The course of Stylistics was really exciting and useful, because the last task on the exam on Practical English was to make a stylistic analysis of the given abstract and we successfully coped with it. And I hope that the knowledge that we acquired during this course will help us in our further studying. 

A Rose for Emily: Expressive means and stylistic devices

1)      Lexical:

Metaphor: “Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of

the town”; “past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow”; “only sign of life about the place was the Negro man”; “Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town”. The metaphors allow the reader greater understanding of the concept, object, or character being described in particular the appearance of Emily and Homer and the town.

Personofication: “faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray”, “Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons” The function of personification is to give a concept or object human features, usually to describe its qualities or to make a statement about human behavior. So, the house, like its owner, lifts its stubborn and coquettish decay in order to show  a tardy pride).

Metonymy: “the Board of Aldermen met--three graybeards and one younger man”; “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral”. It shows the features of people according their appearance ( men with grey beards) and the town – means citizens.

Epithets : cold, haughty black eyes – is used to emphasize on Emily’s appearance; heavily lightsome style – to specificate the style of seventies; iron-grey hear; a big, dark, ready man- was used to describe the appearance of Homer Barron.

Eiphemism - "Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names..."(the author uses the euphemism instead of the verb "to die".

Simile – “She carried her head high enough …as if it had wanted that touch of earthiness to reaffirm her imperviousness”; “Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough”; “it was still that vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man”  – such similes help us to imagine the appearance and the character of Emily better.

2)     Syntactical:

Ellipsis: “Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such?”\ "Arsenic," Miss Emily said.\ "Why, of course," the druggist said”.

Asyndeton: “The Negro delivery boy brought her the package; the druggist didn't come back.”; “"We had long thought of them as a tableau, 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.” Asyndeton makes the narration more impulse and tense.

Polysyndeton: “A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man's toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured” -  this stylistic device make the utterance more rhythmical.

Aposiopesis –  "Is . . . arsenic? Yes, ma'am. But what you want--";\ "Of course it is. What else could . . ." \ Give her a certain time to do it in, and if she don't. .." it reflects the emotional state of the speaker.

Climax – “When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray. During the next few years it grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray, when it ceased turning. Up to the day of her death at seventy-four it was still that vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man”. It gives emotional and logical influence.

Inversion – “Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized” – is used to emphasize on her state of loneliness and how she could change.

Repetition - "Poor Emily. Her kinsfolk should come to her."\ "Poor Emily," the whispering began\ "Poor Emily" behind the jalousies as they passed on Sunday afternoon in the glittering buggy…” it attracts our attention to Emily’s condition in order to symphasize  her.

3)     Phonetic

Onomatopoeia - "...swift clop-clop-clop of the matched team passed...". the sound effect, which resembles the sound of hourses.

4)     Graphic

Hyphenation - "During the next few years it grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray, when it ceased turning.” Is used to emphasize on the color and its changes.

Summing up the analysis of the given story I can say that William Cuthbert Faulkner brilliantly used a lot of lexical, syntactical, phonetic and graphic means of expression which help to reveal the main character’s nature and  to create a true-to-life atmosphere of the events.

A Rose For Emily: Characters

Emily Grierson is the main character of the story. She  is the last surviving member of an old Southern family. The narrator compares her to an “idol in a niche…dear, inescapable, imperious, tranquil and perverse”. Emily is born to a proud, aristocratic family sometime during the Civil War; her life in many ways reflects breaking up of the Old South during the reconstruction and the earlies twentieth century. Her father plays an importing part in shaping her character, because he chases away all her potential husbands, because none of them are “good enough”. However she later causes a scandal when she falls in love with Homer Barron, a workman, who is from lower social class. Such relations were unacceptable in her society. So, the town’s traditions drive Miss Emily mad and force her into unhuman act of killing Homer.

Personally I don’t condemn her for her action, she was afraid that Homer would leave her and the town would mock her. And the Faulkner attitude is as following: “ I feel sorry for Emily’s tragedy: her tragedy was she was an only child, an only daughter; at the time when she could have found a husband, could have had a life of her own, there was probably some one, her father, who said “No, you must stay here and take care of me”. I pity Emily. I don’t know whether I would have liked or not, I might have been afraid of her. Nor of her but of anyone who had suffered, had been warped, as her life had probably been warped be a selfish father.”

Homer Barron a foreman from the North. Large man with a dark complexion, a booming voice, and light-colored eyes. A gruff and demanding boss, he also wins many admires in Jefferson because of his sociable nature and good sense of  humor. She develops interest in Emily and soon townspeople view him as a poor, if not scandalous, choice for a male. He disappeared in Emily’s hause…

Mr. Grierson – Emily’s father. Controlling father, he wanted the best for her daughter especially the best husband for her.

Tobe – Emily’s servant. He dutiful cares for her and tends to her need. After Emily’s death he walks out of the back door and never returns.

Type of narration

The type of narration is not common, because it is nor 1^st neither 3^d person narration. The author describes events with the help of plural pronoun "we" (So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated...", "We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.").  Such type of narration describe events from the peoples’ point of view and makes the reader involved into the story’s events and characters’ feelings. The narrator doesn’t criticize or condemn her actions, that’s why we can say that he is sympathetic to her.

A Rose For Emily: Title

Frankly speaking, when I read the title for the first time, I thought that this story would tell us about a beautiful and amiable girl Emily and, maybe her beloved man and their love story. But when I read the whole story, all my hopes and predictions evaporated. The title of the story is very philosophic. Faulkner could very well have chosen to use "Miss Emily" in his title, but he did not. Since authors are very focused and selective in writing titles for their works, his choice wasn't careless or without purpose. Faulkner's diction in the title points the reader toward themes in the story. Faulkner described the title as “an allegorical title; the meaning was, here was a woman who has had a tragedy, an irrevocable tragedy and nothing could be done about it, and I pitied her and this was a salute just as if you were to make a gesture, a salute to anyone: to a woman you would hand a rose…”

A Rose For Emily: Setting

 The events in the analysed text happened in small town, named Jefferson in the old house of Miss Emily Grierson. The author pays a lot of attention to the details in the description of the hose: “"It was a big, squarish frame house that hadonce been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; 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"\ "She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her grey head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight"\ "The violence of breaking down the door seemed to fill this room with pervading dust. A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the mans toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured. Among them lay a collar and tie, as if they had just been removed, which, lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent in the dust. Upon a chair hung the suit, carefully folded; beneath it the two mute shoes and the discarded socks"\ "They were admitted by the old Negro into a dim hall from which a stairway mounted into still more shadow. It smelled of dust and disuse a close, dank smell. The Negro led them into the parlor. It was furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture. When the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray. On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss Emilys father".

To my mind such a description creates  special atmosphere and mood, which help to get around the feelings  and emotions of the main characters.

A Rose For Emily: Plot

We can not find the chronological order in this story, because it is consisted of 5 chapters which contain the author’s reminiscences and flashbacks. In Chapter I the narrator recalls the time of Emily Grierson’s death and how the entire town attended her funeral in her home, which no stranger had entered for more than ten years and gives a thorough description of it. He also tells that after her father’s death she was freed on taxes, because Colonel Sartoris, the town’s previous mayor, lied to her that Mr. Grierson had once lent the community a significant sum. Chapter 2 describes a time thirty years earlier, when Emily’s neighbors noticed an odor came from Emily’s apartment, so they informed the local authorities. Chapter 3 shows a time When Northern laborer Homer Barron comes to town, Emily takes an interest in him despite his lower social standing. The citizens tries to prevent their relations but all their efforts fails. Emily buys arsenic. In Chapter 4 Emily buys a men’s toiletry set, presaging marriage. Homer disappears and Emily becomes a recluse. In Cgapter 5 she dies, and  a man’s skeleton is found on a bed in Emily’s upstairs room next to an indented pillow and a long gray hair.

William Cuthbert Faulkner

"A Rose for Emily" is a short story by American author William Faulkner first published in the April 30, 1930. William Cuthbert Faulkner September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer, who  wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays, and screenplays. He is primarily known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where he spent most of his life. Faulkner published twenty novels, several volumes of short fiction and two volumes of poetry. He travelled wildly, giving lectures at American colleges as well as foreign universities. He won two Pulitzer Prizes, a National Book Award and the Nobel Prize for Literature. His most famous works are: The Sound and the Fury,  As I Lay Dying,  Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, Red Leaves,  The Hamlet, The Town etc.  

Hello everybody! My name is Iryna and I'm glad to join such an activity as  blog keeping. I  think it can be very useful to get to know how to create a blog and to post your ideas. I've attended the course of stylistics and now I'm going to share with you my stylistic analysis of a short story "A Rose for Emily" written by the  American author William Faulkner