A Rose for Emily
William Faulkner
Background of the author
1. He was born and bred in ______ and lived there almost
all his life.
2. After WWI, he led a life in a listless way.
3. Who was his guide to enter the artistic center and he
began to write novels.
4. His works: 19novles and a hundred short stories.
Most of them are setting on ______
He is regarded as a _____ writer, but deals with some of
______themes in literature.
His famous works: ______
5. In ______,he received the Nobel Price for Literature.
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About 20th Century’s American Literature
1. The characteristics of the fictions in 18th and 19th were of the
upper class, all-knowing narrator and the characteristics of the
fictions in 20th were of middle class, experimenting with
different narrative voices.
2. Literature is the criticism of real life.
3. Writing Style: Stream of Consciousness and Gothic Literature
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The Writing style of this story
1. Stream of Consciousness
What is Stream of Consciousness ?
In literary criticism, it is a narrative mode that seeks to portray
an individual’s point of view by giving the written equivalent
of the character’s thought processes, either in a loose interior
monologue, or in connection to his or her actions.
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Examples of some of novels using this writing
style:
Arthur Miller: The Death of a Salesman (1949)
Flannery O’conner: A Good Man is Hard to Find (1952)
Sherwood Anderson: The Untold Lie, Unlighted Lamps
William Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury (1929)
As I Lay Dying (1930)
Absalom, Absalom! (1936)
James Joyce: Eveline (1914)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
Ulysses (1922)
Finnegans Wake (1939)
J. D. Salinger: Seymour: An Introduction (1963)
The Catcher in the Rye
Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
To the Lighthouse (1927)
The Waves (1931)
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Stream of consciousness (psychology)
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CharacterAntagonist · False protagonist · Foil character · Protagonist · Supporting
character · Tritagonist · Viewpoint character
PlotClimax · Conflict ·Dialogue · Dramatic structure · Exposition · Falling action · Plot
device · Subplot
SettingFictional country · Fictional location · Fictional universe · Utopia
ThemeMoral · Motif
StyleDiction · Figure of speech · Imagery · Literary technique · Narrative mode · Stylistic
device · Suspension of disbelief · Symbolism · Tone
FormFable · Fairy tale · Flash
story · Hypertext · Novel · Novella · Play · Poem · Screenplay ·Short story · List of narrative
forms
GenreAdventure · Comic · Crime · Docufiction · Epistolary · Erotic · Faction · Fantasy · His
torical · Horror · Magicrealism · Mystery · Paranoid · Philosophical · Political ·Romance · Sa
ga · Satire · Science · Speculative · Superhero · Thriller · Urban
Narrator Alternating person · First-person · Second-person · Third-person · Third-person
limited · Third-person objective · Third-person omniscient · Third-person subjective ·
Stream of consciousness · Unreliable
Tense Past tense · Present tense · Future tense
RelatedAudience · Author · Fiction writing · Creative nonfiction · Literary theory · Narrative
structure · Narratology · Other narrative modes · Rhetoric · Storytelling
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The Writing style of this story
2. Gothic literature
What is Gothic literature?
It is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror
and romance. Prominent features of Gothic literature includes
terror (both psychological and physical), mystery, the
supernatural ghosts, haunted houses and gothic architecture,
castles, darkness, death, decay, doubles , madness, secrets,
hereditary curses.
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Some questions to be considered
1.
2.
3.
Why does the author choose “we” as a narrator?
What does the “rose” symbolize in this story?
---love, faithfulness, memorial?
Could you piece up the chronological order of time in the
story?
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Discussion of the story
(Part I)
Para.1:
1.
Why doe the author use “our”?
2.
What’re the different attitudes toward Emily between the
men and the women in the town?
3.
What do you expect to read in the following story?
Para.2:
1.
Try to find the setting of the story: time, place, situation
2.
What do you feel about Emily?
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Discussion of the story
(Part I)
Para.3: the event of taxes to show Emily’s general conditions
1.
What do you think of Colonel Sartoris?
2.
What do you think of Emily’s characters?
Para.4:
1.
What do you feel about Emily? Arrogant? Why?
2.
Para.3 and Para.4:
old force V.S. new force (Colonel Sartoris---- new mayors)
Para.5:
1. What do you think of Emily?
(a typical declining aristocrat: for example---)
2. What did her father’s portrait represent?
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Discussion of the story
(Part I)
Para.6:
1. What impression can you get from the description of Emily?
Paras.7-14:
1.
What do these paragraphs show of Emily?
2.
Emily’s contradictory situation:
declining aristocrat—arrogant in heart
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Discussion of the story
(Part II)
Part II: The narrator recalled what happened 30 years before.
Para.15:
1.
What affected Emily?
2.
How did they affect Emily ?
Para.16: The narrator mentioned the smell.
1.
2.
What did the town’s people think of the smell? Why?
Why did the narrator say “this was another link…”? What is
the first link between the town’s people and Emily’s family?
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Discussion of the story
(Part II)
Paras.17-24:
1.
Why did a man complain about the smell in diffident
deprecation? What contradictory feeling in the town’s men?
Para.25: the influence on Emily of the upper class family
1.
What did the Griersons hold in mind?
2.
The different symbol of the father and Emily
the father: spraddled, silhouette, foreground, his back to her,
clutching a horsewhip,
Emily: a slender figure, in white, background,
the back-flung front door:
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Discussion of the story
(Part II)
Paras.26-28:
1.
In Para.25, the narrator used “we were not pleased exactly”.
In Para.26, the narrator used “people were glad”.
In Para.27, the narrator used “all the ladies prepare to offer
condolence and aid”.
What mind did the town’s people hold?
2. Why did the town’s people wanted to resort to law?
3. Why did Emily told the town’s people her father was not dead?
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Discussion of the story
(Part III)
Para.29:
1. What dies this paragraph show?
(her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl)
2. What does “tragic and serene” show?
Para.30:
What kind of a person of Homer Barron?
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Discussion of the story
(Part III)
Paras.31-33:
1.
On the one hand the narrator said “we were glad…”, “old
people said poor Emily…”, which was repeated 4 times.
On the other, the town’s people thought Emily so proud of
herself. Why?
Paras.34-40:
1.
In this story, the narrator quoted only 8 sentences of Emily,
here are 4, find the other 4.
2.
What does the “light-house-keeper’s face” look like?
Paras.41-42:
1. Why didn’t the druggist come back?
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Discussion of the story
(Part IV)
Paras.43-44:
1.
What attitude did the town’s people hold toward the two
lovers’ public courting activity?
2.
What’s the difference between Baptist and Episcopal?
Paras.45-46:
1.
What were the town’s people glad for?
2.
Why were the town’s people disappointed at?
3.
Do you know where Homer went? What for?
4.
Why was he admitted at the kitchen door at dust, not the
front door by day?
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Discussion of the story
(Part IV)
Para.47:
1.
When the town’s people did not see Homer again, what did
they thought?
Para.48:
1.
Why did the narrator describe Emily’s hair?
Paras.49-50:
1.
What is Emily’s psychological thinking in these here?
Paras.51-53:
1.
What is the psychological thinking of the town’s people?
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Discussion of the story
(Part V)
Para.54: Why did the narrator let the Negro disappear?
Para.55: With what psychological mind did all the town’s people
come to the funeral? Why?
Para.56: Why did the town’s people open the room until Emily
was decently in the ground?
Para.57: What do you think the rose color symbolizes?
Paras.58-60:
1.
Who is the possible killer of Homer? How do you know?
2.
If it was Emily, why did she kill him?
3.
What kind of woman is Miss Emily?
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Sum-up of A Rose for Emily
The setting: the American South
2.
The protagonist: an old eccentric lady
3.
The theme: love, death, honor, pride, change, loss
4.
The writing techniques:
(1) effective use of the stream of consciousness of 20th century literary
text
(2)vague references, ambiguities, symbolism, imagery, jumbled time
sequences, Gothic elements
(3)the suspense: withhold vital information,
unfold the conflict bit by bit
5. The author’s purpose of the writing:
inviting the reader to participate in the process of seeking the truth by his
own
6. Assignments: In your group, discuss questions on page 114, Exercises III
and IV.
1.
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