"When Miss Emily Grierson died, 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, which no one save an old manservant- a combined gardener and cook- had seen in at least ten years.....she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell. That was two years after her father's death and a short time after her sweetheart- the one we believed would marry her- had deserted her. " (Faulkner, 30-31)
When we were assigned the two chapters to read this week I found that I enjoyed reading the second chapter more. I felt like the story about A Rose For Emily was better the Updike so I picked it for this assignment. As you can see I picked two sentences, one from one page and another one from another page. I feel like these two sentences connect with each other to help you get a better understanding of who Emily the main character was.
When I looked at these two sentences I saw two words that popped out to me the most, which were the words fallen monument. I think it is strange to think that the townspeople saw Miss Emily as a fallen monument when throughout the story all they tell you is how she would never leave her house, with no one ever seeing her so how can she be a monument?
I think that both of these sentences are important to the story even if they are in different places, because they show us the how Miss Emily came off to the people around her. It shows us how they see her as a shut in and shut off from everyone. The first sentence describes why they went to the funeral after she was dead and the second one describes why the people around her think she acted the way she did, because of certain events like her boyfriend leaving and her father dieing.
I guess what interests me about these sentences and this story in general is the fact that you can see how people leap to conclusions about people without getting to actual know them. I also like this passage because in a way I feel like I can relate to this story. The reason being is that you always read stories and there is always some type of judgement. Another thing that there is always going to be judgement and sometimes I wish that stories wouldn't have as much in it.
I guess what I am saying is that this story was easy for me to relate to because I have always been judged in my life and I feel like even in writing and stories you cant escape the judgement of others.
I also liked this story best. I have two thoughts about his use of the word monument. First, it takes place in the South which is a place whose residents (in Faulkner's era) believed their way of life lost after losing the Civil War. A monument thought of in this context, is more of a sad thing because it points to the dead past. I was in Kentucky recently and it was full of Civil War markers.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I got the impression that she was from the ruling class and so she was always separate from the majority of the people in that town. Her family no longer had any money but she retained the position which is something like a monument.
Hi, MacKenzie. I enjoyed your analysis of the sentences, particularly the idea that they show how people judge one another! One thing that interests me about this story is that the narrator operates using "we," which really emphasizes the judgment and that the judgment about Miss Emily is shared throughout the community. It's as if they keep making and changing their judgments as a group as they get more information. Nancy
ReplyDelete