A Rose For Emily and Other Short Stories Essay Questions

In "A Rose for Emily," how does the narrator's role as the townspeople in general help set the reader up for the twist at the end?

Since the narrator is the voice of the town in general, it only knows what the townspeople know at the time of any given anecdote. This allows for foreshadowing through observations of the townspeople. It is used to allude to the ending, in which the townspeople discover that Miss Emily has been living with the body of Homer Barron for many years. In Part II, the story about how the house began to smell takes place "a short time after her sweetheart - the one we believed would marry her - had deserted her." In Part III, when she buys arsenic from the druggist, she will not confirm that the arsenic is for killing rats. There is no explanation provided right away, but later the reader can assume that it was used to poison Homer Barron, Miss Emily's sweetheart. The reader doesn't find this out until the narrator, who is the townspeople in general, does.

How does Faulkner characterize Abner Snopes?

Faulkner uses synecdoche to describe Abner; although the narrator is third-person, the reader often has the feeling he or she is seeing the world through Sarty's point of view. Synecdoche enhances this effect, since Sarty is able to understand his father only through the symbols he can compare him to. For instance, as they camp outdoors,

... once more he followed the stiff back, the stiff and ruthless limp, up the slope and on to the starlit road where, turning, he could see his father against the stars but without face or depth, a shape black, flat, and bloodless as though cut from tin in the iron folds of the frockcoat which had not been made for him, the voice harsh like tin and without heat like tin.

Sarty sees parts of his father as symbols representing the whole, but the whole is a mystery. When Sarty follows his father to Major de Spain's house for the first time, he observes his father as:

the flat, wide, black hat, the formal coat of broadcloth which had once been black but which had now that friction-glazed greenish cast of the bodies of old house flies, the lifted sleeve which was too large, the lifted hand like a curled claw.

The animal imagery of a "curled claw" also helps characterize Abner as vicious and inhuman in his quest for revenge against the world.

In "Dry September," how does Faulkner create a tone of doom throughout the story?

Diction reminiscent of death and destruction is used to set the tone throughout the story. The first sentence:

Through the bloody September twilight, aftermath of sixty-two rainless days, it had gone like a fire in dry grass - the rumor, the story, whatever it was.

The use of the word "bloody" to describe the color of the impending darkness as the sun sets, as well as the comparison of the rumor to fire blazing through dry grass, sets a dangerous tone for the story to follow. When McLendon leads the men out of the barber shop, "The air was flat and dead. It had a metallic taste at the base of the tongue." The use of the word metallic to describe the taste of the air creates the image of a gun, the weapon that will eventually be used to kill Will Mayes. As Hawkshaw chases McLendon and the gang of men, the air is described as "lifeless," and:

The day had died in a pall of dust; above the darkened square, shrouded by the spent dust, the sky was as clear as the inside of a brass bell.

The words "pall" and "shrouded" recall a funeral, while the sky is described as if it is a funeral bell. As the cars barrel down the narrow road toward the brick kiln where they are about to murder Will Mayes, "their motion was like an extinct furnace blast: cooler, but utterly dead."

How does Faulkner use heat and light as a metaphor for Nancy's fear in "That Evening Sun"?

Quentin, the narrator, uses similes of heat to describe Nancy. When they reach her house, he observes that, "The smell of the house was like the lamp and the smell of Nancy was like the wick, like they were waiting for one another to begin to smell." The fire and firelight in Nancy's cabin represent the fear that gradually fills her more and more, becoming panic. When they arrive, Quentin observes that "She was looking at us, only it was like she had emptied her eyes, like she had quit using them." In the following scene, Nancy stays unnaturally close to heat and flame. She puts her hand on the lamp chimney, and doesn't seem to notice its heat until Caddy asks her if it is hot. When she builds up the fire to make popcorn, Caddy observes, "Look at Nancy putting her hands in the fire... What's the matter with you, Nancy?" As they pop the popcorn, Nancy sits close to the fire and "the lamp was turned up so high it was beginning to smoke." Then, when she hears their father approaching, she is filled with fear and "her eyes filled with the red lamplight," as she is filled with panic.

Give two examples of the absurdity of the Indians' attempts to emulate white men in "Red Leaves."

The shoes with the red heels represent Moketubbe's lust for power, and tie him to the white race as he imitates Europeans by wearing them. It is absurd, however, since his feet don't fit inside and he faints whenever he wears them for too long. When Moketubbe was a child, Issetibbeha would watch him "struggle with the slippers with a certain monstrous repudiation of fact."

The Indians' attempts to emulate white slaveholders, and Europeans, are ridiculous. They have too many slaves and don't know how to occupy them all; they see them as bothersome and useless. They believe they must chase Issetibbeha's servant in order to bury him with his master, and though they are patient and let him run for a while, they are annoyed that he does not wish to die.

In "Lo!", what is the significance of Francis Weddel's having a name?

The Chickasaw chief is the only character to be given a name. The fact that the President and the Secretary continually stumble over Weddel/Vidal's name enforces the idea that they cannot understand his identity as a bridge between the Indians and the white settlers. His heritage is mixed, bridging the gap, but his actions do the same as he leads his people fifteen hundred miles to Washington for a personal audience with the President.

Weddel's name also prevents the President from lumping him together with the other Indians; the President does not see them as individuals, but rather as one big mass of a problem. This opinion is demonstrated in his observance of the two Indians in his hallway:

He did not know the faces, though he knew the Face, since he had looked upon it by day and dreamed upon it by night for three weeks now. It was a squat face, dark, a little flat, a little Mongol; secret, decorous, impenetrable, and grave. He had seen it repeated until he had given up trying to count it or even estimate it; even now, though he could see the two men squatting before him and could hear the two quiet voices, it seemed to him that in some idiotic moment out of attenuated sleeplessness and strain he looked upon a single man facing himself in a mirror.

The Face is a generalizing term for the features the President takes all Indians to share; it is as if they are all one man "repeated."

How does Faulkner make a negative statement about boys at war in "Turnabout"?

Faulkner provides a commentary on what a shame it is that a young boy is doing this military duty rather than playing at school, where he belongs. By describing Claude Hope as girlish, and commenting how "once in the car, he went to sleep immediately with the peaceful suddenness of babies," Faulkner makes him seem even more childlike than his age suggests he is. When Bogard orders the Scotch for him in Part IX, his directions are that it is for "a child about six feet long." This description is fitting with the boy's tendency to turn battle into a game, in which he must score points. The juxtaposition of the game of "Beaver" with the boat's attack of the freighter also points to the inappropriate youth of Hope and Ronnie. Perhaps they don't understand the gravity of their actions, but it is more likely that they simply distract themselves from the danger they are in by resorting to a game, something they can be excited about in a playful way.

How does Faulkner make a negative statement about boys at war in "Turnabout"?

Faulkner provides a commentary on what a shame it is that a young boy is doing this military duty rather than playing at school, where he belongs. By describing Claude Hope as girlish, and commenting how "once in the car, he went to sleep immediately with the peaceful suddenness of babies," Faulkner makes him seem even more childlike than his age suggests he is. When Bogard orders the Scotch for him in Part IX, his directions are that it is for "a child about six feet long." This description is fitting with the boy's tendency to turn battle into a game, in which he must score points. The juxtaposition of the game of "Beaver" with the boat's attack of the freighter also points to the inappropriate youth of Hope and Ronnie. Perhaps they don't understand the gravity of their actions, but it is more likely that they simply distract themselves from the danger they are in by resorting to a game, something they can be excited about in a playful way.

How does Faulkner use the symbols of colored glass and the garden to represent Aunt Jenny?

Faulkner makes the connection between Aunt Jenny and the glass she brought with her to Mississippi clear by personifying the glass: "The sparse colored panes which framed the window dreamed, rich and hushed." After Benbow brings her the hat to put on her head, when she is about to die, she sits "beside the window framed by the sparse and defunctive Carolina glass." Her death is indicated first in the description of the window: when Elnora enters the library, she "looked into the room where beside the dead window the old woman sat motionless."

Aunt Jenny also brought "a few flower cuttings" with her to Mississippi, which she made into a garden. As the time nears for Aunt Jenny to die, the sun sets over the garden, representing her life drawing to an end. When Elnora reports that Narcissa and Benbow went to the creek, "The sun was now falling level across teh garden below the window, and soon the jasmine in the garden began to smell with evening, coming into the room in slow waves almost palpable; thick, sweet, oversweet." As they enter the garden, "the light in the garden was beginning to turn copper-colored." Before Narcissa begins to confess to Aunt Jenny, the older woman stops her, saying, "Wait... Before you begin. The jasmine. Do you smell it?"

What role does racism play in "Mountain Victory"?

Faulkner's tone in this story is racist in the way he makes Jubal into a caricature. Jubal's speech and habit of drinking make him a stereotypical slave figure; he is even described as sub-human, "a creature a little larger than a large monkey." When Weddel goes to bathe, Jubal "crouched like an ape," watching him. In the last sentence, his "eyes rushed wild and steady and red, like those of a cornered animal."

Although it is Weddel who has kept him as a slave, the Yankee white-trash family has much more racist feelings. They even judge Weddel harshly for his dark skin. Weddel points out that, ironically, they have been fighting to free the slaves. Weddel holds another distinctly racist point of view: though he doesn't hate black people like the Yankee family does, he believes they are an "oppressed race, burdened by freedom." He loves Jubal as an individual, and will not leave him alone.

Discuss the symbol of the unlighted cigarette in "Beyond."

The symbol of the unlighted cigarette, for which the Judge cannot find a match, represents the Judge's inability to find anything beyond himself in this halfway world between life and death which, the reader knows, exists inside the Judge's mind. Everything else he wanted for comfort, like an overcoat and shoes, appeared for him; however, he cannot get a match to light his cigarette. As he talks to Ingersoll, "the paper about the cigarette" becomes loose, and eventually the cigarette falls apart. His holding onto the cigarette symbolizes his failing hold on the external world, and to light that cigarette would bring illumination of the beliefs and questions he had while alive. However, no illumination is to be found.

How does Faulkner use personification in "Race at Morning?"

The narrator personifies the buck throughout the story:

I could almost see him stopped behind a bush, peeping out and saying, 'What's this? What's this? Is this whole durn country full of folks this morning?' Then looking back over his shoulder at where old Eagle and the others was hollering along after him while he decided how much time he had to decide what to do next.

Eagle, the lead hunting dog, is also personified, and described as speaking to the hunters. Even the horse is named Dan. The use of this literary technique allows the reader to understand the respect Mister Ernest has for the buck, and why he can't kill it when they finally catch it. It also demonstrates the narrator's understanding of himself, Mister Ernest, Eagle, and the buck as equals involved in a serious ritual.

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