LITR 5535: American Romanticism

Student Presentation on Reading Selections 2005

Monday 28 February: Edgar Allan Poe, N 694-696, 704-727 (“Ligeia” & “Fall of the House of Usher”); William Faulkner, “N 2160-66.

selection reader / discussion leader: Michelle Gooding

The Gothic and Non-Romantic in Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily”

In Poe, we see the “textbook” gothic, but while Faulkner does use gothic imagery (and subject matter), it is not to the extent that Poe does.  Also, the satire and sarcasm throughout “A Rose for Emily” make it a less typical Romantic work.

Examples of the gothic in “A Rose for Emily”:

·       Description of Emily on pages 2160-61:

They rose when she entered—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.

·       Description of Emily's house on page 2160: “had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies,” “decay”

·       Of course, the description of the room upstairs and Homer

Examples of the non-romantic in “A Rose for Emily”:

·       The narrator in general—the town is nosy beyond belief.  For example, they saw Homer go in the back door.  But we learned at the beginning of the story that her house is surrounded by “garages and cotton gins.”  If they had seen him go in the front door, it could be supposed that they were driving by in a buggy or riding by on a horse.  But no, they saw him go in the back door, so it's likely they were spying on her.

·       Another great passage of humor in this story is the one about the rat poison on page 2163:

“I want some poison,” she said to the druggist.  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.

“Yes, Miss Emily. What kind?  For rats and such?  I'd recom—”

“I want the best you have.  I don't care what kind.”

The druggist named several. “They'll kill anything up to an elephant. But what you want is—”

“Arsenic,” Miss Emily said.  “Is that a good one?”

“Is......arsenic?  Yes ma'am.  But what you want—”

“I want arsenic.”

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 me 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 and got the arsenic and wrapped in up.  The Negro delivery boy brought her the package; the druggist didn't come back.  When she opened the package at home there was written on the box, under the skull and bones: “For rats.”

IV

So the next day we all said, “She will kill herself”; and we said it would be the best thing.

Questions:

1.    What are some other examples of gothic imagery in “A Rose for Emily”?

2.    How else is this story not a typical romantic piece?