Thursday, February 19, 2015
It's All About the Plot...bout the plot bout the plot!
Read A Rose for Emily. Analyze the short story's plot—not only how it develops
in the text, but what effect it has on the work as a whole. To help you with this task, keep this
definition of an analysis in mind.
An analysis, instead of trying to examine all the parts of a work in relation to the whole,
selects for examination one aspect or element or part that relates to the whole…A literary
work may be usefully approached through almost any of its elements…so long as you relate
this element to the central meaning of the whole (1373).—Perrine’s Literature: Structure,
Sound, and Sense
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Well, this story is insanely creepy. It reminds me of the movie Psycho. A little history on that is this young man named Norman Bates runs a motel. His mother ends up dead, obviously she is killed, and he preserves her body because he is "haunted" by her. It has been a long time since I have watched the movie, but this story immediately reminded me of that movie's ending.
ReplyDeleteMoving forward to analyzing the plot of this story. I knew there was a different kind of daughter-father connection when I read the last sentence to the second chapter. "We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will." Emily's father never approved of a young man to marry her. There were only men that the public believed that would marry Emily, and it seemed her father too. So the question is what is going on behind closed doors that the town does not see?
I want to know where her mother is? Never in this story is there any indication that Emily missed her mother. First of all, what happened to her? My guess is that she died when Emily was very young. Maybe even during childbirth. This left Emily's father to raise her by himself. These kind of stories usually end up with the father hating the child, but this seems different. Does Emily resemble her mother and, therefore, her father has a strange desire for Emily? That is the feeling I'm getting, since at the end of the story it is insinuated that she was sleeping with her father's corpse.
However, I could be entirely wrong! What if she just felt safe in her father's arms? He is all she knew. Even the narrator says, "we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will." What kind of life is that to live? It's a miserable life suffer through.
I know the arsenic has some point in this story, but I cannot figure it out. The only thing I can think of is that she poisoned Colonel Sartoris. This way she could make her taxes disappear, or she could have been slowly poisoning herself. It is stated that "she had grown fat," this could have been natural since she wasn't really caring for herself anymore. However, arsenic does make one swell when consumed. During this age when everyone was thin or skinny; she could have been considered fat for bloating. She did become ill when an openly gay man departed from her. She could have very well been done with life.
So how does this all tie together? Well, I believe that there was some kind of abuse whether it be sexual, physical, mental, or even all three. This then led her father to love Emily a way a father should not love his daughter, which did not allow him to accept a young man's hand for her. Emily is obviously torn apart when her father dies. She refuses to give his body up until she is threatened with the police. She then proceeds to slowly kill herself with rat poison, but during this whole time she had dug her father's body from the earth and is using it as a cuddle buddy and other things that I don't want to think about a live person doing to a rotting corpse. The moral of this story, for me, is no one ever knows a family and how it manages to survive. Close doors hide a lot of dirty, scary secrets and some secrets that become inside jokes. We never know someone until they open they talk.
This short story is creepy because there is never any indication or a definite answer of what is happening. I was honestly confused until that last word. I had to reread the last two paragraphs several times. Never was there a direct answer to what would happen next. The foreshadowing just intensified Emily's secret.
Kaitlin,
DeleteYou had some really great insights into this story that passed through my mind, but didn't really play into my blog. For example. I love how you tied in the connection between Emily and her father. I'll admit I was extremely creeped out that she had chosen to keep her father's corpse in the house and not admit anyone. That was a little scary and almost psychotic. But like you mentioned, she would cling to the man who had raised her. I also contemplated some sort of abuse, which I think could have happened, but I think it most likely would have been sexual as during that kind of abuse, the abuser tends to become obsessive and clingy, not letting anyone else get close to the abused.
However, you and I have differing opinions on who the body is lying in the house. In the story, it is commented that the man that Emily is thought to have married entered her house by the kitchen door at dusk one night. "And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron." I personally think that the body that was lying in that room was his body, because all of the things surrounding it were objects that had been created for their marriage. His toilet set with his initials that she had bought and a nice suit were all there. I think that it is his body that is lying in that room and that she had killed him either slowly or quickly.
You had some awesome opinions about this story though. I like how you did the extra research about arsenic. It is true that poisons often make people bloat, especially arsenic. Arsenic can actually be administered over a long period of time and make someone very ill, but given in larger doses, it could completely kill someone within a small amount of time. Great job Kaitlin!
Kaitlin,
DeleteWHAT?! First, the connection between "A Rose for Emily" and "Psycho" is genius, it is perfection! I am ashamed that I did not think of it because I got the same vibe. However, she did what now? You think she exhumed her father's body for a "cuddle buddy?" I did not feel that at all. I entirely agreed with the notion that there was a messed up, physical relationship between Miss Emily and her father, hence her rejection of men, but I though that led Miss Emily to kill Homer Barron in what should have been their wedding chamber in the name of her father and then keep his body because she really did want a lover despite her father's rejection of men for her. But, like I said in my own blog, the beauty of this story is in the many ways we can interpret it. I thought the body was Homer's because of the presence of the suit and the monogrammed toiletries. I thought that her devotion to her father was implied not by the body but by the portrait of him in her parlor. Think of it, she stayed on the first floor where her father's portrait was, but on the second floor she kept her secret lover whom she occasionally slept with. Creepy no matter how you interpret it, though.
I enjoyed your blog immensely because it offered a view that I had not considered, although I am sticking to my guns on the body being Homer. You also asked a lot of interesting question. What especially interested me was how you pondered what effect the lack of a mother/wife had on the father/daughter relationship in the story. But they never talk about the father/daughter relationship besides speculation and Miss Emily's devotion to her father, now do they? Like you said, secrets behind closed doors.
Now I have a question for you, did Miss Emily kill her own father? Assuming that what I have said about the body in the bed being Homer Barron that would insinuate that she killed him with the arsenic, which was also a point that I did not agree with in your blog. Why would she kill the Colonel who helped her? I thought he might have known the truth about her father which was why he pitied her. And she had way too much pride to kill herself. Anyway, so she kills Homer but keeps his body as a way of denying his death. Who else does she refuse to mourn and hang on to the body of until she is forced to give it up? Her father. For me, this pattern implied that she killed both and would have kept her father the same way she had kept Homer if it had not been public knowledge that her father was dead.
Just some food for thought! Your blog offered me a different perspective as I often find it does and, again, I adored your comparison to "Psycho." I imagine that is what makes you think the body belongs to her father. Excellent job this week!
Kaitlin,
DeleteYES! “So the question is what is going on behind closed doors that the town does not see?” I could not have said it better myself. What is the relationship between the father and Miss Emily? Why does he not allow her to date the men in the community that has shown interest? Why is he so protective? I want answers! I have to agree with your next paragraph as well. Where’s the mother? Why isn’t she mentioned? If Emily was so distraught over losing her aunt and her father, why wasn’t her mother ever mentioned? What if her aunt really was her mother? More questions I’ll never get answers to. I think what makes this story so interesting is the never ending series of questions that continuously form with each new paragraph. The whole essence of not knowing what is going to happen next is the major success in the plot. Good work on the blog!
Kaitlin,
DeleteAll I can say my mind has been blown. Your comparison to "Psycho" was genius, however much I love that movie I would've never thought to compare it to this story. No matter how creepy it is the idea of what goes on behind closed doors is the key to this story. We are only told about everything from the narrator's point of view. We speculate what we believe happens behind those doors could be completely different, or right on point. In this case I feel your right on point something was happening like they had an attraction of sorts.
The questions regarding her mother are all very amazing and brings up other possibilities. That entire paragraph is truly genius. If the mom died during child birth that could be a tender topic to touch on, hence the reason they don't talk about it. Then the idea of her looking like her possibly deceased mother could explain the fathers attraction to her. To build off your point of "What kind of life is that to live? It's a miserable life suffer through.". That could be the reason why she kept the men after they died, or she killed them. She could've simply wanted someone to suffer through her life with her, and that could be why she kept her father and Homer. I don't agree with the poisoning of Colonel Sartoris, and the reason for I don't agree is because it doesn't fit her profile.
When you think of her as a killer it doesn't fit her motive. Say she killed her father, she wanted to keep his corpse because she was "close" to him. Then Homer she supposedly was very close to him, hence why she kept him. So why would she have killed him? It just doesn't add up for me. The others she had feelings for or were close to; but she wasn't to the Colonel. To me the only reason that seems logical was that he knew something was up and killing him was a means to an ends. It is simply my speculation, I could be wrong. Kaitlin, well done, this was a great blog.
I am horrified. Completely and utterly horrified. Alright, maybe a better emotion would be... Actually I have no word for it. The story "A Rose for Emily" is just so fascinating. The progression of the story is a little inside out, and I think that the specific planning of the plot has a lot to do with the story and the emotion that the reader experiences throughout it. William Faulkner uses an odd progression for the plot in his story, one that is not chronologically correct, nor does it start start at the present and go chronologically from the past to that point. Instead, this story starts with the mention of a woman's death, and then it goes back in time to a certain point. But then, instead of continuing from there back to the point of the death, it falls back even further and then continues. The entire plot is set up to arouse curiosity, but in the most innocent and misleading way.
ReplyDeleteWhen the story begins, it mentions the death of Miss Emily, a reclusive woman whose home has not been entered in quite a few years. Yet, this only takes up the first paragraph or two. The author immediately turns to the past, and the unfortunate life of Miss Emily. He writes about how Miss Emily had been pardoned, in a sense, from paying taxes, by Colonel Sartoris. This continues into a story about a future event, when men from the newer generation came to her house to demand taxes. They encountered a woman who had grown old and bloated over the years, who refused to acknowledge any sort of responsibility for her taxes and bid them farewell efficiently and coldly. Then, after the reader is enticed by this woman, they are drawn into pity for her. Then, they learn of a mysterious smell that came from her house, but no one wanted to really do anything about it at first.
However, the way that the plot runs, this is only curious for a few minutes until the next odd thing occurs. The narrator describes how she had many men who would have been interested in her, but her father scared them off. After his death and when she began to see someone else, she asks for poison, the strongest kind, while her cousin ins were staying with her. The reader thinks maybe that she is using the poison on herself, or plans to. But she never dies and neither does anyone else. The story continues, hinting that she and her close friend get married, and he goes to their house but never leaves. The plot continues, almost plodding along slowly, continuously building up with these small oddities, but never focusing on them long enough to make them extremely interesting to the reader.
The woman's death would be expected to be the climax of the story. Either she had committed suicide or some other odd thing had killed her. But her death is a very calm affair. Everyone is curious, but not about her. The climax arrives at the end of the story. They find the body of her lover/husband lying in a bed, decaying. But the most horrifying and emotion invoking moment is when they find the hair on the bed. For a normal plot, the climax arrives in the middle, and there is a declining action and catharsis at the end where the issues are all resolved. But William Faulkner used the plot line of his story to being the climax only at the very last possible second. The reader is given no chance for catharsis, but is only left reeling from the revelation in he last line. There is still mystery about the situation, and the reader is left to piece together the story and how everything occurred.
Hannah,
DeleteI agreed with your opinion that the body they found at the end was that of Homer Barron. However, you did not mention the implied relationship between Miss Emily and her father, which was something that I came to see as the motivating force behind the character of Miss Emily. Nor did you mention the purpose of having everyone speculate over her just to be utterly shocked by her secrets. Your analysis felt a bit more like a summary to me, but the way you examined the structure of the story was interesting. I found it to be a pattern - if you care to read my blog you'll understand what I mean - and that the pattern was meant to develop not only the plot but the character of Miss Emily. In fact, maybe this was a "character sketch" of Miss Emily. What else was the plot for the story but her life and how people perceived her? That is why I felt as if your blog was missing something essential - an analysis of Miss Emily - but then I realized that examining the structure and its importance was your way of approaching the blog and analyzing the plot differently.
The last line of your first paragraph served as a sort of thesis for your blog because you went on to explain how Faulkner let the end of his short story sneak up on you and then he refused to conclude it so as to allow the lack of closure to haunt you for a while. I wanted to know what you thought, though! Obviously you were horrified, you said that, but what did the story make you think? How did you react to the climax? Why do you think Faulkner left the reader breathlessly stuck at the top of a roller coaster with no track leading downwards? Yes, the "reader is left to piece together the story" as you said, but I wish you had told me what you had pieced together. Half of the fun of this story is comparing interpretations.
Your analysis of the structure of the story was well done and provide some insight into the methods Faulkner employed to make the reader as oblivious to Miss Emily's dirty secrets as the town's people were. I was dying (pun intended) to know what you deduced at the end of the story, though! Nice job, keep up the good work!
“A Rose for Emily” has a haunting plot that seems irrelevant until the final section of the short story. The author, William Faulkner, intentionally created a structure that started with Miss Emily’s death, took the reader back in time, and then led them back forward on a different path so as to reveal the entirety of the story. In fact, I found the structure of the short story to play the most profound role of building the plot because it was necessary to present such a twisted idea in an almost round-about way. The reader had to gain an understanding of Miss Emily - how she felt about her father, her family, her town, and her potential companion – as well as an understanding of how the town viewed her.
ReplyDeleteImagine that the story could be folded in half. The story began and ended with the death of Miss Emily. Then, progressing from the beginning and back-tracking from the end, there is Miss Emily’s rejected “tax notice” (Faulkner 1) followed by the gossip of her neighbors about “the smell” (Faulkner 2) and “Poor Emily” (Faulkner 4) in conjunction with the examination of her family issues with her father and “the two female cousins” (Faulkner 6) as well as the disappointing disappearance of Homer Barron. And in the center of all of it is her plot for murder and the entire town’s misconceived notions about her when she purchases the “arsenic” (Faulkner 4). Through this somewhat mirrored structure, Faulkner built two images of Miss Emily – the “poor Emily” (Faulkner 4) that the town saw and the Emily that was potentially capable of murder.
One of the common themes throughout the story was “Poor Emily” (Faulkner 4). These words were uttered by the town’s people in regards to Emily’s loss in social stature, and yet their pity for her faded as they realized that she was still the same woman as before, believing herself to be above everyone. However, what the town’s people did not realize was that there was a greater reason to pity Emily. The way the story ends allows the reader to speculate about the truth of Miss Emily. For instance, Miss Emily’s father – the idea of “all the young men [he] had driven away” (Faulkner 3) in conjunction with his “crayon portrait” (Faulkner 1) in her parlor until and even after her death leads the reader to consider the relationship between the two. Furthermore, when the narrator states that “[Miss Emily] would have to cling to that which had robbed her” (Faulkner 3) to explain her denial of her father’s death it implies that Miss Emily’s father not only “robbed her” (Faulkner 3) of suitors but also of her innocence, hence her deep and twisted devotion to him.
And then there is the body found in the “one room in that region above stairs” (Faulkner 6). It is implied, again, that the body is that of Homer Barron because all of the evidence is there – “a man’s toilet set in silver, with the letters H.B. on each piece...a complete outfit of men’s clothing, including a nightshirt” which she purchased just before Barron vanished from the town. So why was Barron dead in the bed? The entire plot – as formed by the structure of the story – leads up to the moment when the reader discovers that Miss Emily killed Homer Barron because suddenly everything makes sense. The town’s people admitted that Miss Emily’s father “thwarted her woman’s life so many times” (Faulkner 5) and it is suggested that her father took advantage of her. Because of this, Emily adored her father but also hated him for depriving her. Therefore, in a rebellious state of mind she fell for Homer Barron and purchased the items that suggested she would marry him. And yet, before purchasing those items, Miss Emily procured “arsenic” (Faulkner 4). Barron came to her house “at dusk one evening” (Faulkner 5) and, as the body was discovered “in the attitude of an embrace” (Faulkner 6), it seems as if Miss Emily was either luring Barron into her trap or attempting to cast away the vice-like grip her father held over her even in death. However, she poisoned him as her father’s influence was “too virulent and too furious to die” (Faulkner 5). Then, just as she denied her father’s death, she denies to herself the death of her lover and continues to visit his bed into her old age. But the awareness of the truth festers within her soul so she does not admit anyone besides the relatives of “Colonel Sartoris” (Faulkner 1) a man who might have been the only one who understood the tragedy of Miss Emily’s life and that was why he “remitted her taxes” (Faulkner 1). So the question then becomes, did Miss Emily kill her father?
Delete“A Rose for Emily” is haunting in so many ways. The structure of the story was designed in a way that it builds upon itself so that the reader gains a sudden understanding once the climax is reached. The details of this short story can be dissected and analyzed in multiple ways because of the inconclusive ending, but the ending represents the fact that the town’s people never really knew anything about Miss Emily. The title is important because a rose is generally seen as either a sign of romance or a sign of mourning, and Miss Emily found romance in both her father and Homer Barron but she mourned neither of them upon their deaths. However, the potential for varying interpretation is what makes this short story so masterful and chilling.
Ann,
DeleteThis was such a great blog! I love that you used so many quotes to prove your points. It helps me make connections with what you are saying. I like how you said that the story could be folded in half, and I even went back to the story to see if you are right, and it makes total sense. I wonder if that was Faulkner's intention or if it was just coincidence. I also saw that there were two sides of Emily shown in the story, but I feel as though the other characters only saw what they wanted to believe. I don't recall any of them suspecting he smell to be a dead body, they all just figured there was a dead animal or she herself smelled. I also liked what you said about Emily denying the fact that her lover was dead just as her father denied her the right to find love and just as she denied that he was also dead. It seems as though Emily was pretty messed up in the head if you ask me. Overall, Ann, this was a fabulous blog! Well done!
As much as I wanted to like this short story, I just felt like it was too predictable. The plot development was intriguing since it did not have a straight timeline, but each event mentioned gave clues to the eventual outcome of the story. Honestly, I was hoping to read a major plot twist at the end, but I only read what I thought was going to happen after the first four chapters. I'm not sure if this was because I have seen way too many horror films and read a countless number of horror stories, but I was quite disappointed with the plot.
ReplyDelete"A Rose for Emily," written by William Faulkner, starts off with the death of Emily Grierson. The plot does not stay out on her for long, though, as the story travels back in time to explain several events. I liked the fact that the plot focuses more on the past to provide the essential background information to make sense of the conclusion. During these events, the reader learns a lot about the characters, specifically Emily and her father. It is revealed that Emily's father never allowed her to get too close to the young men in her town. I felt like there was something deeper than just an overprotective father going on, but these thoughts vanished once the character of Homer Barron appeared. Emily was often pitied by the other members of the community. To me this helped develop the character of Emily, as the reader can see her as either the depressed woman down the street or the woman who is weary but deadly. I think a plot is especially impressive when it aids in how the reader views the different characters.
There were many times where I thought the plot was going to go down a different path than what I imagined, especially when the cousins arrived after her father's death. For instance, when the neighbors smelled something rotten in Emily's house and yard, I assumed it was her father's dead body, but I believe they smelled Homer Barron's body. Remember that Emily vanquished the men about the smell "two years after her father's death and a short time after her sweetheart--the one we believed would marry her --had deserted her," and that Homer Barron arrived the summer after her father passed away. I honestly did not make these connections until after I had read the whole story and then went back to regain my thoughts to write the blog, but it makes sense to me. Also, she bought the arsenic after spending a lot of quality time with Barron and after he remarked "that he was not a marrying man." I think it is possible that she fell in love with Homer, and after years of her father pushing away every man interested in her, she decided that he was not going to get away either. She waited until the cousins left to invite him over, and he never left again. I believe she poisoned him with the arsenic to make sure that she was to never be called "Poor Emily" again. She was tired of being demeaned by everyone in town, and since she never left her house, she would not have to hear their hushed voices because she had her sweetheart until the day of her own death. The plot is quite complicated due to way it is set up. I do wish that it was in the exact order of events, but I find that that takes away the fun in puzzling out the story.
There are two parts of the plot that I really want answers to, though. First, Emily's mother. She had to have a mother, but did she die or did she choose to leave her family? Second, it is said in the story that Emily died from an illness, but no one knew that she was sick. I wonder if she took small amounts of the arsenic to slowly kill herself. This is just a thought, but anything is possible. The overall plot, though expected to me, was genius in how Faulkner approached it. It gave rise to good character development, and it certainly keeps the reader on his/her toes. I like those kinds of stories.
Natalie,
DeleteI must say your blog provided me with some well forgotten information. I had forgotten all about her cousins visiting and them saying that she died of illness. I truly enjoyed your two middle paragraphs those really did help me understand more of this story. The idea of her father being "overprotective" is another thing I had forgotten. Then her sudden attraction to Homer is something more significant than just an affair. Her wanting to keep him as the first "real" boy she has been able to talk to, makes him seem more like a Ken doll. Then her wanting to keep him makes more sense than my idea of her going crazy with infatuation. By far my favorite part of your entire blog was your ending paragraph. Emily's mother was never physically there in the plot; did she die, or run away? Then your theory behind her slowly poisoning herself is almost ingenious. My only question regarding that idea is, why would she do something like that?
Natalie,
DeleteI have to agree with you that the ending was predictable. I also liked that the plot did not focus on one specific thing. Like you said, it starts off with Miss Emily, but it soon fades into critical background information that eventually leads us the ending result. You mentioned how the character development of Emily Grierson was based a lot off of how people pitied her and all of their other side comments on her. I also have to agree with this. It told a lot about other people saw her which eventually allows the reader to formulate their own opinion of her. I really liked how you mentioned the whole part about Homer and Miss Emily not buying the arsenic until after Homer mentioned that he wasn’t a marrying man. What exactly is a “marrying man” any way? I share your opinion in wishing the story was in order rather than jumping around throughout the five parts. I also think, however, that the jumping around gave the short story an eerie feeling that makes the reader keeping reading in anticipation of what is to come. Good job this week!
Natalie,
DeleteYou are an expert when it comes to horror stories, there is no doubt about that! I was so excited to read your blog due to this. While your entire blog post was amazing, I would like to focus on your last paragraph and your two questions you had about the blog. I was wondering the same thing about her mother! Where had she gone? Why had she not even been mentioned throughout the story? I thought it might have been possible that Faulker left all traces of a mother out on purpose to really emphasize how unstable Emily's family life really was, but I'm still not sure. In regards to your other question about Emily being sick, I had thought that she had been sick wit depression! I don't know what time period this was written in, but I thought to myself that it had to of been written before they distinguished the difference between mental illness and physical illness. I wrote a lot about it in my post if you wanted to look at that to see more of my opinion, but I feel like there is no clear explanation to her illness. Maybe it was the arsenic, who knows! I love that it is vague though so we can all debate the possibilities! Excellent blog, as always!
Okay I am officially creeped out, and I thought Edgar Allen Poe was a bit messed up in the head. Let me just get my head wrapped around all of this; Emily went crazy and killed a man she was supposedly "seeing" then she dies, and they find out she was sleeping with a dead guy. This story just messed with what little sanity I had left was there a flashback within a flashback, or a foreshadow then flashback then revisit the current time period. I will do my best with what I understood given the structure of the piece, and contents I understood.
ReplyDeleteThe story is separated into five sections that the author uses to separate time, which becomes very useful as the story progresses. The first section seems to be the introduction giving the reader the conflict, setting, and time period, which are somewhat clouded or not fully explained. Then section two the narrator flashes back to thirty plus years ago, when she was just starting to become reclusive. This tells us that she was either extremely young when her father died, or she just never died during the following years and put her at an advanced age. This becomes quite an interesting topic since she was courting around the same time as when her father died. The supposed spouse leaves, then she turns her father's body over for burial. Even for the time period that is odd; during the time this supposedly took place a body would be embalmed first if you wished to keep the body at home for any given period of time to prevent rot, or decay. Then in section three, I lose everything, she hooks up (if you want to call it that) with a northerner, Homer Barron. Then somewhere along the lines of section four it is about everyone fearing she is suicidal, five is where we find out she killed Homer and was sleeping with his corpse. If I got all of this right I will say that the structure really gives the story a full impact that the author was looking for. Separating the parts and making each important, or a different time period, makes the reader focus in order to understand the story.
A major theme I see in this piece is the power of death has on an individual. It's kind of like when her father had passed away is when everything changed for her. We all have lost someone in our lifetime, our human social complex tells us to mourn the loss. Except in this story Emily takes it to an extreme and keeps the body till she's ready to let go. In the normal stages of grief one most likely will go through phases such as: denial, isolation, depression, bargaining, anger, and acceptance. From what we see in the story she only goes through three stages isolation, depression, and acceptance. Now this isn't saying that she did any other stages without the audience/outside world knowing, but from a readers point of view we only see the three stages. Although this might be irrelevant I find it interesting how it can play into this short story.
I do not wish to revisit this story anytime soon, but I wouldn't mind gaining some different insight to the reclusive/crazy Emily Grierson. If I made any errors in my understanding of this story please do correct me. Although I found the theme something new and refreshing, the contents of this story is just plain creepy kind of like a severe twist in a demented fairytale.
Devyn,
DeleteI must completely agree with you that I was utterly creeped out at the end of this short story. I actually put my iPad down, looked over at my mother and said "Here, read this." Not something I normally do. I like how you took each separate part of the story to make your analysis of the story. The five chapters, and therefore five sections of the story, really play a part in how the reader sees the story and plot line. It isn't a normal straight chronological plot, but instead it has some twists and turns, circling back and diving ahead. This really allows the reader to only feel the impact of the story at the very end when they discover the corpse and her one hair. Also, how you drew in the stages of grief was interesting. I did see that her grieving was obviously not normal, but in a situation like hers, it is almost understandable. Yet,I think, like you mentioned that this played a greater part in the story than can really be recognized with further analysis into the different ways she grieved. Good insights!
As much as I would like to say I liked “A Rose for Emily,” I didn’t. I found it a little bit too predictable while also being a little random. I understand now where all of the taxes and things came into play, but I think the story line could have been made a more organized. One minute we were learning about how she doesn’t let anyone in and then there’s a smell and then suddenly it’s all about her crazy aunt and her father. I think it has a good idea behind the whole thing, I just couldn’t get into it because of how random and unorganized it was.
ReplyDeleteThe plot was something different than the typical short story plot, at least in my opinion. It’s haunting and leaves the reader questioning. The whole relationship between Miss Emily had with her father and then her aunt, I believe plays a huge role in the whole overall story. I can’t help but think there was some kind of connection between the aunt and the father before Emily came into the picture. As twisted as it sounds, I think there may have been some kind of physical relationship between the two of them. When the aunt died, the father turned to Emily which, in turn, could have been why he was so protective and unwilling to have other males around her. The relationship between Emily and her father, and her aunt on another angle, could have been the reason that she never went out in public.
Besides just her aunt and father, I can’t help but think that the Negro in the story has a much deeper meaning than was led on. Why did he never talk? What was really in the market basket? Was he secretly in love with Miss Emily and that’s why he stuck around for so long? Did he have something against her and waited all those years to kill her? Was the poison for him to kill her? All these questions centered around a single person.
I really enjoyed the amount of detail and description they placed behind everything. The descriptions of the house, the surrounding grounds, Miss Emily herself were really useful and played an important role in the short story. The detailed appearance of Miss Emily was so critical to the story because it helped to tell of her physical digression as well as tell the ending without coming right out and stating it. The iron-gray hair was a touch the author threw in towards the middle of the story and allowed the reader to believe it was nothing more than a simple character description. Little did that reader know that it would be the biggest spoiler in the piece.
The plot of the story was a little spotty for me but what I could catch onto were the characters and the details. There were a lot of questions proposed throughout the five parts. These questions did not leave a lot of wiggle room for interpretation. The detailed descriptions really allowed some curiosity to be cleared up while also leaving an eerie feeling to be felt until the final reveal at the end of the story. The mysterious aspects of the entire piece are what kept my attention to allow me to finish reading. My curiosity about the Negro is at the front of my head. I can’t seem to shake the feeling that he had a bigger part than I realize.
Jessica,
DeleteI don't agree with you about the plot. Yes, it may seem scattered but it isn't. The story is broken into five different part which shows that author is going to go in a different direction. Each part focused on something that effected her mental well being. I do agree that the Negro man had another meaning. I don't know what that could be either, but I wish you elaborated on it more.
You mentioned that this story was predictable. I think some things were, but that ending wasn't for me. How could you possibly know that? I haven't read anyone else's blog besides Felicia's yet, but I want to know how you picked out the ending. I guess I'm just assuming that when you say it's predictable that you mean the ending, but you never specified. However, if you did mean the ending than I honestly do want to know how you figured it out because I obviously missed something. Haha. Anyways, great job this week. I had fun disagreeing with you, if that makes sense. Haha.
Jessica,
DeleteI have to agree with Kaitlin in regards to your remark about the plot appearing to be "scattered" and "spotty." Maybe we had read it differently, but I personally thought that "A Rose for Emily" was very well structured. However, in your post, you did say that you enjoyed all of the details that the story had, and that they had helped to fill in the holes you felt that the plot left. You also mentioned that there was little wiggle room for interpretation, but I know that out of all the posts I read, there seemed to be a lot of different opinions going on, so I was wondering what exactly you meant by this. I do have to agree with what you wrote about the "negro," though. I kept waiting for there to be some big reveal with him, but It never happened... Unless it did and I didn't notice. I don't know. I was a bit confused with him, I agree in you saying that you though he had a bigger meaning.
I am curious to what it is exactly that you do not like about this short story. If I can recall correctly, you did not like the other short stories either. Is there something in common between the three that you did not enjoy, or are you just not a fan of short stories? personally, short stories aren't exactly my thing so I can understand that, but I hope that your dislike for them does not distract from the fact that they are still good stories in general!
“A Rose for Emily,” written by William Faulkner, tells a mysteriously morbid tale. The focus seems to be on Emily Greirson as the story opens with her funeral. Continuing on, the story jumps from a few generations and, as I saw it, the process of how everyone decided that Emily Greirson was “crazy.”
ReplyDeletePart of me liked this story a lot, yet, part of me despised it as well. Short stories are not something I typically enjoy, but I will admit that I liked this one considerably more than the ones we have read in the past. This may sound a bit odd, but I think that he reason being is that the set up of the plot reminded me a lot of my obsession, Breaking Bad. The program creator of Breaking Bad was Vince Gilligan, a writer, a producer, and a director. He opened every season and multiple episodes with a “flash forward.” From then, the story would start and eventually lead itself back to the beginning, where the scene was originally shown. I noticed that this was how William Faulkner had set out his story as well, and I really do like that. I think it is useful in drawing in an audience and capturing their attention while the curiosity and suspense keeps the reader, or viewer, interested. The short story, “A Rose for Emily,” was also split into sections, much like how Breaking Bad (or any TV series) is split into series. Each section had focused on a different part of Emily’s life, and each one had emphasized a different struggle that Emily had faced.
Something else I noticed that captured my attention was the poison. Why had Emily Greirson bought it? She had given off the impression that she had purchased it with intention to kill, but who? I briefly looked at a few of my classmates blog post, where I saw multiple assumptions regarding the poison. Some think that Emily had boughten it to kill herself, some think that she had bought it to kill Homor Barron. However, I thought of it very differently. I think that the poison revealed a lot about Emily Greirson, and may be the most important thing mentioned in the story. I have recently read online about Vincent van Gogh. Psychologically speaking, yellow is a happy color, it always has been. Vincent can Gogh was known for ingesting yellow paint. Why? He honestly thought that he could paint the inside of himself to make it look happy, so he would be happy. Crazy, right? Almost as crazy as eating poison. However, I think the concept is the same. Van Gogh ate paint to try and make his insides happy while Emily Greirson ate poison to try and kill her sadness. Depression is something that often goes underrated as people typically dont understand the power it has. The narrator often remarked that Emily was sick, and I believe that she was deeply depressed for many reasons mentioned in the story, mainly her family life and love life. When buying the poison, Emily Greirson simply stated that she wanted the most powerful poison their was. She ended up getting a poison strong enough to kill an elephant… not to kill herself, but to kill what was killing her.
I feel like the poison was a major part in the story line as well as the plot in regards to its location in the story. Emily Greirson had bought the poison towards the end of the story, at the end of the third section. I think that a lot of the suspense ad been building up to this moment, and it was the climax. However, this is debatable. While some people might say that the climax was when the dead bodies were discovered, I disagree. I don’t think that their deaths could be the climax, due to the prior knowledge obtained from the opening scene that Emily would, in fact, die. This was no shock, but then again, it is only my opinion and as I previously mentioned, it is debatable.
Felicia,
DeleteI love your view on the poison. That is well thought out. I would have never came up with that. It makes so much sense though. She wasn't trying to kill herself, but the sadness that she felt. We all know that Emily had dealt with a lot of crap in her life. There's no question about it. As I thought about this I couldn't help but think about what kind of effect this had on the whole story and the ending. Do you think that her digging her father's body up from the earth was another way to find happiness? If your opinion is correct than this only makes sense.
I agree with you that her dying is not any surprise. It tells you in the first section/chapter/thing that she does die. However, I did find her keeping a body in her bed a sketchy. First of all, that's disgusting and disturbing. Second, something is far more wrong with her than what any of us had expected. It makes me feel bad for her. It's not her fault she's crazy. Anyways, great job on your blog!
Felicia,
DeleteI really like how you made the connection with how the plot of the story runs with how the show Breaking Bad goes. I've never watched it, but it is cool to hear that the way Faulkner scripted the story is not all that crazy. It makes you assume the worst since you know what the outcome is.
Like Kaitlin said, I love your thinking towards the arsenic. My theory was that she was slowly poisoning herself, but I never considered it to be killing the thing that was killing her. Your use of Van Gogh to prove your point was genius. You always seem to make a connection to something modern or relevant, and I really admire you for that. Overall, this was a great blog! Keep up the good work, Felicia!