Welcome to Yoknapatawpha County! Click on the link to delve into the world of one of the greatest writers of universal literature!
William Faulkner, Nobel-prize winner of 1949, is the author of the short story we are going to discuss today, “A Rose for Emily”, which is but a very small sample of his work. I strongly encourage you to seek for more and engage in reading masterpieces as The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying and Light in August.
As today is the deadline for Assignment #1, I’ll make your lives a little easier… Your task is to discuss the short story referring to the text “The American Grotesque”.
Update: Hi, everybody, I’m inserting this update here as a lot of people are confused about the activities for today. First of all, go back to the course syllabus! You will see there that on March 31st (today!!! 
) you are supposed to deliver Assignment #1, study notes on the text “The American Grotesque”, which must be sent to me by email. Also, the short story scheduled for discussion is the one above, “A rose for Emily”. What I suggested in the previous paragraph, that probably got some of you confused, is that you use the knowledge you acquired in reading “The American Grotesque” in the discussion of the short story here in the blog. I am not changing the assignment or substituting any activity, Ok?
Carla, I’m in doubt… the assignment must be sent to you by e-mail, or it is a discussion like any other that we have in this blog? I’m a little bit confused… =(
Jean, I’m inserting an update in the post, as a lot of people are getting confused…
Thank you very much, dear professor!
I was in a serious doubt about today’s assignment and didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Now I can sit and do my paper in peace. Thanks for your attention with us all and my comments will be on your mail box in a matter of some hours.
Ok, let’s go to the COMMENTS ON THE TEXT then…
“A Rose for Emily” is a SS about this ackward lady, Emily Grierson, a noble-blood lonely spinster. The unnamed and ungendered narrator tells her life story going back and forth in time (what’s actually a little confusing) by revealing odd situations in which she was involved. The narrator does not know much of her, nobody does. Emily is a mistery for him, for the people who knew her and, thus, for the reader.
Here > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grotesque < I found an interesting deffition f grotesque characters, that is “characters are usually considered grotesque if they induce both empathy and disgust”. Nothing could fit Emily best, for that is exactely the effect she caused to people around her and to the readers, as well… and it is clear on the first paragraph of the SS: “our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house”
Her authoritary behavior, her snnobish manners, the stuck-up way treated people – this inspires disgust (just as do her reluctance to pay her taxes, the putrid smell coming for her house, the dark, messy and dusty enviromment she lived in ans finally, the discovery of Homer Barron’s 40 years old dead body). However, we are induced to like or at least understand her deeds as a consequence of the serial deceptions she has in life (the fact that she was a spinster, her father’s death, her pauverty after becoming an orfan, her abandom by Homer, her long-lasting solitude and sickness, the self-imposed exile – “Being left alone, and a pauper, she become humanized”).
All in Emily’s life was decadent, she is a perfect symbol of the the old world that opposes the new changes to which The Grotesque movement reacted to. Born in a time that no longer exists, she became an outcast in her town, marginalized and obscure. Emily was target of curiosity and especulation, but no one would really care for her feelings. She was an “eyesore” in deed, the portray of a culture unable to cope with its own death and decay.
Emily’s death is liberating for those around her, as if the last guardian of old golden days was gone. Now they would be able to satisfy their curiosity about her last days existence, the mistery beyond of the doors which would never open. schoking surprise what to see what their neglect and her diffcilties turned her really into: a grotesque murderer, vitimized by the society and beyond that – once The Grotesque was not only an social protest – someone who chose to live an alternative life, surrounded by death and memories.
Emily is really a misterious person, as Juliana said above, but thoughout the reading of the SS we (the readers) can know more details about her but not everything because the narrator is just telling what he can see, what is not much because she locked herself in her house after her father’s death. The house is also very misterious or even macabre, like its onwner.
I liked very much the definition that Juliana gave to grotesque characters because it really represents the feelings of the people that observed her in the city. The part that describes that she did not want to accept that her father was dead and refused to bury his body for three days, any person could fell it is macabre and disgusting but the people in the town even agreed with her attitudes: “We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that.”
In the text “The grotesque: an American
genre” there is a paragraph about the critics in nineteen century and one of them, John Ruskin is cited. He “says the true grotesque merely plays with the fearful and awesome(…)”. Taking into account this definition, we can say that the SS in discussion is “true grotesque” because it plays with macabre things like death that could provoke bad feelings but it did not, sometimes we can feel pity.
And to finish, analysing the sentence of the text: “the grotesque affronts our sense of established order (…)”, I can say that we never expect that a woman from high level of the society could act like Emily, her turn into poverty and her father’s death had changed the order of the things, although she never lost her sense of authority and superiority.
About this paradox of the grotesque represented by Emily, a couple of things call my attention.
The empathy Emily inspires in the people from the county seems to be so strong that the characters through the SS tend to act surprisingly sympathetically towards her.
In the second section of the SS, a man complains to Judge Stevens about the smell coming from Emily’s house saying: “We really must do something about it, Judge. I’d be the last one in the world to bother Miss Emily, but we’ve got to do something”. We can notice by the man’s words that he only went to the Judge because the situation was extreme, however he does not dare suggest what should be done to solve the problem, he just says “something” must be done.
Emily represents a past no longer existing, but still a past. This fact seems to bind people’s way of treating Emily to some kind of very strong respect that leads them to take pity on Emily’s every action (and in this group of people I might include the narrator).
In this SS, this paradoxical reaction caused by “the grotesque” is strongly rooted respect for a decaying past, which leads to empathy from the people around Emily, which leads to sympathy towards Emily (at least a veiled sympathy – mostly realized by many permissions).
Correction: in the last paragraph I meant to say:
“strongly rooted in a feeling of respect…”
I agree with Juliana. As we were discussing, the whole story is a little confusing, because this going back and forth in time. Her character doesn’t fit on the modern society. Her manners and attitudes represents the old time. I would say that people were so prejudice about her, that she was just another victim of the society, as Bertha (Jane Eyre), living in a jail. First, when she refused “to accept that her father was dead and refused to bury his body for three days”, as Veronica said, I though “Oh her character is suffering, because of her lost. That was acceptable, but in the end they found a dead body on her house and that was really macabre.
I totaly agree with Juliana whenshe compairs this ss with the
Grotesque.
Emily was realy a strange women with uncommon behavior like grotesques’
characters.
Wiliam Faulkner is also citated in “The Grotesque: An American Genre”.
“The grotesque has developed in response to our age, to atom bombs and great social changes. The century just before ours learned that man had evolved from a lower biological species, and certain of its philosophers stressed both the irrationality of human nature and the ways in which our actions are determined by forces beyond our control. (…) the South has produced more than its share of the grotesque. (…) Some of the reasons are clear enough; the old agricultural system depleted the land and poverty breeds abnormality; in many cases people were living with a code that was no longer applicable, and this meant a detachment from reality and loss of vitality.” (O’CONNOR, p. 6)
***
This “loss of vitality” can be seen taken to an extreme measure on William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”(1), which tells the story of Emily Grierson. She is portrayed as the loneliest person in the world, locked inside the house by her controlling father and after his death she continued there, refusing to take part of the outside world. Actually, Emily kept his body in the house for three whole days before letting the normal procedures take place, proving that even though he was an abusive figure, she would still feel more secure with him. The story is told by an unknown narrator and it’s difficult to infer Emiliy’s true personality, especially because she fits on the characters that O’Connor says “suffer from an inability to communicate, to express their affections and to be loved in return, or to fulfill themselves creatively.” (p. 7) Emily was a kind of relic in that southern town, an object of curiosity perceived as having inherited craziness from her ancestors. Her only words in the text are the following:
Her voice was dry and cold. “I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me. Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy yourselves.”
“But we have. We are the city authorities, Miss Emily. Didn’t you get a notice from the sheriff, signed by him?”
“I received a paper, yes,” Miss Emily said. “Perhaps he considers himself the sheriff . . . I have no taxes in Jefferson.”
“But there is nothing on the books to show that, you see We must go by the–”
“See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson.”
“But, Miss Emily–”
“See Colonel Sartoris.” (Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years.) “I have no taxes in Jefferson. Tobe!” The Negro appeared. “Show these gentlemen out.”
Her sentences are so undeveloped and her vocabulary as repetitive as if her English “rusted” because of the lack of use. The privileged life Emily supposedly had was also what led her to this terrible situation. She was so isolated from everything and everybody that the world became a permanent threat and when she allowed some kind of proximity with someone else (Homer Barron), she had disappointment in return. He was not the person she thought he was and he was going to leave her. That would be the ultimate shame in her life, so she dealt with it the only way she knew. The terrible intoxicating smell spread all over the town was nothing but her lover’s putrid remains. Just like what happened to her father, she didn’t want to remove Homer’s body from the house. And this time there was no priest or judge to keep her from doing so. She slept for years by Homer’s side, leaving her grey hair on the pillow next to him.
***
She suffered from a deep fear of changes, she was trapped in the past in that same structure – which was the only one she knew – not even acknowledging what was happening around her (Colonel Sartoris was dead for ten years and she didn’t even realize it). In a certain way, that old pattern her father set for her was her prison and what triggered the bizarre/inappropriate behavior she had for the rest of her life.
(1) source
Oh I’d read this SS before! Faulkner rules! The South rules! I mean, what is more representative of the decadent Old Southern values than Emily and her decaying house, and her old Negro servant, her refusal to accept her father’s death (the death of the old ways) aaaaaand most of all her ‘vengeance’ on the Yankee suitor, if I may call it that, who, like the Northern values, ‘invaded’ the town, trying to modernize it with the new sidewalks and then abandon it in the name of money, going back to the North, perverting the Old time traditions. Emily certainly does embody the aristocratic, proud South that is in ruin in the name of industrialization and modernity. I strongly recommend the reading of the text ‘O Velho Sul’ in order to really understand the South, it explains a lot. As for the grotesque, the themes are grotesque, I mean, decadence, the rotting of those values, loneliness….empathy and disgust we feel for Emily, what someone said above really said it all….
In “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, we can find many observations about the grotesque as my friend said. However, in this writing, I just want to focus on one thing: Emily ends up in her loneliness. According O’Connor, the grotesque affronts our sense of established order and satisfies, or partly satisfies, our need for at least a tentative, a more flexible ordering.
When her father is still alive, no single man has guts to be close to Emily because the father will always be able to find the weakness of him. This made Emily a recluse, an aloof person, not sociable at all. The “patrimony of a man” destroys Emily as her father smothers her with his over-protectiveness.
Her father and the townsfolk that see her as an untouchable idol perpetrate her dementia; the loneliness that they force her to endure is maddening.
I believe that Emily would be a girl with normal aspirations to find love and then a husband and a family, but her father who denies her a family and a life of her own. When Emily found a man, she had had no experience in people 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. In this moment, Emily decides that she will be vindicated, she will have her man.
The irrational side of Emily emerge when she needed something to fill up her vacant heart and lonely life. She needed him for her existence in this world, alive or dead.
Correction: …grotesque as my friends said.
A Rose for Emily really shows the epitomy of the grotesque and shows the old southern values in O Velho Sul. I have to be honest, I think everybody´s comments are fabulous, I don’t have anything to add! I wish I had commented before!
The short story “A Rose for Emily” can be considered a Gothic horror tale because of the examples of death. Five actual deaths are discussed or mentioned in passing, and there are obvious references to death throughout the story.
It shows a representative aristocratic family with a pragmatic outsider of the new ethics of the industrial age. It also treats a conflict in values between the Old and New South in the period of transition after the Civil War.
Emily represents a displaced person. She grew up during the old South, a time and era when gentile manners, family heritage, and social standing were highly valued in society. Miss Emily has endured the decline of the old south and now she lives in a changing world that she is unable to accept. She lives in her own world, removed from the touch of modernity, time, and change.
I see the genre Grotesque in a Rose for Emily in some parts as the others have alread mentioned. In O’ Connor’s text, for example, the author Shewood Anderson says that the characters “suffer from an inability to communicate, to express their affections and to be loved in return”(Ana carolina focused on this fragmented), besides he is considerd the writer of the “village virus”, this is what happens in the small town of Jefferson, where Emily lives. She is a lonely poor girl who smells badly_ Where, in my opinion, we can find the characteristique of this genre- “it’s a new genre, merging tragedy and comedy”. Another point is the fact her attitudes are far from her age. she is the image of what the text shows: “no sense of direction or purpose in her life”. the conflict between past and present, the chronological order represents the scapism from the “real”reality, her “stylization.”
In this short story I also agree with everyone who said that it can be seen in the Grotesque genre. And this aspect can be seen clearly on O´Conner´s text in which it is said that in most of the stories the characters cannot communicate effectively, they do not express themselves. In this genre
man is considered to be “an inextricable tangle of rationality, irrationality, love and hatred, self-improvement and self-destruction. He appears caught in his own biological nature.”
If I were allowed, I would just sign below Érica’s words, but I’ll try to give my impressions on the text according to “The Grotesque: an American Genre”.
According to O’Connor the grotesque merges tragedy and comedy. I think we can see this in the first part of the story, on the issue of the taxes. It’s comic to see the way Colonel Sartoris solved her problem, but her decadence is tragic.
In most of the grotesque stories the protagonist suffer from an inability to communicate, to express their affections and to be loved in return. Emily had this inability. She was repressed by her father and grows up having little contact with people, especially men, and became dry and cold. Even her lover abandoned her.
The grotesque simultaneously confronts the anti-poetic and the ugly and presents them. The death of her father, her insistence to affirms that he was not dead, and her refuse to let them take his body away are examples of anti-poetic and the ugly present in the grotesque.
Of course the story is in essence a grotesque one. Her character, her acts, like kills the man and maintain his body in her room, and especially lay down beside it… “A Rose for Emily” is a perfect example of what the grotesque is.
Hope not to write a lot of nonsense…
William Blake
The Sick Rose
O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
***Don’t you think it has to do with the short story?***
Just adding some extra ideas to what Pedro said in comment 6 about the “paradox of the grotesque represented by Emily”:
There are two moments in which the narrator describes Emily from different points of view:
* THE FIRST MOMENT – “TRUE” DESCRIPTION – TIME: PRESENT
“…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.”
*THE SECOND MOMENT – “IMAGINARY” DESCRIPTION – TIME: PAST
“…Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single…”
Both descriptions show that Miss Emily combines some contrasting characteristics of the present and the past, the reality and the imaginary. She is at the same time, fat and slim, male and female, alive and dead – qualities that sometimes attract or repulse. The romantic love opposes to the murder and the couple lying down, one of the two is dead, which produces a surreal effect. According to the theoretical text “The grotesque: an American genre” “the true grotesque merely plays with the fearful and awesome”, just as Verônica mentioned before.
Ok, my turn.
A Rose for Emily is a SS from the “tradition of the Gothic horror tale”, the tradition of the strange, mysterious, macabre. Like in many other SSs, here we have a character who can’t fit in the society, in this case because she is too stuck in the past. If we consider that the SSs tend to show the most human characteristics in a character, with all its flaws and problems, we may see the grotesque genre as a kind of story that intends to reach the deepest darkest side of human being. But this dark side is not something evil, it’s something we can find inside ourselves. And that’s why we can recognize ourselves in such macabre stories.
In the grotesque genre, the sense of right and wrong and the morality are lost or chaotic. Without the concern about society, about its values, what lasts is a purer human guided only by his/her instincts. That’s what happens with Emily, reclusive in her house, hiding from society, she is guided by her emotions, and becomes a STRANGE, MYSTERIOUS, MACABRE person. However, we, as well as the citizens in the story, don’t blame her because we know she is guided by the “innocent beast”, the “childish monster” we all have inside of us. The deep essence of human being is something at the same time SUBLIME and GROTESQUE, the two main aspects of Gothic Literature.
Now regarding the fall of aristocracy, the aristocrats were living a bad moment. They were used to live with comfort and privileges, but the world has changed. It came the time of the ascending bourgeoisie and they lost their place in society. As many of them couldn’t manage to adapt themselves to the new world and make a living, they fell in a great depression. In literature, the symbols of aristocracy became gothic symbols mixing the sublime (nobility) and the grotesque (decadent), the image of decaying castles and mansions. Bernice is the classic aristocrat who doesn’t belong to the new world. She is completely stuck in her past, she can’t accept the world is changing and people are dying, she condemns herself to live in the past. All this issue reminded me a lot “Corpse Bride”, a movie by Tim Burton that portraits very well the Gothicism in this time of the fall of aristocracy. Of course the movie, as a good gothic film, couldn’t let aside the subject “dearth” and all its morbid aspects. It is also very interesting to notice all the mystery involved in the plot and how strange are the characters. For those who haven’t seen yet, I recommend.
Well, since everybody has already discussed about the essencial aspects of “A Rose for Emily” and its bond with the grotesque genre, I’ll just add the following:
Emily’s decadence was reinforced in the text with the repetition of the expression “Poor Emily”. People didn’t see her as “Emily” anymore. They saw her as “Poor Emily”, almost as if “Poor” were her first name…
Also, we know so little about Emily that it gets difficult to “picture” her. The only part of the text which allowed me to figure out her personality (for a moment) was the dialogue between her and the druggist, when she wanted to buy poison. She kept interrupting him, demonstrating that it didn’t matter what kind of poison he would give to her. As I’ve just said, I had figured out her personality FOR A MOMENT. It didn’t last long. It seemed to me that she was in such a “strange” hurry that I was quite surprised that she didn’t swallow the arsenic in front of him! She was not predictable, so it turns out that I still don’t know Emily very well…
According to The Gotesque: an american genre:”The grotesque is not the sole form expressing the nature of modern man, but it is a widely prevalent form. In america it has clear antecedents in Edgar Allan Poe; it has antecedents in the Literary Naturalists, Crane, Norris, London, and in those other protestants against the genteel mind, Edgar Saltus and Ambrose Bierce” The grotesque has been seen everywhere in American life and fiction, and beyond them. As we could see in the text and as everybody said there is no doubt about “the more significante sources of the grotesque in most of their stories are well below the level of social and political injustice.”
Yeah Leandro, well said. The repetition of this expression (”Poor Emily”) just emphasizes the fact she is a very downtrodden woman.
And also, what a predictable plot!! Hehehehe. “And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron”. Damn! It’s a strange, macabre SS, but there’s no mystery…The “stinking situation” was solved with no complications.
About the “Grotesque”, I noticed she is not a townsfolk anymore. Her state is something apart from it.
She has nobody, nor even the Negro can be considered a friend, he just obeys her blindly.
No more privilegy nor status. She was totally dependant of her father. And by the time he passed away, she lost contact with the real world. Her house was rotting and started gaining some extra weight.
She died alone and lost, no hopes, no future, just like a real grotesque character.
Stupid emoticon…I didn’t want to add it.
Hi. Well, I feel like I don’t have anything interes to add too…
I just wanna comment about the parts of the text that the author refers to the people who knew Emily. They behave like ravens, just waiting for what would be next step in her life and hope with longing for her death. They are not interested in her person, but in her grotesqueness (is that a word?), as she was a circus character or something like that. The author says they wish she finds love and marries, but all the people want, deep down, is to snoop on her affairs. If she gets married, then they would be allowed to get closer, to visit her house, to know her habits etc. I believe this behaviour is quite similar to what we see today concerning celebrities. The so called fans don’t have personal interest, just some morbid curiosity and the urge for intrudeness.
I couldn’t agree more with Pedro’s comment. Emily symbolizes a past that was forgotten and dead a long time ago. However, the old institutions which represent it, are still worth of respect and notice. It is fully understandable, as it usually takes a few generations for people “bury” old values and traditions.
We feel Emily has a great respect by her past. We can particularly notice it when she refuses to bury her father’s dead body for 3 entire days. Even though he oppressed her, he represented a link to a safe and familiar environment and it seemed more comfortable to keep it-even though it was not a good environment- than trying to fight for something new. It reminds me of the Portuguese expression “zona de conforto”. On the other hand, the city dwellers also respected her, as a link of something they knew well, even though it was decadent and dead a long time ago, which was the old Southern values. One of the symbols which convey such old aristocratic values from Southern US based on slavery, strict moral values and a society divided in rigid social classes is her negro servant.
In addition, this SS makes me come to the conclusion that moral and social values are only powerful whilst there are people who reinforce it and act according to their rules. Once the society changes, people change their attitudes towards life and it means that the old abandoned values become odd, as odd as dear old Emily. And then they die, just like a lonely and forgotten person does. Of course there are always people who resist to changes. But them they’ll gradually be apart from society as time goes by and be seen as individuals unable to make a connection with a more ”modern” world.
Is there anything left to say about this short story?
I reckon theres not, but anyway…
As Barbara said, the South rules! Relating this short story with the grotesque is something which has a lot to do with the fact that it comes from the South. The grotesque is a non-hypocrite way of seeing ourselves and understanding our human nature. For me, Emily represents this nature. A figure that makes us curious and at the same time is extremely odd. Emily is the dark (or real) side of our spirit.
Cheers.
There is a passage from “The Grotesque: An American Genre” which asserts that “the grotesque affronts our sense of established order”. That is what Emily seems to represent.
She was a representative element of the decadent past that clashed with the new generation, the new established order. Through Emily´s character – a tragi-comic one – we are invited to reflect on what is established by the bourgeoisie world.
“Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town”. She was “a tradition” because she reminded people of their past. She could stand not only for the idea of something decadent – “a fallen monument” – but simply for their past. The past that people from that town should not forget. Then, that is why she was seen as a duty and a care as well. Once they were bound to her somehow, they were in a way pushed into remembering about their past.
Moreover, we may think of some other issues. Emily did not accept the idea that she had to pay the taxes. She could not accept burying her father. She could not accept facing the townspeople. So, she could not accept the new reality. She was an odd element then. Finally, we have come to realize that she could not accept been deserted. Thus, the consequence of this last denial was a murder and then a bad smell. But what was “smelling bad”? Just the corpse? Or was this a metaphor – the grotesque – to convey a criticism on that reality?
I completely agree with Paula’s comments. Miss Emily is respected by everyone because she represents the past. She represents the remaining past of that city.
When her father died, she could not accept because then she was going to be alone. She had never accepted her loneliness. Maybe she had a dream or an obsession of being married in order not to be alone..
And when she is dead, it was as if “a fallen monument” had “gone” away. This monument that represented the past, another generation, other customs and habits.
Her odd attitudes are related to the grotesque; something that is not expected to happen. There is one sentence from the text of the grotesque that explains that: “Man is an inextricable tangle of rationality, irrationality, love and hatred, self-improvement and self-destruction. He appears caught in his own biological nature.” That is Miss Emily, caught on her profound biological nature.
As most of our blogmates had mentioned, Emily was reluctant to accept everything that was different from her own beliefs, and in consequence to face reality around her, and as a grotesque character, she was rather strange. She represents the South and its refusal to accept modernity; that is, the bourgeoisie values.
There are some definitions of grotesque characters that we can find in the text “The Grotesque” and we can relate them to Emily:
- “In most of the stories the protagonists suffer from an inability to communicate,. To express their affections and be loved in return, or to fulfill themselves creatively. (p.7)
- “Others suffer from frustrated affections, inability to communicate their feelings, or to express their creative impulses.” (p.8)
- “On the other hand the possibility of normality seems always present.” (p.8)
- They know no sense of direction or purpose in their lives. They have no meaning in life. Their life is empty.
- “They make no effort to escape, as though in some dark recess of their minds was a determination to enjoy their own destruction.” (p.10)
- “For the modern creator of the grotesque, man is an inextricable tangle of rationality, irrationality, love and hatred, self-improvement and self-destruction. He appears caught in his own biological nature.” (p.18)
Jorgeane mentioned about the story going back and forth in time. It made me think about it… Although this is a SS and it is expected to be about just a moment in time, like a “picture”, we have the narrator telling those episodes in her life. Well.. it made possible for us to get to know different moments. And all of them was marked by extremely loneliness, it was always the same. It made me think about it and feel pity for her… I mean.. different episodes and a whole life being all alone…
Thinking about the title… No matter how hard she refused progress, she, as a symbol of the past, ended up dying; and there is nothing left to do, but living a rose for her, maybe meaning by this that the past has definitely gone…
Well instead of these emoticons it should be writen the number “8″… rsrsrsrs
Sorry…..
Once again, you did very well! The most important aspect to consider is this contrast between the modern industrialized north and the old decadent south. Congratulations to those who saw Emily as the personification of the old south the way it is described in the text “O Velho Sul” – which you should read, by the way…
Carla, I am going to submit a comment based on what you have said about the most important aspect that we should have in mind when reading this short story.
At the very first moment, I could not see that Ms. Emily represents the decadent south. But then I remembered that you have told us not to be naive when reading a story or anything else. And then I realized Ms. Emily really represents the old south through her odd attitudes and personality.
But for me, the main focus would be related to the idea of the grotesque and the real nature of man with all sorts of feelings in a mixture. This is also a relevant aspect to consider, is not it?
And just to make myself clear, I would like to highlight that this idea of the grotesque as the main focus was my point of view, ok?
I do not know if I have made myself clear… I hope so!
If there’s anything wrong, tell us!
Two comments called my attention in this topic: the one from Luciana (number 29), with her metaphor of the smell, and the other one from Bárbara (number 11), with the metaphor of the North, represented by the dead fiancé “invading” the South, represented by Emily. Great interpretations, I really liked them!
About the grotesque: what could be more grotesque than to keep the body of the fiancé that you murdered in a bedroom and to have the habit to lie down beside him???
Well, if this is not grotesque, I don’t know what else is…
The grotesque and this SS made me remember the Dark Romanticism.It deals with all the subjects presented in the story: death, decay,loneliness…it shows the real man without the illusion of perfection…a man full of sin because it makes part of his nature,it’s not like a choice, it’s a part…
The story was that a woman who had problems with her past, with her upbringing,with other people and was just a fruit of everything she lived…
It was the only SS I didn’t like so far.Terrible and unpredictable this story!
Comments for this post are closed. This post is saved for consulting only. Any new comments will be discarded.