Vocabulary
What is foreshadowing
Device author's use to hint at future events
In the beginning of the story, why do members of the Board of Alderman visit Emily's house?
She has not paid her taxes.
What is the connotation of the italicized word? How do you know?
“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.”
Negative - mention the other words within the sentence that have a negative connotation (obliterated, stubborn, coquettish, decay, eyesore)
What is the denotation of the italicized word? How do you know?
“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.”
encroached - to gradually or stealthily take possession of another's rights, property, or space, or to exceed proper limits
In the opening description of Miss Emily's house as "an eyesore among eyesores," the phrase most strongly creates what kind of mood?
uneasy, unwelcoming, unsettling (something along those lines)
What is a flashback?
A device an author uses to recall something in the past while characters are in the present
What does the audience suspect Emily used to kill Homer Baron?
Poison (arsenic)
What is the connotation and how do you know?
She was over thirty then, still a slight woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eyesockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper's face ought to look.
Negative - other words used in the sentence (cold, haughty, black-eyes, strained, flesh)
What is the denotation of the italicized word?
Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less.
pauper - a person who is extremely poor, often to the point of destitution; relies on charity for support
Faulkner’s (the author) use of sensory details— dust and the smell in Emily’s house—primarily builds what sort of tone?
Emphasizes decay to unsettle the reader
What is Connotation?
The feeling associated with a word
What is found next to Homer Baron's dead body?
A single strand of iron-grey hair
She fitted up a studio in one of the downstairs rooms, where the daughters and granddaughters of Colonel Sartoris' contemporaries were sent to her with the same regularity and in the same spirit that they were sent to church on Sundays with a twenty-five-cent piece for the collection plate.
Neutral or Positive
Neutral - simply describing who the people are
Positive - they are of high social standing if they are contemporaries to a colonel/mayor.
What is the denotation of the italicized word?
She fitted up a studio in one of the downstairs rooms, where the daughters and granddaughters of Colonel Sartoris' contemporaries were sent to her with the same regularity and in the same spirit that they were sent to church on Sundays with a twenty-five-cent piece for the collection plate.
Contemporaries - people who live, work, or exist at the same time or belong to the same generation as one another, people of similar status
How does the way Emily treated the death of her father foreshadow the ending of the novel?
Miss Emily refused to bury her father and kept him in her house until people forced her to. At the end of the novel, Emily kept Homer Baron dead body in her house and told no one that he was dead.
The dictionary definition of a word.
Why is Emily a person of important standing in the town?
She's rich, her male family members severed in the confederate army, father donated money to the town (any one of these answers is correct)
The construction company came with riggers and mules and machinery, and a foreman named Homer Barron, a Yankee--a big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face.
Positive - Light eyes are generally considered an attractive feature
Neutral - the other words in the sentence simply describe physical appearance, as does the description of his eyes being light
What is the denotation of the italicized word?
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.
silhouette - a dark, solid shape or outline of an object or person seen against a lighter background
Why did the author choose to begin the story with a memory of Miss Emily avoiding taxes rather than telling the story chronologically?
Creates mystery, build tension
What is tone?
The way the author feels about a place, person, or idea.
What is the genre of A Rose for Emily?
Southern Gothic
The town came to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers, with the crayon face of her father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant and macabre.
Negative
Negative - used next to the word macabre, describing the scene of a funeral.
What is the denotation of the italicized word?
So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized
vindicated - to be cleared of blame, guilt, suspicion, or doubt, often through new evidence or proof
How does Homer's personality foreshadow future events of the novel?