revival style was fancy, frivolous, and not very
solemn-looking.
– Select:(adj.) (formal) choice ,excellent, outstanding; only lived in, visited or
used by a small number of rich people
– The detailed description of the house reveals the identity of the Griersons as
one of the richest families in the town.
But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august
names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn
and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps—an
eyesore among eyesores.
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– Garage: a business establishment where motor vehicles are stored, repaired, serviced,
etc.
– august: (accent on the second syllable) inspiring awe and reverence; imposing and
magnificent; worthy of respect because of age and dignity, high position, etc.
– coquettish: like a girl or woman who merely from vanity tries to get men’s attention and
admiration
– cotton wagon: a wagon carrying cotton driven to town to wait for the cotton gins to
separate cotton fibers from the seeds
– an eyesore among eyesores : 丑中之丑 An eyesore is something that is very ugly,
especially a building surrounded by other things that are not ugly.
– The street used to house only the best families. Then great changes took place: garages
and cotton gins were established on the street was becoming modern and commercial,
only miss Emily’s house reminded the same. Although her house was decaying,, it still
assumed an air of a stubborn and frivolous girl. The cotton wagons and gasoline pumps
were ugly enough, but this house, which was old, in decay, pretentious, and completely
out of the street , especially miss Emily’s house by using words like “lifting its stubborn
and coquettish decay”. This detail shows that the house and its owner share the same
character.
And now miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they
lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of union and
confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.
– cedar-bemused: transferred epithet
– bemuse: to plunge in thought; to preoccupy; usually in the passive voice. When “we”
visit the cemetery, we would be plunged in thought , meditating, thinking about the
dead, the war , and the history. Cedars are long-lived pine trees often planted in
cemeteries.
– Jefferson: see note 2 to the text
– 不过，现在埃米莉小姐也加到那些名门望族代表的行列中了.他们在令人沉思的雪松陪
伴下长眠与公墓,他们的墓碑周围埋葬着一排排南北战争在杰斐逊战场上阵亡的南军和
北军的无名战士.
• Para3
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alive, miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary
obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when colonel sartoris, the
mayor---he who fathered the edict that no negro woman should appear on the street
without an apron-remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her
father on into perpetuity.
– alive, miss Emily had been a tradition ,a duty, and a care, a sort of hereditary
obligation upon the town....
miss Emily had lived a long life and had become a tradition because she represented
the aristocracy of the old south that had lost out in the civil war. She was a care
because she was old, unmarried, and without family, and the people in the town felt
they must take care of her. They felt that taking care of her was their duty and
obligation. And this obligation passed from generation to generation as long as she
live
– 埃米莉小姐在世时,一直是传统的化身,履行责任和给予关照的对象,这是全镇人
沿袭下来的一种义务...........
– Colonel Sartoris: he was the son of the old colonel who organized a regiment to
fight in the civil war. For more information , see note 3 to the text. Mixing up
the two Sartorises will lead to confusion of time concerning the plot.
– Father: to bring into being, to found ,originate ,or invent
– Edict: an official public proclamation or order issued by authority ,decree
– No negro woman should appear on the street without san apron:黑人妇女上街
时必须系上围裙by this time when the mayor issued edict , the civil war had
been over almost 30 years, by law, the negroes were free, in reality , they were
still discriminated against negro women were mostly house servants in rich
white people’s homes, colonel Sartoris edict was obviously one of racial
discrimination ,which revealed his conservative racial attitude .
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– Dispensation: special permission from someone in authority to do
something that is not usually allowed特赦
– ....the two things colonel Sartoris did---fathering the edict that no negro
woman should appear on the streets without an apron and remitting miss
Emily’s taxes----were not directly related. But they are mentioned in
juxtaposition to show how colonel sartor is treated white upper class
women and negro women differently.
11.not that miss Emily would have accepted charity
“not that ” is used to say what follows is not true. Miss Emily would not have
accepted charity. Charity would be humiliating to her. When her father
died ,miss Emily was quite poor , but being a proud woman from an august
family ,she would not accept charity. colonel Sartoris, born into another
aristocratic family in Jefferson, had elaborate ideas about how white upper
class women should be treated. With the decline of the south after the war,
plantation owners enjoyed very high but also outdated status, they should be
looked up to, respected and taken care of . he knew exactly what Emily needed
and how she felt now, and thus invented a tale to justify the edict so that he
could give her some financial aid without appearing charitable. 12．Only a
man of’ generation and thought could have invented it…
For, Colonel Sartoris, read Note 3 to the text. Colonel Sartoris was the son of
the real Colonel John Sartoris who fought in the Civil War. From
Faulkner’s novel Sartoris we learn that the Young Colonel inherited his
father’s plantation as well as his military tile. He was the major of Jefferson.
After his death (1919), his family declined. As one of the last aristocratic
generation of the South, he tried to cling to the past glory, and he had the most
traditional ideas about how elite white women should be deferred to.
• Para.4
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13. when the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, this
arrangement created some little dissatisfaction.
(1) this sentence indicates that by now Mayor Sartoris had died and many years had passed.
Occasionally the narrator points out the exact year of a certain event, but mostly he only
makes vague references of time to keep the readers guessing and sorting out an approximate
chronology by themselves. Faulkner is implying that most of the time the townsfolk who
make up the “we” are not very precise about dates.
(2) with its more modern ideas: the author is frequently making contrast between the present
and past. The past is represented by the Griersons, Colonel Sartoris, Old Judge Stebens, etc.
and the present is represented by the new generation, the new mayors and aldermen.
14. on the first of the year they mailed her a tax notice.
Here the author does not say which year, but later in Paragraph 14 we get to know the visit
was made almost ten years after Colonel Sartoris’ death.
15. they wrote her a formal letter, asking her the call at the sheriff’s office at her convenience.
(1) first they sent a notice. As they got no reply, they wrote a formal letter in a very polite tone,
asking her to come to the sheriff’s office.
(2) sheriff: in the U.S. a sheriff is the chief law-enforcement officer of a county, charged in
general with the keeping of peace and the execution of court orders.
16. a week later the mayor wrote her himself, offering to call or to send his car for her…
This shows the special status Miss Emily held and the kind of care she received.
17…and received in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy
in faded ink…
Miss Emily ignored the tax notice and the formal letter from the aldermen. She only replied
to the letter by the mayor. This points to the fact that she was arrogant and held herself too
high to deal with ordinary people.
(2) in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink: 字体纤细，书法流畅，墨水已褪色了Ｏne of
the class markers of cultivated femininity in her generation was an elegant wispy
handwriting.
• Para 5
• 18 a deputation waited upon her.
• (1) deputation: a group of people who are sent to talk to someone in
authority, as representatives of a larger group
• (2) wait upon: to act as a servant; to call on or visit (especially a superior )
in order to pay one’s respects, ask a favor, etc. the second definition suits
the context here.
• (3) this brief sentence again shows Miss Emily’s unique position in the town.
• 19…since she ceased giving china-painting lessons eight or ten years earlier.
• China-painting was a traditional decorative skill and a common pastime for
well-to-do women at that time. Miss Emily gave china-painting lessons at
home in order to make some money. The fact that she ceased the lessons
indicates that she no longer admitted anyone into her house and that she
had become more isolated from the outside world.
• 20. they were admitted by the old Negro into a dim hall from which a
stairway mounted into still more shadow.
• (1) here the author is describing the inside of the house. Words like ‘dim’
and ‘shadow’ create a mysterious atmosphere. No one could see anything
very clearly inside her house-and perhaps in her.
• (2)老男仆把他们引进光线暗淡的门厅，厅里的楼梯通向更加阴暗的楼上。
• 21. it smelled of dust and disuse-a close, dank smell.
• (1) dust and disuse: alliteration
• (2) disuse: the state of being or becoming unused; lack of use
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(3) close: stuffy
(4) dank: disagreeably damp; moist and chilly
(5) the smell was one of decay.
(6)房间里灰尘弥漫，散发着因长久不用而产生的气味——潮湿、发
霉、令人窒息。
22. when the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see
that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose
sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single
sunray.
(1) when the Negro opened the blinds of one window: this detail shows
that normally the blinds of all the windows in the house were closed.
This is proof that she wanted to cut herself off from the outside world.
(2) blinds: a covering that can be pull down over a window; window
shade, window shutters
(3) the leather was cracked: this is a sign of poverty and decay.
(4)… when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their
thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray.
…当他们落座时，一股细细的灰尘在大腿周围慢慢扬起，尘粒在房间
里唯一的太阳光束中缓缓地旋转着。
• Para.6
• 23. they rose when she entered—a small, fat woman in black, with a
thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt,
learning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head.
• (1) with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into
her belt: the gold chain was the chain of a watch. The fact that it
vanished (disappeared) into her belt means that the watch was hidden
under her belt and therefore invisible. In paragraph 7 the narrator tells
us , “then they could her the invisible watch ticking at the end of the
into her belt, that means she did not look at the watch. The watch is a
symbol of time. 09in his novel THE SOUND AND THE FURY,
Faulkner also uses watches and clocks as symbols of time. Just as one
of the characters in that novel tried to smash a watch to stop time, Miss
Emily, by making her watch invisible, tried to ignore the passage of
time as well as any changes brought about by the passage of time.
• (2) leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head: in Paragraph
5 we see a tarnished gilt easel in Her house. Now there are her gold
chain and gold head of an ebony cane. Gilt and gold suggest wealth. To
tarnish means to lose luster, to discolor, to grow dull. This repeated use
of the word underlines the fact that the Grierson family used to be rich
and august but now it has lost its splendor.
• 24. her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what
would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her.
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(1) plumpness and obesity: Plumpness means being full and round in form;
being chubby. Obesity means being very fat; unhealthily fat. A note on
word choice: fat, plump, obese, overweight, large, heavy, chubby, stout,
tubby. If you want to be polite, do not say that people are fat. (A little )
overweight or just large would be more polite. in American English, you
can also say that someone is heavy when you don’t want to be offensive.
Plump is most often used of women and means slightly (and pleasantly) fat.
Chubby is most often used of babies and children and also means
pleasantly fat and healthy-looking. When you describe adults, stout means
slightly fat and heavy and tubby means short and fat, especially around
the stomach, if someone is extremely fat and unhealthy, he /she is obese.
Obese is also the word used by doctors.
(2) （因为）她的骨架小，换了别人只是有点富态，而到她身上就显得肥
胖了。
25. she liked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and
of that pallid hue.
（1）pallid: pale, faint in color
(2) hue: color, a modification of a basic color
(3) In this sentence Miss Emily is being described as a
dead person, drowned, bloated and pale. Both the house and the owner
are in decay. Shutting herself from the outside world and living in
complete self-isolation, Miss Emily seemed like a living corpse.
• Para.10
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26."Perhaps he considers himself the sheriff..."
Her remark shows that she only acknowledged the authority of
Colonel Sartoris. She was a truly proud and stubborn woman.
• Para.11
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27."But there is nothing on the books to show that, you see. We must
go by the ..."
But there is no written document to show that. You see we must go
by the written documents. Earlier Miss Emily also admitted, "Colonel
Sartoris explained it to me." Clearly the dispensation was only an oral
permission. In the old days, things were done in the old-fashioned
way : the verbal permission of Colonel Sartoris was as good as a
written document. The new generation acted differently: they wanted
to go by written documents.
• Para.14
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28. "See Colonel Sartoris."(Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten
years.)
(1) From the novel Sartoris we learn that the Young Colonel died in
1919. So we can infer that the deputation's visit to Miss Emily should
be around 1928--1929.
(2) Miss Emily's insistence on their seeing Colonel Sartoris, who had
been dead almost ten years , proves how she refused to acknowledge
changes.
Part II (Paras.15-28)
• 29. How is the narration shifted in time in Part II
of the story?
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In this part time is shifted back to thirty years
before the visit of the deputation. Three things
took place during this period of time. There was
a bad smell coming from Miss Emily's house.
Two years before that her father died , and Emily
behaved rather strangely by refusing to let the
townspeople bury him. A short time after that she
had a sweetheart, whom the townspeople
believed deserted her.
• Para.15
• 30. So she vanquished them , horse and foot , just as she had
vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell.
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(1) vanquish: to conquer or defeat in battle; to defeat in any
conflict, as in argument
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(2) horse and foot : a military idiom from the American Civil War,
meaning totally
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(3)就这样她彻底打败了他们，把他们打得人仰马翻，正如30年前
在气味问题上她击败了他们的父辈一样。
• 31. That was two years after her father's death and a short time after
her sweetheart--the one we believed would marry her--had deserted
her. Her sweetheart and his deserting her are mentioned here as if
casually. Actually this is an important detail . The narrator will come
back to it . This is one of the characteristics of Faulkner's narrative
techniques--throwing out a bit of information here and there for the
reader to piece together in order to get a complete picture.
• 32. A few of the ladies had the temerity to call, but were not
received...
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(1) temerity : foolish or rash boldness that results from underrating
the danger or failing to evaluate the consequences.
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e.g. : He had the temerity to criticize his boss.
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(2)有几位妇女冒失地去看望她，但被她拒之门外.....
• Para.16
• 33."Just as if a man--any man --could keep a kitchen properly," the
ladies said ; so they were not surprised when the smell developed.
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What the ladies said meant that they did not in the least believe a
man, any man, could keep a kitchen properly. So when the smell
developed, they believed it was because the manservant didn't keep
the kitchen clean.
• 34. It was another link between the gross, teeming world and the
high and mighty Griersons.
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(1) gross: vulgar, coarse; lacking fineness; disgusting, offensive
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(2) teeming: full of ( people and animals)
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(3) high and mighty : talking or behaving as if you think you are
more important than other people
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(4) The Griersons regarded themselves as very important and the
outside world as vulgar and full of people inferior to them. They
belonged to two entirely different worlds. After her father died, Miss
Emily shut herself in the house , retreating to her world of the past.
However, the complaints about the smell served as a link between
the two different worlds and compelled her to deal with the other
world.
• Para.19
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35. "Why, send her world to stop it ," the woman said. "Isn't there a law?"
(1) Word has many different meanings. Here it means a command, order or
authorization.
e.g. : They were waiting for the word to go ahead.
(2) " Isn't there a law ?"
The law here refers to health or hygiene regulations passed by the town
authorities.
• Para.21
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36. The next day he received two more complaints, one from a man who came
in diffident deprecation.
(1) diffident : timid, shy ; lacking self-confidence ; marked by hesitation in
asserting oneself
(2) deprecation : expression of strong disapproval or criticism
(3) The next day the mayor received two more complaints. One of them was
from a man who came and pleaded to the mayor in a shy and timid way. This
shows that the smell was bothering everybody and that even a shy man found
it hard to put up with the situation any more.
• Para.23
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37….. “will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?”
Judge Stevens, eighty years old, was an old Southern gentleman. He thought it
bad manners to tell a lady to her face that she smelt bad. So he didn’t approve
of sending her word to clean up the kitchen in a direct way.
• Para.24
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38.So the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily’s lawn and
slunk about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base of the brickwork
and at the cellar openings while one of them preformed a regular sowing
motion with his hand out of a sack slung from his shoulder.
(1)slink: to move in a quiet, furtive, or sneaking manner, as from fear, guilt, etc.
(2)brickwork: the part of the house built of bricks
(3)于是，第二天午夜之后，4个男人穿过埃米莉家的草坪，像破门入室的盗
贼一样偷偷摸摸地绕着房子转悠，在房子的砖基部分以及地窖的通风处使劲
地嗅着，其中一个从背在肩上的袋子里不时掏出一些药粉，好像播种子一样
将它撒在地上。
39.As they redressed the lawn, a window that had been dark was lighted and
Miss Emily sat in it. The light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as
that of an idol.
(1)This is one of the vivid images of Miss Emily the author creates in the story.
Here Miss Emily sat in the window with the light behind her. What people
could see was her silhouette, a dark figure seen against a light background.
The fact that she was motionless suited her rigid and stubborn personality. In
this image she didn’t look like a living person but an idol, or a goddess. There
are some other images of Miss Emily in this story. Pay attention to them and
ask yourself why Faulkner portrays her in such a way and how these images
change over the passage of time.
(2)当他们又穿过草坪往回走时，原先一扇黑洞洞的窗子突然点亮了灯。埃米
莉坐在窗口，灯光照着她的背后，她那挺直的身躯纹丝不动，就像一尊神像。
• Para.25
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40.People in our town, remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great-aunt, had
gone completely crazy at last, believed that the Griersons held themselves a little
too high for what they really were.
People in the town felt that the Grierson family regarded themselves more
important than they really deserved to be. The fact that Miss Emily’s great-aunt,
old lady Wyatt, had gone crazy had to do with this blind, excessive selfimportance.
41.We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white
in the background, her father a straddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to
her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front
door.
tableau: a striking scene or picture, frozen in time for dramatic effect; a
theatrical device in which a group of people who do not speak or move are
arranged on stage to show a famous event or a dramatic moment
straddle: (colloquial or dialect) to spread the legs in a sprawling or straddling
way
back-flung:向后开的
This sentence depicts a central image that tells several things about the
relationship between father and daughter in the Grierson family. First, the
positions of the father and daughter are meaningful. The father was standing in
the foreground while Miss Emily was standing in the background. This shows the
father’s dominant position and the daughter’s subordinate role. The father’s
dominant position and the daughter’s subordinate role. The father’s straddling
adds to his image as a stern patriarchal figure. Second, the father turned his back
•
•
•
to her. This shows he refused to listen to her, denying her wishes. Then Mr.
Grierson was clutching a horsewhip, which is clearly a symbol of power,
authority, and strict control. Miss Emily’s slender figure suggests vulnerability,
and her white dress symbolizes purity, the most valued quality of the Southern
white women. The fact that the two of them were framed by the back-flung
front door may be interpreted in different ways. One interpretation is that the
father was blocking the door, suggesting Miss Emily was unable to walk out of
the house and choose her suitor were driven away by the father holding a
horsewhip. Apparently the author intends to imply many meanings with this
image. Students should be encouraged to give their interpretations. Also we
should compare the image of Miss Emily in this picture with other images of
her at different times, such as how she looked after her father died.
42. so when she got to be thirty and was still single, we wee not pleased exactly,
but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn’t have turned
down all of her chances if they had really materialized.
(1) when she got to be thirty and was still single, people in the town would have
denied that they wanted such an outcome but it did confirm their
predictions—Miss Emily was still single because the Griersons held themselves
too high for what they were, and all the young men who had come to court
Miss Emily had been driven away by the father (see para.28). they knew that
even though there was insanity in the family (the great-aunt Wyatt), Miss
Emily wouldn’t have turned down all of her chances if they had really existed.
(2) 因此，当她30岁上仍未嫁人时，确切地说我们并不觉得高兴，只是觉得这
证明了我们 原来的想法；就算她有精神失常的家族史，她也不至于拒绝所有
的机会，如果真有那么多人向她求婚的话。
• Para.26
•
•
•
•
•
43.being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized.
Without her father’s over-protection and without much money, she had overcome a
common person like the other townspeople.
44.Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less.
(1) old: familiar, experienced, heard or seen many times before
(2) Ordinary people often become excited or worried when they get a penny more or
a penny less. Being poor, now she would learn to appreciate the value of money like
other people in the town.
• Para.27
•
•
45.How did Miss Emily behave when her father died?
She told the ladies who came to see her that her father was not dead. She refused to
let anybody in her house. She behaved in this way for three days . Then she broke
down. They buried her father quickly, because otherwise the body would begin to
smell. This detail sets us up for what is going to happen later to Homer Barron.
• Para.28
•
•
46….and we knew that with nothing left ,she would have to cling to that which had
robbed her ,as people will.
Miss Emily refused to let the townspeople take away her father’s body for burial.She
tried hard to hold onto it as long as possible. Note that the narrator says, “…she
would …cling to that which had robbed her”, instead of her father who robbed her.
The implied meaning is that what robbed her of her love , marriage and freedom was
not only her father as an individual, but the traditional social force he represented.
She would cling to these very same conservative values.
Part III(Paras.29--42)
• Para.29
•
•
47.When we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her look
like a girl ,with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church
windows—sort of tragic and serene.
It is obvious that there is something else beneath the change of
appearances. In her essay “Changing Portraits in A Rose for Emily”
Janice A. Powell points out , “The images in this passage reveal a
woman stripped of her sexuality. In this portrait, Emily assumes the
semblance of a girl instead of a sexually mature woman of thirty. Her
cut hair is especially important. Since ancient times, a woman’s hair
has symbolized her sexuality. Emily’s hair along with her sexuality,
has been cut short through her father’s pride. The cut hair also
introduces religious imagery, for an initiate into a nunnery shears her
hair as a symbol of her chastity. In addition, the adjectives ‘tragic and
serene’ envisage a Madonna, a holy virgin, as an addendum to the
primary image of angels who, although often depicted as women, are
asexual.” However, the symbolic meaning of Miss Emily’s short hair is
rather ambiguous. It can also indicate that with her hair cut short ,
Emily was now a liberated woman. She was determined to change her
role as an upper-class genteel lady. A short hair usually makes a
woman look stronger and more independent in character. This quality
of hers can be seen in her courting with Homer Barron, a Yankee
foreman, despite traditional social prejudice.
• Para.30
• 48….and a foreman named Homer Barron, a Yankee—a big,
dark, ready man…
• (1) Yankee: Homer Barron is one of those from the
victorious North who, after the Civil War, came South in the
hope of making money. Though the word does not appear in
this text, they were commonly called “carpetbaggers”, and
were objects of scorn or suspicion for most Southerners.
• (2) a big, dark, ready man: 一个身材高大,皮肤黝黑,精明能
干的男人
• 49. Presently we began to see him and Miss Emily on Sunday
afternoons driving in the yellow-wheeled buggy and the
matched team of bays from the livery stable.
• (1) buggy: a light carriage pulled by a horse
• (2) bay: a reddish brown horse
• (3) livery stable: a stable where horses and carriages can
be hired
• (4) 不久，礼拜天下午我们常看到他和埃米莉小姐驾着一辆从
马车店租来的轻便马车出门，车轮是黄色的，配套的马是红褐
色的。
• Para.31
• 50.Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a
Northerner, a day laborer.
• a day labored: an unskilled worker paid by the day 临时工
• 51.But there were still others, older people, who said that
even grief could not cause a real lady to forget noblesse
oblige-without calling it noblesse oblige.
• (1) noblesse oblige: This is a French term, meaning nobility
has its obligations.
• (2) But there were still others, older people, who said that no
matter how sad Miss Emily was (over her father’s death), she
should not forget she had certain obligations as a member of
the nobility, though a real lady would not describe her selfrestraint by the expression noblesse oblige. The implied
meaning is that it should be unthinkable for Emily as part of
the local “nobility” to consider marrying a man so far beneath
her.
• 52.They had not even been represented at the funeral.
• 甚至举行葬礼时这家都没派人出席。
• Para.32
• 53.This behind their hand; rustling of craned silk and satin
behind jalousies closed upon the sun of Sunday afternoon as
the thin , swift clop-clop-clop of the matched team passed:
“Poor Emily.”
• (1) behind their hand : People were whispering ,talking in
private with their hands over their mouths.
• (2) Rustling: making an irregular succession of soft
sounds ,as of leaves being moved by a gentle breeze
• (3) Silk and satin: the silk and satin dresses worn by the
ladies
•
(4) jalousie: 固定百叶窗
• (5)“ Poor Emily” Note the absence of the word “Miss” . This
reveals the change of attitude of the townspeople toward Miss
Emily after her dating Homer Barron. Instead of respect they
felt pity toward her now.
• (6) 礼拜天的下午，当拉车的马踏着轻快的步子哒哒驶过时，女
人们站在遮阳的百叶窗后窥视，她们的绸缎长裙沙沙作响，人
们交头接耳：“可怜的埃米莉。”
• Para.34
• with cold, haughty eyes in a face the flesh of which was
strained across the temples and about the eye sockets
as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper’s face ought to look.
• A lighthouse keeper lives a very lonely life, and extreme
loneliness and solitude would show on the face. Miss
Emily was here compared to a lonely lighthouse keeper.
• 55. “I want some poison,” she said.
•
The narrator does not tell us why she wanted some
poison at this point. From Paragraph 43 we know that
the town’s people thought she would kill herself. But will
she kill herself? Why or why not?
• Para.42
• 56.Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in
order to look him eye for eye, until he looked away and
went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up
• 埃米莉就那样瞪着他，她的头向后仰，以便能与他对视，
一直看得他转移了目光，走进去取了砒霜并包好。
Part IV(Paras.43—53)
• Para.43
• 57. and we said it would be the best thing.
• Why did the townspeople think it would be the best thing for her to kill
herself?
• The answer can be found in the next paragraph.
• “She will persuade him yet,”
•
This remark means he was not willing to marry her, and the reason is
given in the “because” clause.
• Para.44
• Then some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town
and a bad example to the young people.
•
These ladies represented the traditional codes of the American South.
When Miss Emily was first seen together with Homer Barron, they
could hardly believe that a Grierson would think seriously of marrying
a Northerner, a day laborer. Then when Miss Emily continued her
courting with Barron without seeming in a hurry to get married, they
began to accuse her of being a disgrace and a bad example. We can see
here how Miss Emily’s father had ruined her life and how the whole
town also played a role in interfering with her private life.
•
•
•
•
•
but at last the ladies forced the Baptist minister—Miss
Emily’s people were Episcopal—to call upon her. He would
never divulge what happened during that interview, but he
refused to go back again.
Episcopal: Among the various Protestant denominations in
such a town the highest prestige and class standing
belongs to the American branch of the Church of England,
known as the Episcopal Church
The Baptist minister: The Baptists have less formal worship
services and are associated with more enthusiastic and less
cultivated modes of Christianity. The town’s middle-class
ladies belonged to the Baptist Church, and so they forced
their minister to call upon Miss Emily on behalf of the town.
He would never divulge what happened during that
interview...
He would never divulge what happened during his talk
with Miss Emily; But we readers could infer that Miss Emily
must have treated him with disdain when he came to
express the community’s disapproval of her public courting
activities with Homer Barron. That is why he refused to
have another talk with Miss Emily.
• Para.45
• 61.We learned that Miss Emily had been to the jeweler's and ordered a
man's toilet set in silver...
• 62.We were glad because the two female cousins were even more
Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been.
•
The townspeople were glad because they had been annoyed by the
arrogant attitude of Miss Emily and now the two cousins were even
more stubborn and self-important than Miss Emily. They believed that
the two cousins would succeed in persuading Miss Emily and Homer
Barron to get married quickly so that her public courting with Homer
Barron would come to and end.
• Para.46
• 63. We were a little disappointed that there was not a public blowing-off...
•
(1)blowing-off: a loud quarrel that would signal the end of their
courting
•
(2)The people in the town guessed that their relationships had turned
sour and so Homer Barron had left. And they expected to see a quarrel
between them. When nothing of the kind happened, they were a little
disappointed. Then they began too think that perhaps he had gone to
prepare for the wedding.
• 64. By that time it was a cabal, and we were all Miss
Emily's allies to help circumvent the cousins.
• By that time, the cousins had completed their mission and
should leave Jefferson. Now the
• townspeople were taking the side of Miss Emily and made
secret plans to help her deal with her cousins in a clever way.
• 65. A neighbor saw the Negro man admit him at the kitchen
door at dusk one evening.
• We can feel that the author is hinting at something here. Did
Homer Barron agree to marry
• Miss Emily? Did he go away to prepare for Miss Emily’s
coming as the townspeople had supposed? Why did the
Negro man admit him at the kitchen door instead of the
front door? Why did he come at dusk? Let’s keep these
questions in mind and try to find the answers as we read on.
• Para. 47
• 66.And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron.
• What did the townspeople think when Homer Barron disappeared? They
supposed he had deserted her(“ after her sweetheart-the one we believed would
marry her – had deserted her” in Para. 15). We should be alert to the possibility
that the author knows something that the narrator is mot aware of yet.
• 67.Now and then we would see her at a window for a moment, as the men did
that night when they sprinkled the lime…
• The author wants us to think of possible connections between the disappearance
of Homer Barron and the smell that the townspeople complained about.
• 68. Then we knew that this was to be expected too; as if that quality of her
father which had thwarted her woman’s life so many times had been too virulent
and too furious to die.
• thwarted her woman’s life so many times: He father had driven away her suitors
many times, thus preventing her from getting what she wanted as a woman.
• Thwart:(formal) to prevent someone from doing what they are trying to do
• Why did the townspeople expect this?
• They believed that Homer Barron’s disappearance meant he had deserted Miss
Emily. This was a heavy blow to poor Emily, whose woman’s life had been
already thwarted by her father so many times. So they were not surprised when
she did not appear on the streets for six months. They had expected her to
behave that way. This shows the townspeople’ sympathy for Miss Emily.
• 我们明白这也是意料之中的事，似乎她父亲那使她作为女性的生活屡遭挫
折的性格太恶毒、太厉害了，很难消失。
• Para.48
• 69.Up to the day of her death at seventy-four it was still that
vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man such as her father
and Homer Barron.
• The vigorous and iron-gray hair symbolizes her strong and stubborn
personality, making her like an active man such as her father and
Homer Barron.
• Para.49
• 70 …they were sent to church on Sundays with a twenty-five-cent
piece for the collection
• plate. The collection plate: a plate for holding the money collected
during a church service
• Para.50
• 71.When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused
to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a
mailbox to it.
• This says a lot about Miss Emily’s negative attitude toward any
change and the marching of time. Refusing to have metal numbers
fastened to her door can be seen as a gesture of refusing to view
time with its mathematical progression.
• Para. 51
• 72.Each December we sent her a tax notice, which would be returned by
the post office a week later, unclaimed.
• Unclaimed: 无人领取的
• 73.Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows-she
had evidently shut up the top floor of the house-like the carven torso of an
idol in a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which.
• carven:(archaic) carved
• niche: 神龛
• Now Miss Emily no longer went out. From time the townspeople would see
her in one of the downstairs windows. She had evidently shut the top floor
of the house. The word “evidently” shows that the townspeople were
supposing that she had shut the top floor as they could not go into the house.
In the final section of the text we shall learn that the corpse of Homer
Barron was lying on her bed in the upstairs bedroom. Sitting in the window,
Miss Emily looked like the carved torso of an idol for worship placed in a
niche. Whether she was looking or not looking at us we could not tell and it
was not important because she had ceased to be a real human being, but
had completely become a sort of monument, a symbol of a tradition and
hereditary obligation. (Para.3)
• （4） 不时地，我们在楼下的一个窗口能见到她的身影，显然她已封闭了
楼上。她的身影就像供奉在神龛里的一尊偶像的躯体，也许她在看着我们，
也许没有，我们也搞不清楚。
• 74 Thus she passed from generation to generation-dear,
inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.
• The author uses five adjectives to describe how the
townspeople felt about Miss Emily.
• These words are precise, but these are usual adjectives that
don’t fit comfortably together.
• They reflect the townspeople’s ambivalent attitude toward
Emily. She was dear because she represented the Southern
heritage to a certain extent. She was inescapable because
she was “a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town”. She
was impervious and not affected by any changes taking
place in the town, and her imperviousness was well reflected
by her ignoring the tax notice and her refusal to pay taxes.
She was tranquil. Though she was tragic, she remained
calm and free from disturbance. Her tranquility as well as
her rigidity was portrayed by her motionless silhouette in
the window. She was certainly perverse, always behaving in
an unreasonable way and regularly doing the opposite of
what people expected her to do.
Part V (Paras. 54-60)
• Para.55
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
75. and the very old men-some in their brushed Confederate uniforms-on the porch and
lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs ,believing that they
had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical
progression, as the old do, to whom all the touches, divided form them now by the narrow
bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years.
some in their brushed Confederate uniforms; Some of them fought in the Confederate Army
in the Civil War a long time ago. They had put away their army uniforms and now they
brushed off the dust on them and put them on for this special occasion.
Mathematical progression: sequence or succession of happenings in time marked by numbers
Diminishing: making, or making seem, smaller in size
Meadow: a piece of grassland; a field of low, level land grown with wild grass and flowers
Bottleneck: any place, as a narrow road, where traffic is slowed up or halted; any point at
which movement or progress is slowed up
The very old men, who were even older than Miss Emily, came to the funeral. Some of them
were veterans of the Civil War, and they had put on their old Confederate uniforms to pay
their last respect to this Southern lady from an aristocratic family. Standing on the porch and
the lawn, they talked of Miss Emily, mistakenly thinking of her as someone their own age,
born around 1840 or so whereas she (born around 1855) was much younger than they were.
They imagined they had danced with her and courted her perhaps. As the old people often do,
they confused the dates and years of past happenings. To the old people, all the past should be
like a road that becomes smaller as it reaches further back. But to those old Southerners, the
recent past of ten years or so was like a bottleneck, a narrow passage, or a tunnel. Beyond
that narrow passage, the remote past became a huge level meadow where things were
pleasantly and fondly mixed up together. Like the green grass on the meadow never touched
by the winter, their memories of the remote past remained blurred, sweet, romanticized, and
unchanged.
• Para. 56
•
76. Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs
which no one had seen in forty years. The narrator tells us that there was a
mysterious room upstairs which no one had seen in forty years. The
author is hinting that something must have happened forty years ago that
made Miss Emily shut the room.
• Para. 57
•
•
•
•
•
•
77. what is Paragraph57 about?
This paragraph describes vividly the details of the mysterious room
upstairs. Earlier in the text we have already seen some elements of Gothic
fiction. From Paragraph 57 to the end of the story we see how perfectly
Faulkner is able to create an atmosphere often found in a Gothic novel.
Gothic novel is a type of novel characterized by horror, violence,
supernatural effects, and a taste for the medieval, usually set against a
background of Gothic architecture, especially a gloomy and isolated castle.
“A Rose for Emily” contains some characteristics of Gothic fiction> The
author’s purpose is to create an atmosphere best suited for portraying the
perverse character of Miss Emily and telling an appalling story about her.
78. A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this
room decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valance curtains of
faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table,
upon the delicate array of crystal and the man’s toilet things backed with
tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that monogram was obscured.
acrid: sharp, bitter, stinging, or irritating to the taste or smell
pall: an overspreading covering, as of dark clouds or black smoke, that
cloaks or obscures in a gloomy, depressing way; also an overspreading,
pervasive atmosphere or spirit of gloom and depression
bridal: (archaic) a wedding
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
decked: covered or clothed with finery or ornaments; adorned
valance curtain: a short drapery or curtain hanging from the edge of bed, shelf,
table, etc. often to the floor
monogram: two or more letters, usually the first letters of someone’s names,
that are put together to form a design
Note the curtains of rose color and rose-shaded lights. The word “rose”
naturally reminds us of the title of the story “A Rose for Emily”. Does he
choose it deliberately and expect the readers to make a connection between the
rose color of the room and the title?
一股淡淡的难闻的、犹如墓穴般的气味笼罩着这个为婚礼布置的房间的各个
角落：罩在褪了色的玫瑰色窗帘上，罩在玫瑰色灯罩和梳妆台上，罩在一排
精致的水晶制品和镶银的男人盥洗用具上。而那银器的光泽早已失去，刻在
上面的姓名字母图案也已经辨认不清了。
79. Among them lay a collar and tie, as if they had just been removed, which,
lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent in the dust.
(1) collar: a cloth band or folded-over piece attached to the neck of a garment
（2）物件中有一个衬衫的硬领和一条领带，仿佛刚从身上摘下来似的，当
有人把它们拿起来时，可以看到在尘埃覆盖的表面上留下了一个浅浅的月牙
痕。
•
Para.58
•
•
80. Why is Paragraph 58 so short, only containing one single sentence?
We can imagine that after giving a detailed description of the mysterious
bridal room, the story-teller makes a pause here, takes a breath and then
comes to the final secret, saying, “ The man himself lay in the bed.” This onesentence paragraph is a very effective way of holding the reader in suspense
for the climes of a murder story.
• Para.59
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
81. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but
now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of
love, had cuckolded him.
(1) in the attitude of embrace: 呈拥抱的姿势 Attitude means the position
or posture assumed by the body in connection with an action, feeling,
mood, etc.
e.g.: The old woman knelt in an attitude of prayer.
(2) the long sleep: death
(3) grimace: a twisting or distortion of the face, as in expressing pain,
contempt, disgust, etc.
(4) cuckold: A cuckold is a man whose wife has proved unfaithful. To
cuckold is to make a man a cuckold
(5) Just before the man breathed his last, he was lying in a position of an
embrace. But death that always lasts longer than love and conquers even
the pain and suffering of love had turned him into a man whose wife
proved unfaithful
82. What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt,
had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and
upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding
dust.
(1) inextricable: that can not be disentangled or untied
(2) coating: a layer over a surface
(3) biding : waiting and staying somewhere for a long time
(4) 他的遗体在残留的睡衣下面已经腐烂，跟他躺着的床粘在一起，难以剥离。
他的身上和旁边的枕头上均匀地覆盖着一层长年积累的灰尘。
• Para.60
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
83. Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head.
Indentation: a dent of slight hollow
84. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible
dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.
This last sentence indicates that Miss Emily had lain beside the dead body of Homer
Barron.
Such a thing, though rare and incredible, is not merely out of the author’s fantasy. It
can happen in real life. More than 70 years after wrote” A Rose for Emily”, here in
China, a similar story was reported by Beijing Evening News on November 11,2003.
The event took place inn the city of Tang Shan in North China. Recently the police
there discovered that a woman professor who had disappeared since 1995 was
discovered to have been dead for eight years. Her body had been lying on her bed in
her home all the time with her husband sleeping right beside her. The husband had
applied chemical lotions to the dead body, and he claimed that he had kept the corpse
for the purpose of scientific research.
85. Why did Miss Emily kill Homer Barron?
There is no doubt that it was Miss Emily who had killed Homer Barron. When she
went to the drug store to buy arsenic, people thought she wanted to kill herself because
Homer Barron had deserted her. Actually the poison was for Homer Barron. But the
question is why she killed him? If he agreed to marry her, why would the bride murder
the groom?
If he never agreed to marry her, why did Miss Emily go to the jewelry to order
things for the wedding? Did she murder Homer Barron because he refused to marry
her? Or did she fear that he could not remain faithful to her after their marriage? Did
Miss Emily commit the murder in insanity? What drove her to murder the man? And
why did Miss Emily lie beside the corpse sometimes? What changed Miss Emily from
a woman of a respected family to a murderer? The author does not provide ready
answers to these question. It’s up to us readers to give our answers.
•
•
•
86. What kind of a woman is Miss Emily? How did the townspeople think of her? How
is she portrayed in the story? Does the author sympathize with her?
Born into an aristocratic family of the South, Miss Emily was proud, self-important
and obstinate like the other Greisens. As a lady from such a family she enjoyed a high
but obsolete social status. On the one hand she was placed on a pedestal for people to
admire as if she were perfect. She was closely watched by the community and was
always expected to bring honor to the town and set a good example for the young . She
was viewed as a representative of the Southern tradition,” an idol in the niche”.
Dominated by her father, she was robbed of all opportunities for a happy marriage
and thus for a normal woman’s life. So when her father died, she was still single at the
age of 30. After she began to court with Homer Barron, a Northern laborer, she was
accused of being a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people. The
patriarchal and social pressure warped her character. She tried hard to cling to the
past, which meant privilege and glory to her. She cut herself off from the changing
world and lived in complete self-isolation. Over the years, she was transformed from a
subordinate young lady controlled by her domineering father to a middle-aged woman
courting a laborer against the accusations of the community and then to a murderer
who not only killed her lover but also kept the corpse in her house and even sometimes
lay down beside the remains of the dead body. For such a woman, the townspeople had
mixed feelings—she was” dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.” For
better or worse, she is the embodiment of the social conditions at that time. Through
telling this story and exploring the character of Miss Emily, Faulkner reveals his
ambivalent relationship to the South, of which he felt proud and ashamed at the same
time.
87. Why does the author tell such a story? What is the story about?
• These questions are not as simple as they seem to be. The author intends to
invite us readers to join him in finding the meaning of the story.
Thematically, “A Rose for Emily” is a very rich and complicated text. We
can see the plot of the story evolves around many conflicts—the conflict
between Mr. Greisens and his daughter, the conflict between Miss Emily
and Homer Barron, the conflict between Miss Emily and the community of
the town, and the conflict between the past and the present. The readers’
different focus on these conflicts may lead to different conclusions about
the meaning of the story. In other words, there may be different
interpretations. On one level, for instance, the story may be read as a
murder story in which the disappointed bride –to-be killed the bridegroom.
But we know this could not be the great writer’s sole purpose of writing
this story. On a symbolic level, the conflict between Emily and Homer
Barron may be viewed as a clash between the South and the North,
represented by Miss Emily and Homer Barron respectively. However, with
such an inter predation one runs the risk of oversimplifying the thematic
richness of the work. On a psychological level, the story explores the inner
world of a human being, the main character’s conflict with the established
codes of conduct and her conflict with her own heart. Still on another level,
the story show how the past and present clash and what a great impact the
past has made on the present. It tells what it is like to live in the American
South between the 1880s to the 1930s when the South had to digest the loss
of the war and cope with its legacy in a changing society.
Part Three: Summary of the whole lesson
and the discussion of the questions
( in two periods)
• In this part , the teacher is
summarizing the whole lesson to
make the students aware of the
thoughts and ideas offered by the
author and make the students know
what we should learn from the lesson.
• Finish the quiz for Lesson 4
• I: Find the English explanations for the following words:
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Combined encroach dispensation august deputation obesity
tarnishedTeeming diffident torso slink temerity insanity serene
pauperStrain impervious dodder perverse tedious1 pull hard at sth
2 calm and relaxed
3 a person without over-protection and money
4 state of being seriously mentally ill
5 boring, tiring , continuing for long time
6 not influenced by anything
7 shaking slightly and unable to walk properly because you are old or ill
8 behaving in an unpleasant way, deliberately doing the opposite
9 body not including head, arms or legs
10 full of people or animals
11 move quietly and secretly
12 foolish or rash boldness
13 condition of being too fat
14 becoming dull or losing color
15 a group of people sent to talk to sb in authority
16 do two very different activities at the same time
18 gradually take more control of
19 special permission
20 timid, shy
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II: Phrases
1 a strand of hair
2 court sb
3 unclaimed letter
4 for good
5 fit up a room
6 a touch of earthiness
7 fallen out with
8 in time to the rise and fall of
9 a day laborer
10 dispose of sth
11 offer condolence
12 horse and foot
13 the teeming world
14 gain access to
15 wait upon sb
16 father an edict
17 hereditary obligation
18 a fallen monument
19 august names
20 have the temerity to do sth
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Part
Four:
Key
to
Exercises
Key to Explanation
The street used to house only the best families. But then great changes took place: garages and
cotton gins were established on the street and their existence wiped out the aristocratic traces
in that neighborhood.
It would not be true to say that Miss Emily would have accepted charity.
What the ladies said meant that they did not in the least believe a man, any man, could keep a
kitchen properly.
The Greisens regarded themselves as very important and the outside world as vulgar and full
of people inferior to them .They belonged to two entirely different worlds. However, the
complaints about the smell served as a link between the two different worlds and compelled
Miss Emily to deal with the outside world.
The next day the mayor reserved two more complaints. One of them was from a man who
came and pleaded to the mayor in a shy and timid way.
People in the town felt that the Greisens family regarded themselves more important than they
really deserved to be. The fact that Miss Emily’s great-aunt, old lady Wyart, had gone crazy
had to do with this blind, excessive self-importance.
Ordinary people often become excited or worried when they get a penny more or a penny less.
Being poor, now she would learn to appreciate the value of money like other people in the town.
But there were still others, older people, who said that no matter how sad Miss Emily was, she
should not forget she had certain obligations as a member of the nobility, though a real lady
would not describe her self-restraint by the expression noblesse oblige.
We were glad because the tow cousins were even more stubborn and self-important than Miss
Emily.
And the very old men confused the dares and years of past happenings. To the old people, all
the past should be like a road that becomes smaller as it reaches further back. But to those old
Southerners, the recent past of ten years or so was like a bottleneck, a narrow passage, or a
tunnel. Beyond that narrow passage, the remote past became a huge level meadow where
things were pleasantly and fondly mixed up together. Like the green grass on the meadow
never mulched by the winter, their memories of the remote past remained blurred, sweet,
romanticized, and unchanged.
• Key to Translation
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Phrases
– 丑中之丑
– 他制订了这则法令
– 房间里灰尘弥漫，散发着因长久不用而产生的气味
– 一条细细的金表链一直垂到腰际，下端隐没在腰带之下
– 一个身材高大、皮肤黝黑、精明能干的男人
– 从马车店租来的配套的栗色马
– 临时工
– 呈拥抱的姿势
Sentences
– 男人们去是出于一种尊敬，因为一个纪念碑倒下了。女人们则是出于好奇，想看看埃米莉
小姐的房子里面到底是什么样子的， 因为除了一个作花匠兼厨师的老男仆之外，起码有10
年没别人踏进过她家的大门了。
– 不过，现在埃米莉小姐也加入到那些名门望族代表的行列中了。他们在令人沉思的雪松陪
伴下长眠于公墓，他们的墓碑周围埋葬着一排排南北战争中在杰斐逊战场上阵亡的南军和
北军的无名战士。
– 埃米莉小姐在世时，一直是传统的化身，履行责任和给予关照的对象，这是全镇人沿袭下
来的一种义务……
– 老男仆把他们引进光线黯淡的门厅，厅里的楼梯通向更加阴暗的楼上。
– ……他们落座时，一股细细的灰尘在大腿周围慢慢扬起，尘粒在房间里惟一的太阳光束中
缓缓地旋转着。
– 因为她的骨架小，换了别人只是有点富态，而到她身上就显得肥胖了。
– 于是，第二天午夜之后，4个男人穿过埃米莉家的草坪，像破门入室的盗贼一样偷偷摸摸
地绕着房子转悠，在房子的砖基部分以及地窑的通风处使劲地嗅着，其中一个从背在肩上
的袋子里不时掏出一些药粉，好像播种一样把它撒在地上。
8． 甚至举行葬礼时那家都没派人出席。
9． 她就这样瞪着他，她的头向后仰，以便能与他对视，一直看的他转移了目光，走进去取了
比霜并包好。
10．不时地，我们在楼下的一个窗口能见到她的身影，显然他已经封闭了楼上，他的身影就像
是供奉在神龛里的一尊偶像的躯体，也许他在看着我们，也许没有，我们也高不清楚。
Part Five: Assignments
• In this part, all the assignments will be listed ,
the teacher will assign them to the students after
each two periods.
• 1 seek out some information about each note on
the internet and hand them in to the teacher
• 2 read the whole lesson
• 3 memorize the new words
• 4 prepare for the discussions
• 5 do the exercises
• 6 pre-review of the next lesson
• 7 prepare for the quiz
• 8 prepare for the presentation of Lesson Nine