A Rose for Emily (1930) Emily seen from different perspectives -- Emily on Trial & Emily Empathized & Contextualized (reasons, symbolic meanings, changes) Outline 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Your Comments & Journal 1 A quick summary of online lecture Emily on Trial Emily Empathized, Observed and Contextualized Emily—Images & Rumors The Narrators – Different Views Your decision: Emily—Guilty or not? Mid-Term Your Comments: Emily I think that Emily loved Homer Barron very much b ecause he was the only person being willing to get along with her and give her love. When she heard the rumors that Homer Barron fell in love with man in the club, she even bought som e poison for rats. She couldn't live without him, however, she was desire to own him. As her father was dead, She refused others to bury her father. Two years after her dad passed away, she broke up with the man and never went out. Your Comments: Emily (2) Too many things happen, so that she went crazy and loved dead body. In my opinion, this kind of love is very unhealthy and makes other s uncomfortable. Being turned down by her boyfriend and losing chance of marriage, she eventually killed him and put his body in the s mall room that no one used to get in. Although she loves him very much, this is not the true love supposed to be. Your Comments: Narrators different people who witness the event narrates different parts of the story. the purchase of arson The ones that spread the lime around the house Tobe “we” “they” Source: http://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/arose-for-emily/section3.rhtml “We” paragraphs: II-general view 25, 28; III-29 father’s death; III-Homer Barron. IV“we all said” Switches to “they” –par. 32, too. Journal 1 Answers too short (1 paragraph) or without a Q: 50 Short, 2 paragraph answers – 60 Medium length with no examples/evidence or analysis of examples – 70 Good answer – 80 and above Late journals – 60 as the full score “A Rose for Emily”– Online Lecture Setting –American south B. Plot –Gaps and Suspense (the ending as an example; the •The Old Emily and Her Gothic story) Social Position •The Young Emily as a C. Different Images of Emily Southern Belle? •Emily’s Stubbornness – D. The Narrators’ contradictory Old-Fashioned, views Obsessive, death-like •Is she stubborn? 1. of the present • “rose” 2. of the previous generations - gossips and intervention A. Setting – 1) Emily’s House and 2) the Historical Background (minor characters) Setting: Emily’s House and its Background Cupolas, spires, scrolls, the heavily lightsome style Reference Southern Belle Gasoline pump Mail box tax Setting (1): The Grierson House [Emily’s funeral; people haven’t been inside her house for 10 years] (par 2) 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. 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 (嬌媚) decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps—an eyesore among eyesores. 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 Setting (2): Historical Changes Time: 1862(?) 1936 From Old South to New South*—the Civil War + Industrialism Clues in the text: 1894 –tax remittance; “no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron”; Death of the Father; tax exempted; 1896 – Homer Barron from the North 1897/1898 – the smell More changes: painting lessons stop; tax; postal service 1936 -- Emily, dead Minor Characters: Tobe; ChinaPainting students Frequent sign: Tobe --“going in and out with the market basket” Daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow grayer and more stooped, “He talked to no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if from disuse.” the daughters and grand-daughters of Colonel Sartoris’ contemporaries sent to her with the same regularity and in the same spirit that they were sent on Sundays with a twentyfive cent piece for the collection plate. Minor Characters (2): Mayors Cornel Sartoris – about taxes Judge Stevens –about the smell Old men who had danced with her and courted her perhaps 2nd Generation: mayor, sheriff, Aldermen, Postal service about taxes again Minor Characters (3): Relatives Father Old Lady Wyatt Two female cousins, who intervene in Emily’s love affair, -- more Grierson than Emily -- and come after her death to arrange the funeral. Plot (back and Plot forth) GAPS Story Story Sec 1 Present: Emily’s Death 1. Emily a lady guarded by her father •The tax episode (2nd Generation) (tax remitted in1894 by Colonel Sartoris) 2. 1894 The father’s death, which Emily denies Sec 2 • (vanquished the town people) 30 years before, the smell episode The father’s death 3. Emily changed, goes out with HB (1 year later; 2 years after her father’s death ) Sec 3 • Homer Baron episode: Emily, a changed person with H. Barron; (wants touch of earthiness) Poison 4. The two cousins’ intervention // poison; HB returns, no longer seen Sec 4 Homer Baron episode: Relatives’ intervention Time passes (30 yrs), she grows fatter and older; teaches china-painting at age 40 Emily, isolated, turns down the postal service death 6 months out of sight grey & fat 5. Smell Emily retreats from public life no mail box –30 years later Sec 5 Present: The house opened, secret revealed. (age 74) Tax: Emily old and fat Emily’s death Group Work Plot Story Sec 1 The symbol of – the house, Description of Emily; The tax episode Group 1 Sec 2 the smell episode, tableau & The father’s death Sec 3 • Emily’s changes, Homer Baron episode, Poison episode Group 3 Sec 4 Homer Baron episode Time passes (30 yrs) the narrator’s views Group 7 – Group 9 (we) Sec 5 The funeral Present: The house opened, secret revealed. (age 74) Group 11 Group 5 Emily Empathized & Contextualized All—Can the ending be re-written? [1] -- Sec 1; The symbol of the house, Description of Emily; The tax episode [3] -- Sec 2; the smell episode, tableau & The father’s death [5] -- Sec 3; Emily’s changes, Homer Baron episode, Poison episode [7] -- Sec 4 Homer Baron episode [9] Time passes (30 yrs) changes of Emily;(we) changes of the narrators’ views [11] -- Sec 5 The funeral; The house opened, secret revealed. 1) Opening statements The prosecution [4] and then the defense [8] make opening statements to the judge or jury. These statements provide an outline of the case that each side expects to prove. 2) Prosecution case-in-chief The prosecution [4] presents its main case through direct examination of prosecution witnesses. (Prosecution calls witnesses from group [10] and [12].) 3) Cross-examination. The defense [8] may cross-examine the prosecution witnesses. Lawyer --asking the witnesses to get direct evidence 4) Defense case-in-chief. The defense presents its main case through direct examination of defense witnesses, including Emily [6] 5) Cross-examination. The prosecutor cross-examines the defense witnesses. 6) [2] Judge's questions & 7) Jury's deliberations Courtroom Vocabulary --Simplified evidence courtroom a trial a witness Perpetrator Suspect defendant Plaintiff counsel for the defense counsel for the prosecution; case sentence attorney the deceased Prosecution/ the victim Prosecutor custody lawyer The court is now in session, ….The case before us is that of … I’d like to call my first witness… -- Thank you, ~. No further questions. Sir, I must protest … Blackadder (4) episode 2 (e.g.) George: Oh, right, yes, uhhhh, oh.....Uh, gentlemen, you have heard all the evidence presented here today, but in the end it is up to the conscience of your hearts to decide, and I firmly believe, that like me, you will conclude that Captain Blackadder is in fact, totally and utterly, GUILTY......of nothing more than trying to do his duty under difficult circumstances. Witnesses for Prosecutor [4] prosecutor 1st generation (10) 2nd Generation (12) Tobe the granddaughters of Colonel Sartoris HB’s cousins, Lady Wyatt Those entering Emily’s house the daughters of Colonel Sartoris Witnesses [12] defendant’s lawyer , 1st G 2nd G Tobe; Cousins Students of Emily Those that find her impervious and perverse Those that find her dear, inescapable and tranquil, Those that pursued Emily Let’s Take … a Break!!! 10:10 – 10:30 Discussion 10:30 – 11:10 Emily on Trial 11:10 – 11:40 Emily Empathized 11:40 – 12:00 General Discussion & Conclusion Emily Grierson: Images & Rumors --the mad woman, -- or a lady trying to love and to survive? "A Rose for Emily" – Emily on Trial -- Did she kill Homer Barron? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. [2] Judge –jury trial [4] Prosecutor ref. [6] Defendant, Emily (at age 80) [8] Defendant's Lawyer ref. [10] Witness (1): the first-generation town people (e.g. Colonel Sartoris) [12] Witness (2): Town people of the 2nd generation (who went into her house twice) Emily: Different Images (1) Slender • Controll Young ed Emily (2)Deprive d Emily, a Pauper (5)Motionless •Smell like an idol (6)Fat, like a • The Father’s death (3)ShortHaired, tragic & serene bloated •Tax corpse • Goes out with HB (4) Proud • Gets arsenic Emily • Joins the (7) Dead army of soldiers (1) Young Emily The decline of the Gierson family: old Lady Wyatt mad, two cousins away, only her father and her left. (1) Her Father’s control “We had long thought of them as a tableau; Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled (跨坐) silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door.” (par 25) The Young Emily: isolated, trying to adjust After her father’s death 2) isolated, she refuses to accept it “no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead” “she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.” 3) Trying to adjust With an angelic look as a girl, she is proud but trying to adjust (at the age of 32?) "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" (par 29) (4) Emily: Going for Arsenic (par 34) She was over thirty then, still a slight woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eyesockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper’s face ought to look. “I want some poison,” she said. The druggist looked down at her. She looked back at him, erect, her face like a strained flag. “Why , of course,” the druggist said. “If that’s what you want. But the law requires you to tell what you are going to use it for.” Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye, until he looked away and went (5) Emily: Smell Episode (par 24) 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. They crept quietly across the lawn and into the shadow of the locusts that lined the street. After a week or two the smell went away (6) The Old Emily: Tax Episode (par 6) a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their errand. (7) Emily & The Elderly 3. (par 55) The funeral – Emily underneath the “bought” flowers, the father’s “crayon face” above, the elderly “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 past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years” the past is forever present; other meanings? 4. The room upstairs with its rose decoration… Two Concepts of Time Chronological Time Mathmatic Progression Decay + progress Winterless Meadow Images of Love and Death See here Many others here, too. Pay close attention to the description of Emily’s Room … (par 5) It smelled of dust and disuse—a close, dank smell. The Negro led them into the parlor. It was furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture. 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 sun-ray. Pay close attention to the description of Emily’s Room … A contrast to the image of the past as a green meadow -(57) The violence of breaking down the door seemed to fill this room with pervading dust. A thin, acrid pall (棺材罩布) as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal (bridal chamber 新房): 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 the monogram was obscured. 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. Upon a chair hung the suit, carefully folded; beneath it the two mute shoes and the discarded socks. (58) The man himself lay in the bed. Pay close attention to the description of Emily’s Room … Room – death, decay + rose color + tender and loving care in the arrangement (60) Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. 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. (Not pepper-and-salt iron gray hair) Narrators: Their Contradictory Views -- Old generations -- Younger generations Contradictory Views on Emily (1): As History A lady and the last Grierson; for the town people An object of observation and gossip. A symbol of history: “Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town.” (par 3) A strong personality and an old fashioned lady: “Thus she passed from generation to generationdear, inescapable, impervious (不受影響的), tranquil, and perverse.” (par 51) Contradictory Views on Emily (2): As a Lady 1) Finds the Griersons too proud: Emily single at 30 Vindicated (proved right) 2) After the father’s death We: “people were glad. At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized.” Emily’s denial of death ( “dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face.” par 27) Sympathetic: not crazy; “we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will. 3) “Poor Emily” 4) feel sorry for her. Contradictory Views on Emily (2): As a Lady An object of observation and gossip. (par 25) [smell episode] That was when people had begun to feel really sorry for her. 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. None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. We had long thought of them as a tableau, …. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were 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. 3) Town People’s Intervention & Gossips--”Poor Emily” -- some glad, some disagreeing: shouldn’t forget about her nobility “Poor Emily. Her kinsfolk should come to her.” --guessing and gossiping: “Poor Emily,” the whispering began. [Guess…] “Of course it is. What else could . . .” This behind their hands [secretly]; rustling of craned silk and satin behind jalousies [百葉窗] closed upon the sun of Sunday afternoon as the thin, swift clop-clop-clop of the matched team passed: “Poor Emily.” Town People’s Intervention & Gossips -- Gossips continued -(par 43) When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, we had said, “She will marry him.” Then we said, “She will persuade him yet,” because Homer himself had remarked—he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks’ Club—that he was not a marrying man. Later we said, “Poor Emily” . . . -- intervening: Then the women see it “a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people.” the relatives are fetched. Town People’s Intervention & Gossips(par 45) Emily bought a toilet set and suit for the wedding “They are married.” We were really glad; Emily’s allies (par 43) Arsenic -- So the next day we all said, “She will kill herself”; and we said it would be the best thing. Contradictory Views on Emily (3): As a Scandal --The Smell Episode Conflicting View points among the town people: The women: the negro—or any “man”--cannot do good housekeeping. “another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons.” The young man—send her a word and ask her to clean up her house and give her a deadline. Judge Stevens: cannot accuse a lady that she smells. All concerned with social propriety—of different kinds, but not her well-being. Contradictory Views on Emily (3): As a Scandal To avoid confrontation (par 24) The men sneak there to sprinkle lime (as disinfectant - 消毒劑); They see Emily: “Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol.” Then they feel really sorry for her. (par 25) Yes No • to love and keep him • to seek revenge against the town people or the cousins; control her own life • HB had a heart attack • The father’s corpse The Failure of Emily’s Love –Why? Dating Homer Barron, an “Outsider”: A Northerner, but sociable (pretty soon he knew everybody in town the center of a group.) From a different class: A foreman “He likes only men. The town people’s intervention getting the two cousins to come What could possibly be Emily’s responses? The meanings of her strained look (arsenic scene) Why? Emily’s Stubbornness: a. strong b. (The Smell) obsessive? 1. Emily as a strong Lady vs. the Town: “Dammit, sir,” Judge Stevens said, “will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?” “So she vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell.” 2. Love and death: The smell (sec II “two years after her father’s death and a short time after her sweetheart […] had deserted her”) She refuses to let go. Emily’s Stubbornness: c. Her “Unmoved” Image = Death (par 24) Emily sat in it, the light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol. (par 51) 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. Emily (3): Images of Death vs. Strong Will Death Her bloating body Her death. “She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her gray head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight. Strong Will Her keeping a corpse with her. Hair -- pepper-and-salt iron-gray, “like the hair of an active man. “ On the bed: “a long strand of iron-gray hair.“ Note Old South vs. New South -- Following the Civil War, prominent Southern whites wanted to portray the New South as a region which no longer embraced the plantation and slave labor mentality of the "Old South." The New South had the same capability to develop manufacturing and industry as the North. … [However, this] New South creed became more of a slogan for various Southern towns and cities, but it wasn't exactly the public relations miracle many elite Southerners hoped it would be. While many Southern states did start to distance themselves from the prejudices and inequalities of the Old South, there were still a number of issues which continued to tarnish the perception of a truly New South. Segregation between blacks and whites was still an active practice, for example. (source) noblesse oblige (sec 3)-- "Noblesse oblige" is generally used to imply that with wealth, power and prestige come responsibilities. (source) Genre: The Gothic Story The Gothic horror tale is a literary form dating back to 1764 with the first novel identified with the genre, Horace Walpole's The Castle of Ontralto. Gothicism features an atmosphere of terror and dread: gloomy castles or mansions, sinister characters, and unexplained phenomena. Gothic novels and stories also often include unnatural combinations of sex and death. Some can be thrilling, and some, profound discovery of human nature (unconsciousness) “A Rose for Emily” as a southern gothic “disturbed people doing disturbing things” strange characters macabre occurrences “grotesque” social issues, behavioral codes taboo topics Norton 54 William Faulkner on Emily Norton From Faulkner at Nagano (1956) [Faulkner]: I feel sorry for Emily’s tragedy; her tragedy was, she was an only child, an only daughter. At the time when she could have found a husband, could have had a life of her own, there was probably some one, her father, who said, “No, you must stay here and take care of me.” And then when she found a man, she had no experience in people. She picked out probably a bad one, who was about to desert her. And when she lost him she could see that for her that was the end of life, there was nothing left, except to grow older, alone, solitary; she had had something and she wanted to keep it, which is bad—to go to any length to keep something; but I 55 pity Emily. William Faulkner on Emily and the Title I don’t know whether I would have liked her or not, I might have been afraid of her. Not of her but of anyone who had suffered, had been warped, as her life had probably been warped by a selfish father. [The title] was an allegorical title; the meaning was, here was a woman who had had a tragedy, an irrevocable tragedy and nothing could be done about it, and I pitied her and this was a salute . . . to a woman you would hand a rose. From Faulkner at Nagano, ed. Robert Jelliffe (Tokyo: Kenkyusha Ltd., 1956), pp. 70–71. A Rose for Emily - The Zombies The summer is here at last The sky is overcast And no one brings a rose for Emily She watches her flowers grow While lovers come and go To give each other roses from her tree But not a rose for Emily... And as the years go by She will grow old and die The roses in her garden fade away Not one left for her grave Not a rose for Emily... Emily, can't you see There's nothing you can do? There's loving everywhere But none for you... Emily, can't you see There's nothing you can do? There's loving everywhere But none for you... Her roses are fading now She keeps her pride somehow That's all she has protecting her from pain Her roses are fading now She keeps her pride somehow That's all she has protecting her from pain And as the years go by She will grow old and die The roses in her garden fade away Not one left for her grave Not a rose for Emily... Mid-Term Exam 1) Text Analysis Questions (60%) -- 3 out of 4 a) b) c) literary techniques used Meanings Significance to the text (Meanings in Context) 2) Comparison Question (40%) -- 1 out of 2 * The 3+1 answers should cover all the 4 stories. Your Jobs & Performance Record 10/15 2 4 6 8 10 12 1 3 5 7 9 11 Performance Reasons Discussion Analysis Quotes Analysis