Writing Style of the story
Faulkner’s work is noted for its complexity partly because he deliberately places a considerable burden upon the reader. Instead of telling a simple straightforward story, he often exploits vague sequences, ambiguities, symbolism, experimental points of view, jumbled time sequences, avoidance of clear transition, withholding of vital information to compel the reader to join in the writer’s search for truth. Some of these techniques are used in A Rose for Emily.
Faulkner’s chronology is unlike that of other writers of his time. He does not tell his story in linear fashion, but rather jumbles the sequential order. This technique builds suspense for the reader as the plot unfolds bit by bit. The whole story is a portrait of Miss Emily’s refusal to change. To highlight the thematic concern, Faulkner constantly shifts the focus of the attention to the retrospect of Emily’s life by way of flashbacks. Emily Grierson dies at the very beginning of the story. Then there goes to the recollection of Emily’s refusal to pay tax in 1926. The time of the second part jumps back to some thirty years ago, during which her father dies and she kills Home Barron two years after that. When Emily buys arsenic, the time is over a year after they have begun to say “Poor Emily”. Then for six months she does not appear on the streets. The fourth part deals with things that happen in 1987 and after 1897. In the last part, the time turns back to the year of the 1940 when Emily dies at seventy four.
After the funeral, the town people go to her room and all the secrets are revealed. The displacement in the chronological time sequence allows the narrator to tell story in a most dramatic way and to fill in useful background details.
1.My understanding of the story
Thematically, this story is not as simple as it seems. The conflicts in the story can be interpreted on different level, just as can many of his longer fiction works. On the superficial level, it is a murder story with elements of Gothic literature—an eccentric woman living in isolation, an old decaying mysterious house that other people had not been in for decades, and, of course, a dead body in the house finally discovered after so many years. On another level, the story explores the inner world of human beings, or the inner struggle in the human heart. But what gives me the deepest impression is the conflict between the South and the North
The novel A Rose for Emily iswritten at a background of social change of the south after war in America. It tells a tragic lifelong story of a noble seed Emily Grison to show that the contradictions of people in South America when the north became to replace the south. Emily as a protagonist of the
novel has complicated means. Firstly she stands for tradition, social model as an aristocrat. Secondly she represents romantic love when she falls in love with Homer. And when she is refused by Homer, instead of crying, she kills him with poison. Now she stands for a person who is cruel and callous.
Emily is a character who stands for a victim in the confliction between the traditional south and new conception of north.
The mentality of residents of the small town in the novel of respecting Emily is the symbol of common mind of the south people to the traditional south culture after civil war. People respect and call for her Miss Emily. In the long time to them,the Emily family is like the characters living in a picture. They see Emily as the tradition, obligation, even a monument which reveal a nostalgic emotion to a gradually fading away traditional culture. The residents send their children to Emily to learn ceramics and painting punctually and devoutly just as to the church in Sunday. We can see clearly that the residents are so struggling with helping Emily in her income to maintain her noble image. They use a nostalgic,protecting tradition mood to pay attention to Emily, even prevent Emily and Homer to get married to maintain her noble position. They hope to see a no corrupting,real kingly noble. The differences reflect a condition that south tradition is coming to be replaced by north. That the old colonel prevents Emily's tax to help her reveals the old generation's attention to vulnerable group. But, new senators are dissatisfied with this. They call a meeting especially for tax, send letters to Emily and make a delegation to visit Emily for tax. When new generation was sent to Emily to learn painting, they knew they can't learn something from Emily. So they stop to send their children to Emily. Actually, compared to the old generation, new generation thinks more about themselves instead of others. To some degree, it is their selfishness and indifference that cut the relation between Emily and outside.All these show the deep confliction between the traditional south and new conception of north.
A Broken Romantic Dream
-----Araby （by James Joyce）
James Joyce's Dubliners consist of three short stories. In my own opinion, Araby is the best. It mainly describes a young boy's romantic dream. It's a rich symbolic story.
The author gives the story as the first person. It was set in a dark, gloomy background in Dublin. The boy in the story loves a neighboring girl called Mangan's sister secretly.He stares at her from his window or follow her on the street. He even ofte n thinks of her in the place which is most hostile to romance.“My eyes were often full of tears and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom.” perfectly describe the deep love of the young boy.
The pure love to Mangan’s sis ter made him decide to find a good present for her in Araby, where Mangan’s sister recommended him to go. But the boy's uncle forgets the promise that he will give money to the boy and late for home. Almost until night,he begins to run to the Araby with anxiety. It was dark when he arrived there.A weary-looking man was at the entrance to bazaar. The woman spoke to him just like it is a duty and her voice was not encouraging, then she turned to two young men. At the moment,the boy felt nothing but disappoint ment. The boy’s dream was smashed into pieces. He didn’t know where to go, what to do. He could never live innocently as he used be, because he was in half-awake condition and he used be so approach to the truth.
In the story the young boy was not only full of irritation, but also much more painful. At the end, the theme of the whole story finally emerged. People feel painful when faced a change. Will the boy go on his suffering? No matter how, I’m certain that the boy had woken up from the dream and grown up towards maturity. When he discovers the difference between fantasy and reality, perhaps we also hope that, in the future, he will learn to love real people instead of the idealized versions of them he creates in his head.
In the novel Araby, James Joyce used large amounts of symbolic imageries to create a typical setting, help the plots develop .We can find many symbolisms in this story.
1. Araby .In the novel, of course, the word “Araby” plays the most important role, as it is the title word. And Araby is a bazaarwhere Mangan’s sister recommended me to go. A s I know from the internet Araby is an old name for Arab. So, in the story, it “cast an Eastern enchantment over me”. I t is obvious that the boy had a strong desire to go there. So we can conclude that because Araby is a dream new world for the boy, as Mangan’s sister guild the boy there.
2 Blind. The word “blind” appear ed several times in the story. In my opinion, The North Richard Street was “blind”, so the boy used it to hide himself from being seen by Mangan’s sister. T he blind here means that the street is closed. Because it’s a blind street, peoplein the street are difficult to communicate with the people outside. SoI think it indicates the situation of Dublin. But the people are all pleased and
satisfied with the situation. So the boy wished to get away from it. Besides that, there is another “blind”. it is a noun, because of it, Mangan’s sister couldn’t see me. I t prevented me from seeing her clearly. This indicates that the boy’s dream was just a childish dream
3 The North Richmond Street. The street was dark. And the surroundings were very unpleasant to the boy. As James Joyce himself said, the main theme of the story in Dubliners was paralysis. And the condition of the North Richmond Street was a good proof for it. He said all the streets were almost the same. So Joyce turned to get rid of the unpleasant thing in Ireland. So do the boy in the novel. So the street was a symbol for the whole Ireland.
5. The priest. At the beginning of the story, it inferred that a priest had been a tenant of the boy’s home. “He had been a very charitable priest”, and he “had left all his money to the institutions and the furniture of his house to his sister”. So, it is not hard to understand, the priest is a symbol of the good citizens of Dublin.
Except the symbols mentioned above, there are still many other symbols in the novel. For example, “a central apple tree” in a “wild garden behind the house”.I t may stand the love of the boy for the sister.etc. The writing style of Araby is very exquisite, just like the style of Gustave Flaubert, Joyce is good at setting proper background, to createsymbols.He is famous for the using of “stream of consciousness” method in his works.We can see a lot in the story, which were created by Joyce. For such a short story, it gives several themes: first of all it is the coming of age. As everyone getting older, we will face more worries; secondly, it is the loss of innocence. It is also because of the age, we may lose our innocence; lastly and most importantly, the pain that when we learn that what we were told about love, through the books we read and the stories we are told, is largely fiction.
Although it is a short novel, it has enough rich content. The content mentioned above is the combination of the work itself, the knowledge from the internet and my own thought.