5.03 Faulkner

5.03 Faulkner
Part I: Character Identification
1. Emily Grierson –Emily was the daughter of a former leader from the town of Jefferson. She taught children to paint in china.
2. Colonel Sartoris – Sartoris was the mayor of Jefferson and he ‘established’ that the town had to take care of Emily. Most importantly, he said Emily didn’t have to pay taxes.
3. Tobe – He was Emily’s servant. He cooked, cleaned, gardened and was her butler.
4. Judge Stevens – Stevens was the mayor when Emily was alive. He gets the complaint of a smell coming from Emily’s house, but he doesn’t just want to tell her she smells. Instead he sent out some men in the night to spread lime around her property. Come to find out, the smell was Homer Barron’s body.
5. Homer Barron – Emily met Homer Baron and she liked him but he didn’t have the same feelings because he was a homosexual. When he was leaving town without marrying her, it was believed Emily poisoned him and she was found dead at the end of the story in her upstairs bedroom.
Part II: “A Rose for Emily” – Analysis and Discussion Questions
1. What metaphor is used to describe Miss Emily in the first paragraph?
a. The metaphor of a fallen monument is used to describe Miss Emily.
2. How is the house personified in the second paragraph?
a. They say the house was big and had a squarish frame that was once white. It was decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies from the seventies.
3. What had Colonel Sartoris done for Miss Emily in 1894?
a. Sartoris made it so Emily no longer had to pay taxes again.
4. What did the next generation of town leaders do on the first year?
a. The next generation of leaders had mailed her tax papers.
5. How does Faulkner describe Miss Emily in the sixth paragraph?
a. He described her as small, fat women in black. She had a thing gold chain down to waist. Her skeleton was small and spare. She looked bloated and pallid. Her eyes look like two small piece of coal pressed into a lump of dough.
6. At the beginning of Part II, how long had Emily’s father been dead?
a. Her father had been dead for 30 years at the beginning of Part II.
7. What are the neighbors complaining about? What does Judge Stevens say probably caused it?
a. The neighbors are complaining about a smell coming from Miss Emily’s house. Judge Stevens claims that it may have been a result of a dead rat or snake the servant had killed.
8. What did Miss Emily tell her visitors the day after her father’s death?
a. When visitors came to her house, she met them at the door and told the ladies that her father was not dead. She kept that up for three days.
9. Who began to date Miss Emily in Part III, and why was he in town?
a. Miss Emily began to date Homer Barron in part III and he was in town for a construction job as a foreman.
10. What did the townspeople think of Miss Emily and her new boyfriend?
a. The people around town had thought that Emily was stepping out of her class to have a relationship with Homer. Even with all the criticism, she stayed with Homer and held her head up high.
11. What does Miss Emily do to make the townspeople think that she and her boyfriend have wed?
a. Emily had gone to the jeweler’s and ordered a man’s toilet set in silver in silver, which had the initials H.B. on each piece. She also purchased a complete outfit of men’s clothing which included a nightshirt.
12. When was the last time the townspeople saw her boyfriend/husband?
a. The last time the townspeople had seen Homer was when Emily was seen buying arsenic.
13. Why had the men sprinkled lime around her house in Part II?
a. They sprinkled the lime around her house because people were complaining about a smell coming from her house.
14. There is a room upstairs no one has seen for over forty years. After Miss Emily’s funeral, the door to this room is broken down. What do the townspeople find there?
a. They had found Homer Barron’s body on the bed. .
15. What happened to Homer Barron? Comment on the second pillow on the bed in the last paragraph while responding to this one.
a. Homer Barron was poisoned and left in the bed. There was a pillow next to him, and they found one of Emily’s gray hairs on the pillow. This showed that Emily was laying with him and possibly sleeping with him at night.