Transcript A Rose for Emily
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 20
th
Century
’
s American Literature
1. The characteristics of the fictions in 18 different narrative voices.
th and 19 th were of the upper class, all-knowing narrator and the characteristics of the fictions in 20 th were of middle class, experimenting with 2. Literature is the criticism of real life.
3. Writing Style: Stream of Consciousness and Gothic Literature 3
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) 5
Stream of consciousness (psychology)
Character
Antagonist character
·
Tritagonist
Plot
Climax device
· ·
Conflict Subplot
·
False protagonist
· ·
Viewpoint character
·
Dialogue
·
Foil character Dramatic structure
· ·
Protagonist Exposition
· ·
Supporting Falling action
·
Plot
Setting
Fictional country
Theme
Moral
·
Motif
·
Fictional location
·
Fictional universe
Style
Diction device
· ·
Figure of speech Suspension of disbelief
· ·
Imagery Symbolism
Form
story
·
Fable
·
Fairy tale Hypertext
· ·
Novel Flash
·
Novella forms
·
Play
· ·
Literary technique
·
Tone Poem
·
Screenplay
· · ·
Utopia Narrative mode Short story
· ·
Stylistic List of narrative
Genre
torical ga
·
Adventure
·
Horror Satire
· · ·
Magicrealism Science Comic
· ·
Crime
·
Speculative Mystery
· ·
Docufiction
·
Paranoid Superhero
· ·
Epistolary
·
Philosophical Thriller
· ·
Erotic Urban
· ·
Faction Political
Narrator
limited
·
Alternating person
·
First-person Third-person objective
· ·
Second-person Third-person omniscient
· · ·
Fantasy Romance
· ·
Third-person
·
Third-person Third-person subjective
· ·
His Sa
Stream of consciousness · Tense
Past tense
·
Unreliable Present tense
·
Future tense
Related
structure Audience
· ·
Author Narratology
· ·
Fiction writing
·
Creative nonfiction Other narrative modes
·
Rhetoric
· ·
Literary theory Storytelling
·
Narrative 6
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. 7
Some questions to be considered
1.
2.
Why does the author choose “we” as a narrator?
What does the “rose” symbolize in this story?
---love, faithfulness, memorial?
3. 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.
2.
Try to find the setting of the story: time, place, situation 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.
2.
What do you think of Colonel Sartoris?
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.
2.
What do these paragraphs show of Emily?
Emily’s contradictory situation: declining aristocrat—arrogant in heart 11
Discussion of the story (Part II)
Part II: The narrator recalled what happened 30 years before.
Para.15: 1.
2.
What affected Emily?
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: 13
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.
2.
In this story, the narrator quoted only 8 sentences of Emily, here are 4, find the other 4.
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.
2.
What were the town’s people glad for?
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? 17
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.
2.
3.
Who is the possible killer of Homer? How do you know?
If it was Emily, why did she kill him?
What kind of woman is Miss Emily?
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Sum-up of A Rose for Emily
1.
2.
3.
4.
The setting: the American South The protagonist: an old eccentric lady The theme: love, death, honor, pride, change, loss The writing techniques: (1) effective use of the stream of consciousness of 20 th text century literary (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.
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