Re: Who wants to go on a Southern Lit bender?
Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2011 7:07 pm
I have to apologize for starting this thread and then disappearing. Real life has been getting in the way.
I have always loved this story mostly for its macabre and gothic elements. It features a creepy old lady, living as a recluse, who is the subject of much gossip. The decayed corpse, Emily’s aloofness and secretive life, etc. Great gloomy atmosphere. Emily's house is an imposing decrepit house that represents the old south out of place within the reconstruction era of the new south: ". . . only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps—an eyesore among eyesores."
What I admire most now perhaps is the story's structure. It starts with a summary of Emily Grierson’s death from the unnamed narrator's POV and jumps around chronologically. Faulkner achieves quite a bit of suspense by holding back certain details from the reader. When we learn of the smell, we don't really put two and two together until later in the story.
And then that final detail, the long strand of iron-gray hair on the pillow, so there's a bit of a shocking twist at the end.
I like Giselle's observation that Miss Emily's upbringing seems to make it difficult for her future relationships with men. Her upbringing seems to have isolated her from the New South residents of the town and she ends up choosing Homer Barron--essentially a carpetbagger from the north. When that relationship apparently goes sour she murders him.
I love her condescending attitude towards the men who come to collect taxes. "I have no taxes in Jefferson." And somehow they put up with her, treat her as a fallen monument.
I have always loved this story mostly for its macabre and gothic elements. It features a creepy old lady, living as a recluse, who is the subject of much gossip. The decayed corpse, Emily’s aloofness and secretive life, etc. Great gloomy atmosphere. Emily's house is an imposing decrepit house that represents the old south out of place within the reconstruction era of the new south: ". . . only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps—an eyesore among eyesores."
What I admire most now perhaps is the story's structure. It starts with a summary of Emily Grierson’s death from the unnamed narrator's POV and jumps around chronologically. Faulkner achieves quite a bit of suspense by holding back certain details from the reader. When we learn of the smell, we don't really put two and two together until later in the story.
And then that final detail, the long strand of iron-gray hair on the pillow, so there's a bit of a shocking twist at the end.
I like Giselle's observation that Miss Emily's upbringing seems to make it difficult for her future relationships with men. Her upbringing seems to have isolated her from the New South residents of the town and she ends up choosing Homer Barron--essentially a carpetbagger from the north. When that relationship apparently goes sour she murders him.
I love her condescending attitude towards the men who come to collect taxes. "I have no taxes in Jefferson." And somehow they put up with her, treat her as a fallen monument.