英语本科毕业论文--浅析《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》中艾米丽的悲剧根源.doc

An Analysis of the Origin of Emily’s Tragedy in A Rose for Emily
Abstract: The set of William Faulkner most works are about southern social history and inner world of people, describing the situation after the southern social history began to decline and the escape of the aristocrats has to the trend of southern complex society’s change. And A Rose for Emily deeply reflects the history referred above, and generally and profoundly explains the roots of Emily’s tragedy. The place where the author lives is the set of his work. The works could be divided into three categories of roots of tragedy: southern complex and social historical condition, depression from her father and twisted mentality. Those roots of tragedy are closely linked to social background in south. The reader can deeply know the unique writing skills of the author through descriptions about three kinds of roots of tragedy in his work.
Key Words: root; tragedy; social historical; patriarchy; twisted mentality

浅析《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》中艾米丽的悲剧根源
摘要：威廉.福克纳的作品大多数以南方的社会历史和人物的内心世界的描写为题材。描述南方社会历史衰落后的境况，贵族们对南方复杂社会变化趋势的逃避。他的代表作《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》深刻的体现出这样一种历史。《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》全面而又深刻地诠释了艾米丽的悲剧根源。以他自己所在的社会为背景，在作品中，他描述了三种不同的悲剧根源。这三种不同的悲剧根源和南方的社会背景和历史息息相关。此篇论文中将着重讨论这三种。分别阐述为：复杂的南方情结和社会历史条件，父权制的压迫，艾米丽的扭曲变态心理。从这三种悲剧根源中，读者能够更深刻的了解到福克纳对此篇小说的独特的写作技巧。
关键词：根源；悲剧；社会历史；父权制；扭曲心理

Contents

Abstract in English I
Abstract in Chinese II
1. Introduction 1
2. The Brief Introduction to A Rose for Emily 3
2.1 William Faulkner 3
2.2 A Rose for Emily 3
2.3 Gothic 4
3. An Analysis of Characters in A Rose for Emily 6
3.1 Emily 6
3.2 Father 7
3.3 Negro Homer Barron 8
4. An Analysis of the Origin of Emily’s Tragedy 9
4.1 Southern Complex and Social Condition in History 9
4.2 Cruel Oppress Under Father Control 10
4.3 A Screwy Psychology of Emily 12
5. Conclusion 14
Bibliography 15
Acknowledgements 16

16

1. Introduction
William Faulkner’ being a prominent writer in 20th century’s American literature, gains his world popularity for the unique style of his novel, having a positive and profound impact on the development of American literature. Faulkner’s status in modern America can be compared with Shakespeare’s status. we can see Faulkner’s literary achievement and social reputation. His most stories set in the imaginary Yoknapatawpha County, there are lots of famous works of William Faulkner as The Sound and the Fury（1929），Light in August（1932），and Absalom, Absalom(1936) and so on.
A Rose for Emily, Faulkner’s first short story, which was published in 1930, is set in the town with name Jefferson in Yoknopatawpha. The author, William Faulkner seems to set the story in a place that resembles the place he lived in, namely Oxford. Mississippi correlates to the life on the author. In a Rose for Emily, the main character Miss Emily is described in the beginning of the story as an elderly woman that once part of high social status and now part of the bitter decay of the town. William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily draws a vivid picture of the south of the United States .From the novel, we know that it was the period, the old south fades and the south began to decay gradually after the Civil War. The story provides description of the decadence of the old south. The progress of the decaying is the same with the death of Emily and her father, as well as value, tradition and lifestyle which have gradually went out of the life of people in the south.
As a masterpiece in American literature, A Rose for Emily has been attached great importance by a variety of scholars. The story has been analyzed from various angles as symbolism, feminism, religion, Gothic Literature and so on. From the point of view, the feminism of Li Rongrui, the story reflects a tragedy of Emily which is indicated in the murder of her lover. The whole life of Emily was caught by the cage of old tradition, Emily has never escaped from it. Emily can be victim of the patriarchal codes. This thesis contains five chapters. The first chapter is Introduction. In this chapter, the author introduces William Faulkner，A Rose for Emily’s background and the structure of this thesis basically. In chapter two, the author introduces some brief information of story, which is used to analyze the novel. Chapter three analyzes A Rose for Emily of the characters Emily, Emily’s father and Negro Homer Barren in the novel. Chapter four focus on the origin of Emily’s Tragedy. In this, the author mainly interprets the theme of the origin of Emily’s tragedy. The last chapter is conclusion, which in this chapter the author concludes that A Rose for Emily imbues the novel with historical and realistic meanings, and enhances its readability and profundity, which helps to explain why this novel has stood out as a masterpiece among the innumerous works.

2. A Brief Introduction to A Rose for Emily
2.1 William Faulkner
Faulkner is productive writer , producing a great variety of marvelous short stories .We know he is one of the most influential writers in the 20th century, a leading person in the century in American literary. In 1949, William Faulkner won Nobel Prize of literature. In 1995 and 1963 he also won his double Pulitzers. William Faulkner is famous or his novels and short stories. This award winning author has been praised by many critics for his ability and unique style of writing. He also shoes his writing talent in poetry and screenplay. There are marks of his hometown –Mississippi in his works as the sense of humor and blank, and white tragic position, his description of the southern features and the main themes and so on. The most famous place in his works as Yoknapatawpha saga is important to American literary. T here are lots of famous works of William Faulkner as The Sound and the Fury (1929), Light in August (1932),and Absalom, Absalom(1936)and so on. The most famous writer also is a prolific writer of short stories. His first short stories collection was published in 1931 named as these 13. In this collection, it consists of A Rose for Emily, Red leaves and other highly acclaimed short stories. The author will provide detail study on the story A Rose for Emily. The article A Rose for Emily is chosen from his short stories collection.
2.2 A Rose for Emily
A Rose for Emily, Faulkner’s first short story, which was published in 1930, is set the town with name Jefferson in Yoknopatawpha .The author William Faulkner seems to set the story in a place that resembles his own. In A Rose for Emily, the main character Miss Emily is described in the beginning of the story as an elderly woman that was once part of high social states and is now part of the bitter decay of the town. As a sole survivor of a southern family, Emily Greisens maintains an aloof dignity from her neighbors, refusing even to pay taxes. Later when she is jilted by a lover and becomes a recluse, the people of Jefferson are forgiving and protective of her. But when Emily dies, the townspeople learn the horrifying truth about the town’s last belle. Actually, the whole story line is made up of three parts. First: the main reason that the women of Jefferson go to Miss Emily’s funeral is to honor a great lady and see her home. They want to assure her who that she is really dead. After Miss Emily’s father dies, Colonel Sartorius cancels Emily’s taxes, she is too much of a lady to be bothered with taxes, her father once loaned the town money, and now the town is repaying its debts, the Greisens house is so run-down, it is not worth paying taxes on. When officials later try to pay taxes, she responds by getting Tube to chase away the officials, threatening the officials with blackmail, saying she has no taxes in Jefferson. Second: thirty years earlier, officials had gone to Miss Emily house to sprinkle line around her property to destroy an awful odor, question Tube about killing rats and snakes, the questions of Emily is about the disappearance of Homer Barron. When the townspeople realize that Miss Emily has no money and will never marry, they begin to offer her charity, poke gentle fun at her. After her father’s death, Miss Emily graciously welcomes her friends and neighbors to a wake, at first refuses to release his body for burial, plans to leave Jefferson for good. Third: Miss Emily buys arsenic from the druggist, she tells him that she wants it to kill rates, refuses to tell him the reason for the purchase and explains that her manservant wants it for a gardening compound. The townspeople are convinced that Homer Barron and Miss Emily are married when she orders a monogrammed silver toilet set from the local jeweler, purchase two railway tickets, one-way to NEW YORK CITY, disappears for six months. At last, townspeople discover that Miss Emily had hoarded gold, silver, and valuable stocks, made a shrine to honor her head father and other relatives, killed Homer Barron and kept his body on her brail bed.
2.3 Gothic
“Gothic” novel is one of the direct sources of contemporary western horror movies which is popular in Europe around 18th century. The term of Gothic (Goth) originally came from the name of Gothic Teutonic tribal, and later it was used refer to a medieval
Architectural style and used for churches and castles, which is characterized by towering spiers, thick stone walls, dark and gloomy inside tunnel and so on. Those thinkers advocating ancient Greek civilization, because of the construction of such resentment put the word “Gothic” evolved into synonymous words such as barbarism, horror, mystery and darkness. In 18th century, there came out a novel style, it often put a kind of horror and mystery as the keynote, and almost occur in the destroyed castles, having been given the name “Gothic” novel. Such novel often set castle, wilderness, ruins and other environment as background, filled with dark, mysterious, suspense and brimmed with violence, revenge, and death plot. Gothic novel’s structural model reflects in the story scenes, characters paradigms, themes and other aspects of a series of innovative awareness. One of the biggest highlights is that there are not only “gothic castle”, but also “surreal horror.” The so called “surreal terror”, it refers to the people in the works subjecting to some form of ghosts, ghosts, monsters or something unknowable. So that they often manifest a feeling of high anxiety such as fear of death or insanity. Because of the extreme exaggeration and rendering, the feeling of the fear about characters is not only “imminent”, but also the body is set. In fact, this “fear” is brought by a virtual “great world”, and it does not have actual harm. Actually, this fear allows readers to create a special ambiguous pleasure. The more absurd, bizarre, weird, the horrible scene is described. The description is too close to the ordinary life, even if it is with a lot of little-known adventures, we also due to the lack of pain and outrageous so that we can’t leave memory or thinking.

3. An Analysis of Characters A Rose for Emily
3.1 Emily
In this short story, as a sole survivor of a southern family, Emily Greisens maintain an aloof dignity from her neighbors. Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town. From the whole passage, we can see that she was a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes ,lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their errand. From her appearance depict, Emily Greisens – the main character of the story, is a aging spinster in Jefferson, whose life and death is central focus on us readers of the south of the United States. Emily’s fate very misery in that time ,that was two year after her father’s death and a short time after her sweetheart- the one we believed wound marry her-had deserted her. After her father’s death she went out very little, after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all. When townspeople next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was tuning 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. When she died, she felt ill in house with dust and shadows, with only a doddering Negro man to wait on her, people did not even know she was sick, people had long since given up trying to get any information from the Negro. He talked to no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if from disuses. She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her gray head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight. That time townspeople just said ,”Poor Emily,” behind the jalousies as they passed on Sunday afternoon in the glittering buggy, Miss Emily with her head high and Homer Barron with his hat cocked and a cigar in his teeth, reins, and whip in a yellow glove. The townspeople of ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people. The men did not want to interfere but at last the ladies forced the Baptist minister –Miss Emily’s people were-Episcopal- to call upon her. He would never divulge what happened during that interview, but he refused to go back again. The next Sunday they again drove about the streets, and the following day the minister’s wife wrote to Miss Emily’s relationship in Alabama. So she had blood-kin relatives under her roof again, and people sat back to watch developments. At first nothing happened. Then people were sure that they were to be married. Unfortunately, Homer Barron abounded her. Her fate was very misery.
3.2 Emily’s father
In a parlor, on a tarnished gift easels before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss Emily’s father. In townspeople mind ,they had long thought of a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a straddled silhouette in the foreground, his bank to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. So when she got to thirty, she was still single. What’s worse, her father had driven away the young man when she can get to marry with others. Her father had driven all of her suitors away from her, lost most of the family fortune gambling, refused to allow her to be educated. Above all the facts, we can know that her father was a stubborn, cruel and indifferent person. So the day after her death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our cu