For those who are interested, the e-text is available:
http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/English_Li...ext-E-Rose.htm
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For those who are interested, the e-text is available:
http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/English_Li...ext-E-Rose.htm
Funny that one of the reasons I began looking for a literature forum to join was this story and on my second day here I see this thread. :thumbs_up
I recently took a community college level literary interpretation class. Part of the class was a discussion of theme and motif in short stories. This story really helped me to understand those concepts - most likely because they are so easy to see in every part of the story.
On another note, I never really gave Faulkner much attention in the past. For some reason I just did not get to him. After reading this story my attitude has changed.
There are a few comments about the story that I would like to make but for now I want to hold off and see what direction the thread goes in. Thanks for starting it.
I was the poster who asked about opinions, because it is mentioned here in the forum three or four times in one week, so I thought there must be something special about it.
I have read the story, well, for I know who is Faulkner and love him, I cant say it is medocre but however didn't hit(impress) me much. Story somehow predictable and not very special/poetic proses.
So I prefer to be a reader here more than poster, at least for now, I would like to see the details of the story. And I will try to read it in English now, hope I can.
Oh I would like to also if you can give me some time to read it.
I'll take a stab at it. The story is silly and unrealistic. It's got all of the grotesque shock value of a Poe story, but none of the charm. I really liked his stories in Go Down, Moses better. Now there is some beautiful writing.
Emily reminds me of Miss Havisham from Dickens Great Expectations. I wonder if that's where Faulkner got his ideas or if he thought them up himself. Either way, the characters and their behavior are pure camp.
I'll read it over the weekend. Can we start discussion on Monday?
I didn't want to spoil the story for people who hadn't read it yet; so I held back and didn't get specific.Quote:
Originally Posted by Antiquarian
You and I just come to literature expecting different things Antie. I love Hemingway, but can't stand Dickens, Proust, Austen, and Morrison, whereas with you all of that is reversed. This is an interesting case where we both like an author, Faulkner, but for different stories and for different reasons. I find those differences refreshing.
The first story "Was" from his Go Down, Moses is one of my favorite stories, because I feel drawn to some of the masculine attitudes in it. I also deeply enjoyed "The Bear" because it was about a bunch of guys hunting. I suspect that what draws you to Rose might be some of the feminine aspects of the piece, although I could be wrong.
I know it's one of his most popular stories academically, but I think that the academics frequently teach the modernist movement all wrong. I also didn't care for "Barn Burning" another popular Faulkner short story, but for different reasons. I thought the ending was wrong, and I didn't believe that the boy should have ratted out his pop.
I own copies of The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Absalom, Absalom; but the openings don't strike me, and I've never read them all the way through. I've had more success with his short fiction. I like his style and his diction, but I often have trouble getting into his characters. I also think that he prized experimentation and originality a little too highly, which led him into all types of excesses such as his endless run on sentences.
I've heard that he would sometimes compromise his work, especially his short stories, writing in a popular commercial style when he needed the money. I'm not sure if he wrote Rose that way or not, but I know that sometimes the characterization seems a little thin, and the people don't act in a way that I would describe as rational. I'm also not a fan of stories that end in twists. That strikes me as trickery, as does melodrama, which aims to manipulate it's audience. The extreme always makes an impression, but it usually doesn't leave a lot of room for subtlety or nuance. I don't want to go into more detail until everyone has had a chance to read the story, but I will later.
I read it about a year or so ago and it just didn't make an impression on me one way or the other. Now I'm intrigued. "Genuine masterpiece" is a pretty bold statement.
Okay, Monday. I'll find some time this weekend to read it again.
Faulkner is by far my alltime favorite author. However, I didn't particularly like A Rose for Emily, but I didn't hate it. IMO, it has faults, but there is still some Faulkner-ian concepts and styles there. I will admit that there are better Faulkner short stories.
This strikes me because those three novels are somewhere in my top ten favorite novels ever. I can understand your complaint about the long sentences, but it helps to think of Faulkner as a painter versus a writer, and you are standing very very close to the painting. Eventually, he zooms out a little and you can see what he's describing. It's quite magical once you get the hang of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
And his characters are probably what appeal to me most of all. Henry Sutpen and Quentin Compson are...oh God, incredible. I actually decided to read Absalom! Absalom! because I heard Quentin helped narrate it, and then I discovered Henry Sutpen. Quite honestly they are my two favorite characters in all literature. But you DO have to get past the first part of The Sound and the Fury (Benji, very difficult few pages). And I can understand someone calling the beginning of Absalom "slow." But if you ever try again, these are some few things to bear in mind, and they both get incredibly engaging.
I will back Anti here because Faulkner openly admitted that the only literature he ever wrote for money was Sanctuary. But I understand what you mean. A Rose for Emily came off, IMO, and considerably dryer than most of his works, and I found very little to which I could relate in the characters there. But the work itself I enjoyed while I didn't love it. More details later.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
Has anyone read the obscure short story "Crevasse"?
I always love it when people claim a story is "unrealistic." Really? This story is unrealistic? Okay. But you know what else is unrealistic? A female astronaut driving cross-country in a diaper to murder her boyfriend's other lover. Or a pervert, pot-smoking, Austrian bodybuilder winning California's gubernatorial seat while his face is still plastered on posters across the country for Terminator III. Those are unrealistic. So is "A Rose for Emily" that far fetched? Yes it is. But many many stranger things have happened than this story's plot.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
Besides, "unrealistic" stories are usually the most interesting. Why write about the mundane when you can write about the truly remarkable? Like Antiquarian said, everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but I'll take "unrealistic" authors like Shirley Jackson and Ishmael Reed over writers like Hemingway and James any day of the week.
I look forward to really opening up the conversation on Monday.
Tolstoy peopled War and Peace, and Anna Karenina with interesting, believable, well developed characters who acted in remarkably dramatic ways, while still keeping their behavior within societal norms. The genius of a Tolstoy, or a Flaubert, is that you come to understand the characters, their motivations and their psyche, and imagine that under similar circumstances you might have done the same things that they did.Quote:
Originally Posted by HotKarl
You raise a good point. Freaks make for good spectacles, and given a choice, I'd rather read about blood thirsty cannibals than a man who worked at Lens Crafters. However, I expect a little restraint and subtlety from my authors. I expect them to take a middle ground. There are other ways to reach those highly taught dramatic situations with the same level of energy as those over the top explosive indulgences so common to pulp fiction.
To me, a man who has to watch his son die of Leukemia is as dramatic a situation as one in which the same man throws his child in front of a bus. The first situation has a universal significance which the other lacks. It's also easier to empathize with an ordinary person, or at least some non-psychopath, who's been thrust into an unusual set of circumstances.
Faulkner has to lay a lot of ground work for the reader to swallow his rather sizable pill, and to a certain extent, I think he succeeds. However, if I did not object to the style, I would still need to raise concerns over his subject matter. I don't find it reprehensible on a moral level, but it does seem tawdry. Faulkner is a great author, and I think he should have challenged himself with a more complex subject.
This kind of story, while interesting, is to real substantive writing, what sugar candy is to a full nutritious meal. What does it teach us about people? What does it tell us about ourselves? I came away from this story thinking to myself, "Well that was kind of weird." And then I hardly thought of it again. Although, to be perfectly honest, I do enjoy a few sensational short stories. The Cask of Amontillado, and The Call of Cthulhu do hold a special place in my heart. There's probably something to the "weird" which resonates deep inside of humanity. Lovecraft wrote a whole book about that called Supernatural Horror in Literature, which I've been meaning to read.
I just don't think of Faulkner in those terms, and so I tend to apply a realist criterion to his work. His world, as much as it is his, for the most part is also ours. It's located in a specific time, in a specific place, and living in the United States that culture is our heritage; so we can be reasonably perceptive about what is and is not out of place for the society he's writing about. The gallantry of the antebellum South is historic and much mythologized, yet the characters that populate this story seem to take this trait to absurd lengths. They strike almost as odd a pose as Emily herself. I'm not sure if Faulkner is being sincere or if he expects us to laugh at them. Maybe, I'm just looking at it wrong and this story isn't supposed to be straight fiction. If so, then I'm open to suggestions about a more proper way to read it.
Yes, the subject is tawdry, but it fits perfectly in the southern gothic genre (I'd love to explain this further, but it'll have to wait until Monday out of respect for our fellow forum patrons).
I agree with you that there is a certain elegance in showing character motivation through logic and realism. Those novels you listed are obviously some of the greatest literature ever penned. But I would also add that it takes extreme detail, structure, characterization, and talent to pull off a well-written realistic novel.
But I also think many people who read literature are often over-eager to dismiss flat and static characters as inferior and indicative of bad writing. I wish people wouldn't fall into that trap. Many great novels have been written that are chock full of flat characters:Slaughter House Five, The Robber Bridegroom, The Crying of Lot 49, Being There. I would also add that the short story, due to obvious constraints, relies heavily on static and flat characters. And there's a reason these works have so many flat characters; life is full of flat characters. Can you really tell me that someone like Paris Hilton isn't a flat character? John Madden? George W. Bush?
Sometimes there isn't any motivation behind a person's action--it's simply a mystery. For example, once a friend and I were in a hotel lobby when a bellhop wheeled a luggage cart right next to us. After the hop walked away, my friend ran and jumped onto the cart, sending it and himself flying across the room and crashing into a wall. The hotel manager was none too pleased and asked us to leave. After we were gone, I asked my friend why he did it. His reply? "I don't know. I just did it." My point? Sometimes there is no thought behind our actions. Just ask any teenager.
And that's my problem with much of realistic literature. It wants to make everyone a fully cognate, logical being. And only a select few are. It seems to me that sometimes realism isn't realistic.
Okey, I ll keep silence till monday on story, but one thing I want to say.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
I know many writers who write their book in need of money, or to keep a promise(to a publisher mostly) etc; but again produce many masterpieces. At least I am sure of Poe and Dostoyevski... Balzac said write a novel in few weeks as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Antiquarian
Perhaps statistically you are right(if we -can- measure it), a book written in years may be in higher quality than a book written in weeks, but this is not a "always correct" case.
Need I remind people that William Shakespeare became very wealthy from his plays and consciously wrote for what was popular. It doesn't matter if a work was made to make money or not. The only criteria is whether the work is good or not.
Yes, Virgil's point is excellent. This idea that great works and money-making works are somehow mutually exclusive is a problem for me. It has a whiff of contempt for society that I find unattractive, as though the "masses" (those we look down our noses at) can't appreciate greatness and one can only make money by selling out and providing them garbage. I know people who won't read anything "popular" because popular must be low quality. Arrogant nonsense.
"To me it is a cheap idea, because it was deliberately conceived to make money. ... I took a little time out, and speculated what a person in Mississippi would believe to be current trends, chose what I thought would be the right answer and invented the most horrific tale I could imagine and wrote it in about three weeks..."- William Faulkner in his Introduction to the 1932 edition of Sanctuary
There's such a thing as writing to make a living, but it's quite another to compromise your artistic integrity and produce work you recognize as sub par. For his part, Faulkner owned up to what he tried to do, and I think his remarks are telling. The work isn't bad because it makes money, or because it's popular. It's bad because no effort went into it's crafting, the artist didn't believe in it, and so he deliberately sabotaged himself by not developing things and making the work as good as it possibly could be.
I found the same quote in a New York Times article titledQuote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
"FAULKNER WAS WRONG ABOUT 'SANCTUARY'"
You can find it here: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...=&pagewanted=1
The article goes on to say:
Faulkner was so discouraged that he didn't even ask Smith to return the manuscript. When the novel was published by Cape & Smith in 1931, and then reprinted in the Modern Library, Faulkner's introduction set the tone for critical evaluations during the next 30 years. Being a ''cheap idea'' hastily executed to make money, ''Sanctuary'' could be brushed aside. Critics and readers didn't suspect that Faulkner mightn't be telling the complete truth about it, given his early passion for astounding the public. As Noel Polk, a Faulkner scholar and an assistant professor of English at the University of Southern Mississippi, reminds us in his afterword to the present edition, even the original text wasn't written in ''about three weeks'' but in four months - from January to May 1929 - with painstaking revisions.
I added the bold. This is the arrogance of which I speak. Critics had their minds made up about it even before they left the introduction. They believed Faulkner when he said he “speculated what a person in Mississippi would believe...” And of course we musn’t go in for the same things that the average person in Mississipi would go in for...
Meanwhile, I think we’re taking Antiquarian’s thread off topic. (But what else are we to talk about until Monday?)
Then let it go off topic. They aren't discussing Rose until Monday, and last I checked, we are in a literary forum. I had more remarks I wanted to add to my post anyway:
On it's face, the question is not even about whether the author believed that his own work was good or not. History is replete with artists who were mistaken about the relative value of their work. The main concern seems to be the way in which integrity is tied to quality. Can a good writer compromise his artistic principles and create a work of genius? Furthermore, can a great writer compromise his work without compromising himself?
When he sets himself before a typewriter, a keyboard, or takes pen in hand, it is assumed that the writer has already made certain decisions about his work. With most writers of merit, we assume that he has decided to write a great work of literature, or at least that he has determined to write something to the best of his abilities. The prologue to any work is a series of assumptions the writer makes about himself, his audience, and the work he's preparing to make. The optimal condition, in such cases, is for the writer to believe that he is a good writer, that he's writing for an intelligent, receptive, well educated audience, and that his story will be a masterpiece. Concerns beyond this, have a way of intruding upon the work, often to detrimental effect. When the author begins to doubt first the one, then the other, you have a serious crisis on your hands. The mark is lowered. Your hypothetical writer has stopped trying to write well and started writing well enough. Once a man has lowered his expectations, mayn't he lower them yet again, and still further subsequently? And again, why should he make the assumption that there is more money to be made by lowering his standards, by diminishing his powers, than could be made by raising them?
Let's consider the possibility that Sanctuary is a good piece of writing despite whatever Faulkner himself might have thought about it. I mentioned briefly above, that authors are often mistaken about which of their works will be the most enduring, or will have the most merit. But was he at least trying to make it as good a book as it could be made? This opens up the question of effort and intent. Great writers do write bad books, which they intend to be good. Could they also write great books which they intend to be bad? Is it all a crap shoot? Can bad writers write great literature, and can God create a rock so big even he could not lift it? I want to say that only great writers can write great literature, that they possess some spark, or specialized knowledge which other lesser authors simply do not possess. But I know that's not true. We have the example readily before us of any number of one hit wonders who create a single superlative work and then vanish into mediocrity forever, or even of astonishing virtuosos who never fulfill their potential. The difference between one of these geniuses and the men of a solitary book seems to be professionalism, the ability to reproduce a previous success, to properly interpret the factors that made their initial effort successful, the proper critical judgement of a work of art. Every dog has his day, but a genius has a career.
Be that as it may, whether a good writer can write below his ability or a bad writer can write above it still does not get to the heart of what we are discussing. Whatever their level of ability, or their capacity to reproduce those results on command does not satisfy the initial question relative to effort. Masterpieces have been tossed off, or labored forth in difficult birth of toil, effort, and length of days. But we must beg the question, what kind of writers pour forth streams of effortless majesty, and what type must slavishly grind to uncover a solitary gem? I believe that the reason some efforts are less taxing is because the authors have already spent their time in preparation. They've written dozens of books and covered much of the ground they are seeking to cover before. Or they've already worked out much of what they were going to do in their minds. I do not believe that a person unaccustomed to greatness and success could be so fortuitous as to stumble upon literary gold all at once, through accident, and without much striving beforehand. When an author rapidly develops a treasure, he does so with the weight of experience behind him. A mediocre writer has nothing but mediocre experience behind him, and so if he seeks to attain the heights of Olympus he must first scale it's lofty peeks. But enough metaphors. Can a writer create a work of genius in spite of himself, à la The Producers? Now that I really don't know.
As far as Sanctuary is concerned, Faulkner seems to have realized the danger he was in, bought back the manuscript and rewritten it. Whether he ever tried such a stunt again, or recovered from his lapse is for Faulkner scholars to decide.
P.S. What a bonehead I am. I forgot to address the primary motivating factors of mankind (money, power, fame, and pleasure), how they compete, and the differing results they produce. Well, I guess I'll leave that to some other occasion.
Whether Faulkner's judgement of the American audience was correct is another thing worth wondering about. When the Portable Faulkner came out in 1946, fifteen years later, Sanctuary was the only one of his books still in print. The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom, As I Lay Dying, and Light in August had all been relegated to the bargain bin of your local used bookstore. How much does the reversal of critical opinion owe to his winning the Nobel Prize in 1949? Now, it's like he can do no wrong, or he never wrote a lousy word.
We make false idols of these men, and pretend their works shouldn't be read with the same critical appraisals as we would give to other books by other writers. I suggest that Proust had some problems with plot, pacing, and narrative setting and people jump all over me. They can't accept that their favorite books could be anything less than perfect, or that their favorite artist wrote anything less than a masterpiece. There is the fallacy. They stop looking at the books critically, accepting either the common opinion or their own hasty judgement as a substitute for reason, continued observation, and an open mind.
In regards to an earlier poster who mentioned that Balzac wrote extremely fast, I have to agree that some of Balzacs books are excellent, with the caveat that we only read three or four of them these days. I'm guessing that about seventy of them were probably worthless garbage and another twenty or so ran the gamut from good to alright. He wrote an awful lot of books without much effort in the hope that one or two of them would stick in the public consciousness. Then you have writers like T.S. Eliot or Ernest Hemingway who produce extremely few works but of a higher quality. Scientists actually have term for this kind of behavior as it exists in nature. It's called r/K selection theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-selection
Excellent posts. And I don’t see much I would disagree with, mortalterror. My interest is specifically in “Faulkner’s judgment of the American audience” and I would just emphasize that his second sin, assuming his first was to compromise something of his artistic integrity and lower his expectations of himself, was to make the assumption that doing so was the quick way to gain a popular market for his work. That assumption is what drove the lowering, and I would argue that that mindset is the more egregious offense of the two.
Admittedly I know little about Faulkner and so I’m probably out of line in making my own assumptions about the man’s assumptions. As you say, he caught himself in time and rewrote the manuscript. One wonders, though, if he did so as a result of rethinking his opinion of the typical American reader.
How do we know this? How do we know what the "artistic visions" are of today's writers? How do we know that their artistic visions are not what they are putting in print? And how do we know that their artistic visions do not match what the typical reader enjoys reading?Quote:
Originally Posted by Antiquarian
Kay Scarpetta might not embody Cornwell’s "unique vision of life" but she may well be Cornwell’s artistic vision. I can’t say for sure that these "formula" writers, as you suggest them to be, have a vision beyond what they are actually writing. Do we know, in other words, that they have some kind of artistic inclinations which they are willingly sacrificing to make money, as is the underlying assumption? Maybe they do, but I don’t know how we’d know that. It seems – and this is where I bristle – that we don’t find their work "artistic" enough to our liking (notwithstanding what the general population feels about it or, worse, because of what the general population feels about it) and so we presume they must be forfeiting their "integrity."
I think in the end the most we can say is that these people don’t share our artistic vision.
I know I'm probably a bit behind here, cuz I just started reading it today. I'll hopefully join in tomorrow. I just wanna say that so far it's a very good read. I think Faulkner's style is not as difficult as people say, but maybe it's just cuz it's only a short story. I never tried reading a whole novel by him, but this should be a good start for more Faulkner reads :D
The problem is not that they lack originality and base their writing on a form. Some of the best stuff gets written that way: The Aeneid, Paradise Lost, Jerusalem Delivered, The Lusiads. And it's not that they re-use themes or popular characters: Don Quixote, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Sherlock Holmes. It's that the models they base their work on are poor models in themselves.
I think that the major problem facing novelists today is that they don't have a proper form. Tradition gives direction and can inform a work in many ways. Anyone who's played a modern video game will understand the difference between sandbox gameplay, free form, and games which are "on rails" carefully regulated, restricted design. There's a lot of latitude in between the two which doesn't often get explored. Personally, I am deeply troubled by the amount of preference creative people show toward sandbox style writing. The novel is often such a formless mass it's hard to tell what it is trying to do.
Dante's Divine Comedy is 100 cantos, 33 cantos a book, with one canto introduction. The story is told in three books in terza (three) rima. The form re-inforces the tri-part nature of God (the father, the son, and the holy spirit) which is a major theme in the poem. I personally love that Jame Joyce structured Ulysses on Homer's Odyssey. I think there's a lot to be said for the well-made novel, and Scribe's well-made play. Plotting is perhaps the single most important element of a story and we neglect it at our peril.
Henry James once lamented that although Tolstoy's writing was good, his novels were like "loose baggy monsters." Nobody could say that about James Patterson. He does economize on his words. His sentences, paragraphs, and chapters are all short, which many people like. It zips the narrative along, keeps readers turning pages, creates a light energetic tone, and doesn't demand too much thought from his audience. There are a lot of things he does well. His problem is that he started life in marketing, and now he sees the novel as another product to be manufactured assembly line style, focus grouped, sensationalized, dumbed down, farmed out to other writers, ghost written, mass produced, and then sold in lavish ad campaigns.
I don't know what form Stephen King could be said to follow and I don't think that he repeats his characters. I would say that as opposed to Patterson King actually shows some traces of betrayed talent and a questioning mind. His cast of artistic misdeeds follow a wholly different arc than those of Patterson and we should be careful about lumping them in together. However, the place where he's distinguished himself and perhaps his true calling is in business. I couldn't say too much about the rest Antiquarian's rogues gallery but I doubt it would be terribly informative if I could; so I'll just shut up.
Actuaoly Nossa this will be an excellent place for you to start on Faulkner.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nossa
As to the other discussion, history is filled with great writing that is popular or unpopular in its day, history is filled with writers who wrote for money or worte for themselves. Actually other than poets, I can't think of a single fiction writer that did not intend to write for money. It makes no difference to the writing's value as art. Don Quixote was sold for lots of money. Cervantes considered himself a playwright first, but was not able to earn a living, so he decided to write something that would be popular and make money. Shakespeare constantly picks up stories that were popular. In fact he was not the first to write a Hamlet type of play or Julius Ceasar or many other. He knew what his audience was interested in and he satisfied them. As to Sanctuary, yes Faulkner wrote it in a popular/sensationalistic way for money. And he was criticized for it and the work was not rated highly at first. However, literature is constantly going under revision and now that critics have gotten distance from the time it was written have upward rated Santuary. Despite its sensational scenes it is considered a fine work today by many Faulkner scholars. As to sensationalism, give me a break. No one was more sensational than Shakespeare. Actually Faulkner's model was Shakespeare.
waiting for tomorrow to see what is special about this short story
i didn't find it that unique to cause all this fuss. too eager for Monday
Well, I am waiting too, and I think Australian's are ready to start !Quote:
Originally Posted by HerGuardian
Wow, Antiquarian...I didn't know you started this thread. How did I miss it? I read this story recently at your suggestion, so I am sure I can comment some on it, even if briefly, because I am a bit too busy right now with the other threads, to add on more; so sorry. Good for you,
A starting this new thread and short story - great! Will be interesting to me to see what other people say. I may just be a spectator on this thread - is that ok?
...Well its practically Monday, shy a couple of hours.
I really don't know what you see in it Antiquarian, my first impression on finishing it (a few minutes ago) was "so what?", its bland and pointless.
I don't really know what else to say about it because it has so little going on, there is one simple and predictable plot thread that goes out with a whimper, so what if the woman was lonely and a little crazy, what do we care? the story doesn't give us any reason to care.
Perhaps I'm missing a whole other level of meaning here, I'll anticipate other peoples views.
A thread now I see. As I PM'd you last week I think I read it because of your high regard for it. I liked it more for the surrounding mystery of it and speculations and WAS NOT expecting thesecret to be what it was. By the by I had picked up the caretaker makig a quiet getaway. I vaguely remember reading a Faulkner short story in junior high English call but all I remmber is a little brother thinking about his older sibling going off to war and feeling how stiff his back was. That impression never wore off because my brother would have clobbered me if I touched him and for THAT silly reson disdained the story--can't remember the title. There was of course The Long Hot Summer (movie) and TV show no one recalls (Roy Thinnes). And that's my entire experience thus far. But curiousity has paid off before. We shall see. A thmbs up to showing me this little gem. But I still like Dave Keller's A Piece of Linoleum better.
I have to agree somewhat with Dapper, the whole beginning of the story built on the fact that she as "a little off" so the end is no surprise. We never got close enough to Emily to even care, it as like we were looking at here through a window.Quote:
Originally Posted by DapperDrake
I do like the story though, it's very southern.
I'll let Antiquarian take the lead in starting the discussion. But let me say i enjoyed the story very much, and as we get into it I hope to point out much of the craft that went into the story. It is finely crafted. It's a credit to Faulkner that he can write a gothic story line such as this and frankly make it so believable that it's within the realm of possibilty. I almost can believe it really occurring. :alien: :)
Yes I thought a lot about the narrator since reading it yesterday for the second time. What occurred to me that didn’t occur to me on the first reading was that the story seems more character sketch than anything else. Not about Miss Emily or any other specific character, but about the town itself. And telling it first person from a town representative made for a very effective way to fill in the sketch. “We thought” this and “we did” that seemed like the town itself speaking. And so we have a picture of a small, southern town. Interesting. And a good story to boot. But that’s as far as it reached for me. I do appreciate the craft.Quote:
Originally Posted by antiquarian
Actually that may be only one of the cores to the story. I took the core to be the contrast between the social constraits and Emily's individual desires. That's why the choice of narrator is so important. And like Chester I think implies the narrator is not just a person but the town itself. The story is told through the point of view of the town. The social constraints are imposed on her, both from the father and the town. Perhaps it may be the very same thing. I don't think we're privy enough to the father's issues (it is a short story, but amazing how much Faulkner puts into this little gem!) but they may parallel the town's issues. So we may be saying the same thing. Also there is a generational gap between the values of her father's and the current town. So perhaps there is a distinction between the father's constraints and the town's constraints.Quote:
Originally Posted by Antiquarian
It's magnificently done. If anyone thinks they could do this in five pages please show me. I'm not sure if I can think of a single short story with this complexity in five pages.Quote:
I think some posters might have had a "so what?" attitude toward the story because of Faulkner's superlative craft. He sets up the ending so marvelously and seemlessly that it really comes as no surprise that Miss Emily did what she did. Rather than be disgusted, most readers think, "Yes, I can see Emily Grierson doing that." And instead of seeing the marvelous craft that went into the writing of the story, they think, "Well, so what?" But that's exactly how a story that's perfectly constructed should end, with the reader being convinced that the character could well have done what he did.
I'll have to read it again for point of view shifts. I thought it was told pretty much through a vague member of town. The narrator keeps saying "we" and perhaps that implies a different member of town seeing various parts of the story and then they coming together to interweave the parts they observed. Magnificent!! I've seen Faulkner do this in places in his novels, but to do that in a five page story is incredible craft. The time shifts also work perfectly to get the maximum out of the story. If you like, I can untangle the time shifts tonight when I get home and have more time.Quote:
I think Faulkner uses two sophisticated literary techniques to make this story intriguing and also make it ring true: the fact that it's non-linear and the fact that the nameless narrator shifts his/her point-of-view from one character to another. I wonder if any of the posters who didn't like the story even wondered who the nameless narrator of the story was. Faulkner never lets us know and I don't think, in his personal writings, he ever gave any indication of it.
There a slew of contrasts throughout the story. The approach is extremely dualistic: black/white, individual/society, older/younger generation, father/child, life/death, union/confederate, babtist/episcapal, north/south, man/woman, youth/age. I believe there is thematic significance to the dualities. But let me hold off on that for now.Quote:
All though the story, there's a contrast between the past, in which Miss Emily lived, and the present.
The story then returns to complete a circle. I'm not sure if that has any significance. I haven't come to any conclusion on that. I'm open to thoughts. I actually see the power of the story's events as coming from its linear trajectory, despite it's tangled time shifts.Quote:
When the story opens, Miss Emily's funeral is being held in her own house, and the whole town attends, not because they were close to Miss Emily, but because the men want to pay their respect to a woman they considered a "real Southern lady," the women out of curiosity about her house. And the house is as decayed as Miss Emily was, instead of being a great Southern mansion as it once was, it's falling apart, a remnant of the Old South. It's described as having "stubborn and coquettish decay."
That was my impression as well. I didn’t see any evidence of shifts. The narrator, so I thought, was just a representative. It is his (her?) observations that betray the feelings and nuances of the town. We learn about the town this way. This would have been ruined in third person. Frankly I found the town more interesting than Miss Emily. But that’s just me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
I don’t want to make this into a contest, and maybe it’s apples and oranges, but pound for pound, relatively speaking, I think Virginia Woolf did more with 700 words in “A Haunted House.”Quote:
If anyone thinks they could do this in five pages please show me. I'm not sure if I can think of a single short story with this complexity in five pages.
:lol: Well if you don't find someone who kills her lover and then sleeps with his body for thirty years interesting then you must know some pretty interesting people. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Chester
I've never read that or any of Virginia Woolf's short stories. I'll have to look it up, thanks. :) No let's not make it a contest.Quote:
I don’t want to make this into a contest, and maybe it’s apples and oranges, but pound for pound, relatively speaking, I think Virginia Woolf did more with 700 words in “A Haunted House.”
There definitely are lots of contrasts, personally I thought the core of the story was the contrast between the "we" of the town which represents social life and miss Emily whom we never meet, who is pretty much the embodiment of seclusion and introversion.
You're right, there is a lot packed into the story and its cleverly done. perhaps I'll go back and read it again with these things in mind.
Well, I didn't say she was uninteresting. Just that the town was moreso. She was interesting. But she was a wacko. That's all I saw. I know, I know...there was much more depth to it than that and all kinds of complexities, etc., etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
It was Faulkner and I'm a blasphemer. ;)
Meanwhile here's "A Haunted House" if you get a chance: http://www.online-literature.com/virginia_woolf/856/
Antiquarian, I truly enjoyed your post and think you pointed out some very good things about this finely structured story. I read the story about a week ago; I thought it reminded me of a very early Hitchcock tale and one that was packed full of symbolism and little details, which make it intriguing. I say this 'positively' about the story, concerning Hitchcock; ever see his early TV dramas - they are great and reminescent of the characters in this story. It would make a fine play. I like the way it builds up to the last scene. I liked the descriptions, as we encounter that attic room; it recalled me to my own grandmother's attic for she was a bit eccentric, to say the least; but of course, she did not harbor a dark macabre secret in her attic, as Emily does.
Antiquarian, I think it would be very beneficial to post some sections of text, from the beginning and talk about the various elements and the way in which Faulkner firstly sets the scene of the story and presents the characters. If everyone just jumps back and forth between the parts of the story and even the ending, how will that be a discussion of the story and it's fine structure?
I am anxious now to take a closer look at the text and understand the story on a deeper level.
For those unfamiliar with this narrative point-of-view, it’s called the corporate narrator. As so many people have mentioned, the narrator is not a he, a she, or I—it’s a WE.
And I think this is a very telling detail of the story. One of the main gripes the story’s detractors have is “we never get a good look at Miss Emily.” And they’re right—we don’t. But look at it this way: Faulkner is showing us the inaccuracy of town gossip. Because the story comes from so many different people—the aldermen who come to collect taxes, store keeper who sells her the Arsenic, the aldermen sprinkling lime on her lawn, etc.—can we conclude that the town’s portrayal of Miss Emily is accurate? Probably not. For example, they assume she’s lonely. But what evidence of that comes directly from Emily? These people have had minimal communication with her over a forty year period. They can’t possibly know her thoughts. We have to remember much of what is said about Emily is gossip and rumor.
And the non-linear plot line proves just how clueless the townspeople are. I really have to commend Faulkner on this plotline. Not only does it show the townspeople’s ignorance, but it also does a great job of foreshadowing. The narrative drops serious clues to where this story is going. Upon rereads, I have to laugh at the scene when the aldermen are sprinkling lime on Emily’s lawn because they don’t want accuse a lady of stinking. Let’s see . . . Emily bought Arsenic, Homer Barron just disappeared, and now a serious funk is coming from her house. It’s good to see that the townspeople are on the ball.
There has also been some discussion about the generational gap between Miss Emily and the townspeople. I think this gap is the story’s main theme. Southern gothic carries this theme a lot—the lower class usurping the aristocracy.
And that’s what’s happening here. The story begins by describing Emily’s house, talking about how her home, which was once among the county’s finest, is now an “eyesore among eyesores.” Miss Emily’s gravy train is over folks. I would imagine it’s difficult going from riches to rags. So when I see Emily clinging to old traditions—refusing to pay taxes, chasing away address number men, etc.—I see a woman attempting to stop time. Sleeping with Homer BARRON’s corpse (wink wink, nudge nudge) is persuasive evidence of that. In Emily’s demented mind, she somehow thinks marrying and killing Barron will somehow preserve her family’s power. There’s no arguing one thing—Emily is a wacko.
But none the less, her attempts to stop time are obviously unsuccessful, little more than desperate grasps for preservation. I’ve already mentioned how her house is “an eyesore among eyesore,” but the text provides much further evidence. Her furniture is dusty and cracked, she keeps an aging picture of her with her father, and Emily herself ages poorly. Yes, Emily and her estate are the very image of decay. Emily’s fall isn’t just her own; her fall is representative of the entire southern aristocracy.
mmmmm I don't think that's it, At least not in my case. I don't say so what because it's plausible for Emily to murder her man, I'm thinking so what because I have no connection to Emily. I don't care that Emily killed her man. The story is written in such a "standoff-ish" way. It's like Emily is being held at arms length. I feel more sympathy for the town when they have to deal with Miss Emily.Quote:
Originally Posted by Antiquarian
I don't understand why people keep saying we don't get a good look at her. She is decribed in a number of places. Thin in youth, fat as older, iron grey hair, coal eyes. Am I missing something? Yes it's looking from the outside, the corporate point of view as you call it. We don't get to know her because of the point of view and because Emily is so isolated.Quote:
Originally Posted by HotKarl
I think there are positive elements to the towns people and negative. I don't think it's a clear cut one way or the other. Papaya (quoted below) comes away more sympathetic to the townspeople. I think on balance that's right. It's not the townspeople who kill anyone. But we are also made to feel the social constaint placed on Emily.Quote:
And the non-linear plot line proves just how clueless the townspeople are. I really have to commend Faulkner on this plotline.
Finally I agree. ;) That is a regular theme in Faulkner.But it's a little more complex than that. But leave it as it may.Quote:
There has also been some discussion about the generational gap between Miss Emily and the townspeople. I think this gap is the story’s main theme. Southern gothic carries this theme a lot—the lower class usurping the aristocracy.
Did I miss something? I didn't get preserving family power anywhere. Could be, I'm not arguing. But can you point that out in the text?Quote:
In Emily’s demented mind, she somehow thinks marrying and killing Barron will somehow preserve her family’s power.
Yes, I tended to have more sympathy for the town myself. But that doesn't make it a bad story. I don't think Faulkner was after generating sympathy. I think he was after capturing the difference in Emily's individual will/desire against social realities and constraints.Quote:
Originally Posted by papayahed
Anti, I think we basically agree. There is sympathy and antipathy on all sides. Thanks for pointing all of that out. :)
Antiquarian, I agree with you and with Virgil...I have been reading along today, off and on....I am just here 'behind the scenes', so to speak. I liked your last post very much. It makes perfect sense to me and now I understand the story much better; thanks Antiquarian! I will try and post comments tomorrow.
Today I have been having so much trouble with the internet and this site, in particular. Has anyone else had problems? Once I clicked on my desktop shortcut and it kept saying 'no connection' or 'site too busy' or 'experiencing problems'. Before that I kept trying to change pages or run searches and it took over a couple of minutes to get to the page. It was really frustrating. I think that is much better now; let's hope so anyway.