FORMALIST CRITICISM

A ROSE FOR EMILYBy

William Faulkner

• Biography of William Faulkner

American writer William Faulkner was born in New

Albany, Mississippi, in 1897. Much of his early work was poetry, but he became famous for his novels set in the American South, He died on July 6, 1962

• About The Criticism • Formalist Ctiticism • Determine the form, structure and, literay devices

used in the text. • Don’t check the biographical, social and, historical

background of the author to unlock the meaning of the text.

• Including character, figures of speech, Imagery, plot, point of view, setting, and theme.

• Title : A Rose for Emily

• The title mention an object. A rose as a flower that is presented for Emily as a lady who live in white background in Jeffersons. It contains an object that represented the main character of Miss Emily Grierson.

POINT OF VIEW • Omniscient Point of View

• The narrator used first person point of view that used ‘we’, The narrator’s point of view is omniscient that know everything in the story.

• The quotation : • And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron. And of

Miss Emily for some time.

Third person point of view • Miss Emily • Homer Baron • Tobe • Judge Steven • City Authorities • Ladies • Some men • Miss Emily’s father• The people/citizen • The labourer

Third person point of view • Miss Emiliy • The quotation :• She told them that her father was not dead. She did

that for three days, ......................

• Homer Baron • The quotation :• ........ because Homer himself had remarked--he liked

men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks' Club--that he was not a marrying man

• Tobe (Miss Emily’s servant)• The quotation :• ............... He walked right through the house and out

the back and was not seen again

• Two female cousins of Miss Emily • The quotation :• They held the funeral on the second day, with the town

coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers

• City Authorities • The quotation :• On the first of the year they mailed her a tax notice.

February came, and there was no reply

• The ladies • The quotation :• so they were not surprised when the smell developed

• Some men • The quotation :• They broke open the cellar door and sprinkled lime there,

and in all the outbuildings

• The People • The Quotation : • At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone,

and a pauper, she had become humanized

• The labor of paving the sidewalks • The Quotation : • The town had just let the contracts for paving the

sidewalks, and in the summer after her father's death they began the work

• Judge Steven • The Quotation :• "I'm sure that won't be necessary," Judge Stevens

said. "It's probably just a snake or a rat that nigger of hers killed in the yard. I'll speak to him about it.“

• Miss Emily’s Father• The quotation : • We remembered all the young men her father had

driven away, and we knew that with nothing left

Dramatic Conflict • Social conflict between Miss Emily and City

Authorities • Her voice was dry and cold. "I have no taxes in

Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me. ........................

• I have no taxes in Jefferson. Tobe!" The Negro appeared. "Show these gentlemen out.“

• Social conflict between Judge Steven and citizen • The next day he received two more complaints, one

from a man who came in diffident deprecation. "We really must do something about it, Judge.

Dramatic Conflict • The internal conflict of Miss Emily

• After her father's death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all.

• ..............Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead

• She carried her head high enough--even when we believed that she was fallen. ......................

Theme • Obsessive • Miss Emily is really worried to lose his soulmate

Homer Baron. So she poisoned Homer with arsenic and he was killed. She took her dead body in to her room and slept with him until almost 40 years.

Plot • Implausible : fantastic plots that are not

acceptable in the everyday sense of reality

• Start : • Firstly it was explained when Miss Emily died in the

seventy fourth years old • Then the narrator retold Miss Emily’s past life when

she was young. • Miss Emily was a daughter from Griersons that was

well-known as a respectable woman that lived in Jeffersons.

Plot • Introduction of conflict : • It was told after Miss Emily’s father died she became

very introvert. She just lived with her servant , Tobe. • Then she chose to hide herself inside her house . • She also ignored to pay taxes until she died. • Two years later she met Homer Baron, a northener

labourer from construction company. • From the first time they met, Miss Emily loved him • Homer Baron interested with her too,but it did not

mean he loved her.

Plot • Rising Action : • Homer Baron was not a married man • It made Miss Emily despair, but she could not leave

Homer • Then she went in to a druggiest and bought arsenic. • In the evening Homer and Miss Emily had dinner in her

house. • Then the next day the citizen complained about odor

smell from Miss Emily’s house• The days later there were some men who spread lime

into Miss Emily’s yard. • A few weeks later the smeel lost. • 40 years later Miss Emily died.

Plot • Climax, Falling Action and Ending : • The second day after Miss Emily died, her two cousins

entered her room. • They were very surprised after seeing a man skeleton

layed on Miss Emily bed.• Thay twice surprised when they found a long gray hair layed

on that pilow behind the skeleton. • It meant Homer Baron was killed by Miss Emily with arsenic

and then she brought Homer Baron into her room and slept with dead body until she dead almost in 40 years.

• Whereas her servant ‘Tobe’ suddenly went away after Miss Emily dead and no one knew and saw where he gone.

Characterization • Miss Emily : a respected woman, well-known,

charming, interesting, introvert, and stubborn.

• The quotation : • Miss Emily is a slender figure in white in the

background, .........• She was over thirty then, still a slight woman, though

thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face.......

• After her father's death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all

• Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol

Characterization • Homer Baron : interesting, easy-going,

popular, and charming.

• The quotation :• Homer Barron, a Yankee--a big, dark, ready man,

with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face• Whenever you heard a lot of laughing anywhere

about the square, Homer Barron would be in the center of the group

Characterization • Tobe (the servant) : he is loyal to Miss Emily, he

was quite silent and mysterious.

• The quotation : • and the only sign of life about the place was the

Negro man--a young man then--going in and out with a market basket.

• Daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow grayer and more stooped, going in and out with the market basket

• Fell ill in the house filled with dust and shadows, with only a doddering Negro man to wait on her

Characterization • Two Cousins’ of Miss Emily : They respected

Miss Emily and also curious• THE NEGRO met the first of the ladies at the front

door and let them in, with their hushed, sibilant voices and their quick, curious glances, and then he disappeared

• The ladies : They like in making gossip and

always curious with Miss Emily’s life • Then some of the ladies began to say that it was a

disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people

Setting • Place : • Grave • A big House • Jeffersons as A City where Miss Emily lived• Stairway • Miss Emily’s yard • The town • Downstrair’s room • A room above the stairs • A druggstore

Setting • Place : • Grave • WHEN Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town

went to her funeral...................

• A big house • It was a big, squarish frame house that had once

been white, decorated with cupolas and spires .........................

Setting • Jeffersons as A City where Miss Emily lived • Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of

those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.

• Stairway • They were admitted by the old Negro into a dim hall

from which a stairway mounted into still more shadow

Setting • Miss Emily’s yard • So the next night, after midnight, four men

crossed Miss Emily's lawn and slunk about the house like burglars, ..............................

• The town • The town had just let the contracts for paving

the sidewalks,

Setting • Downstrair’s room • She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a

heavy walnut bed with a curtain...........................

• A room above the stairs • The violence of breaking down the door seemed to

fill this room with pervading dust. ...........................

• A druggstore • "I want some poison," she said to the

druggist. ....................

TIME• in the 1894 • dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel

Sartoris, the mayor--he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron-remitted her taxes,

Style :• Diction : the meaning is similar

according to the dictionary • When the next generation, with its more

modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction.

IMAGERY • Seeing : a big and seventies house, a funeral, a

respected lady, shadow, rose, arsenic as poison, a market basket, man’s toilet in silver, with the letters H.B, complete outfit of men’s clothing, including nighshirt, a long grey hair, and skeleton

• Smelling : odor smell from a dead body.

• Hearing : a silent place of Miss Emily’s house, a whispering from neighbor, invisible watch ticking at the end of the gold chain

FIGURE OF SPEECH• WHEN Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town

went to her funeral: symbolism

• the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument : symbolism

• Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, : symbolism

• She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. : simile

FIGURE OF SPEECH• "Just as if a man--any man--could keep a

kitchen properly, "the ladies said; so they were not surprised when the smell developed. It was another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons. : metaphor

• A window that had been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol. : simile

FIGURE OF SPEECH• People in our town, remembering how old lady

Wyatt, her great-aunt, had gone completely crazy at last, believed that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were : analogy

• The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face : analogy

• Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of the town, : metaphor

•