American Romanticism
Student-led Text-Objective Discussion 2008

Thursday 2 October: Edgar Allan Poe, N 671-75, 679-702 (“Ligeia” & “Fall of the House of Usher”); William Faulkner, "A Rose for Emily" N 2218-24.

text-objective discussion leader ("A Rose for Emily"): Ron Burton

 

 

 

 

 

William Faulkner                                   “A Rose for Emily”

The early works of Faulkner bear witness to his reading of Keats, Tennyson, Swinburne, and the fin-de-sičcle English poetry. His first book was THE MARBLE FAUN (1924), a collection of poems. It did not gain success. After a hiatus in Paris, he published SOLDIER'S PAY (1926), which caught people’s attention.  He dealt with enorous debt throughout much of his career that was plagued with alcoholism and depression.

In 1929 Faulkner wrote Sartoris, the first of fifteen novels set in Yoknapatawpha County, a fictional region of Mississippi-actually Yoknapatawpha was Lafayette County.  “A Rose for Emily” is set in this county.

On June 17, 1962, he was thrown from a horse, and a few weeks later, on July 6, Faulkner died of a coronary occlusion. The New York Times cited his critics in his obituary and stated that "Mr. Faulkner's writings showed an obsession with murder, rape, incest, suicide, greed and general depravity that did not exist anywhere but in the author's mind".

  • THE MARBLE FAUN, 1924
  • SOLDIER'S PAY, 1926
  • MOSQUITOES, 1927
  • SARTORIS / FLAGS IN THE DUST, 1929 (first in Yoknapatawpha cycle)
  • THE SOUND AND THE FURY, 1929  
  • AS I LAY DYING, 1930
  • SANCTUARY, 1931
  • LIGHT IN AUGUST, 1932  
  • PYLON, 1935
  • ABSALOM, ABSALOM!, 1936
  • THE UNVANQUISHED, 1938
  • THE WILD PALMS, 1939
  • THE HAMLET, 1940
  • GO DOWN, MOSES, 1942
  • THE PORTABLE FAULKNER, 1946 
  • INTRUDER IN THE DUST, 1948
  • KNIGHT'S GAMBIT, 1949
  • COLLECTED STORIES, 1950 
  • REQUIEM FOR A NUN, 1951
  • A FABLE, 1954 (Pulitzer Prize)
  • THE TOWN, 1957
  • THE MANSION, 1959
  • THE REIVERS, 1962 (Pulitzer Prize)
  • WILLIAM FAULKNER: EARLY PROSE AND POETRY, 1962
  • Faulkner wrote 22 screenplays (most of which were never used) between 1933-55)
  • http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/faulkner.htm

 

 

Objective 1c:  Romantic Genres—Southern Gothic with                                      elements of the sublime

*      Miss Emily’s home is her castle; there is a strong sense of confinement—like a princess locked in a tower.  Faulkner describes how the house once appeared in its prime, positioned on “what had been our most select street” (2218).  But now at this point, the home and its legend are in ruin while elements of a “next” “rising” “newer” generation engulfing them both:  “garages and cotton gins…cotton wagons and gasoline pumps—an eyesore among eyesores” (2218). 

*      “It smelled of dust and disuse”  “a faint dust rose sluggishly” (2218):  “when the smell developed” (2219):  “will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?” (2220):  “a thin, acrid pall as of the tomb” (2223):  “acrid in the nostrils” (2224).

*      Character description of Emily:  Emily is isolation.  She lives in her own time, the antebellum South.  She is dressed in black, bloated, eyes like coal, eccentric.

*      Death and decay are replete throughout the story beginning with: Emily’s funeral, the possible murder (by arsenic) of Homer (perceived by “We” as Emily’s savior), Emily’s father, and finally the description of Emily and Homer’s final resting place.

*      The Macabre:  Emily’s retention of her father’s corpse, Homer’s “rotted” body, and necrophilia?

Question:  Who is “We” and what role does “We” play in this Southern Gothic story?

Objective 2c:  Racially divided but historically related

*      Mayor Sartoris “fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron—remitted [Emily’s] taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity” (2218).

*      Emily’s servant is only known as “the old Negro” (2218) and his service to the Grierson family ends with the death of the last (2223).  “The Negro delivery boy brought her the package” is another example of African-Americans in servitude without formal acknowledgement of who they are as individuals (2221).

*      “the very old men—some in their Confederate uniforms” creates a sense that ideology of the not-so-distance past may still have salience in the present (2223).  Faulkner may be commenting on the fact that that past is slowly dying (with the older generation).

Question:  Considering the title and that Emily never actually receives a “rose” why would Faulkner identify this rather gruesome tale to sound romantic?