美国文学论文01763

美国文学课程论文 2013年7月2 日

Surveillance and Tragedy in A Rose for

Emily

吴冰姿 外国语学院英语3班 1015010305

Thesis Statement: In William Faulkner’s short novel A Rose for Emily, the main character Emily ends up with tragedy. Emily’s fate is irrecoverable because there are surveillance in everywhere of her life——the society, the family and herself.

CONTENT

1. Introduction

2. The Surveillance of the Society 2.1 The Persecution of Puritanism 2.2 The Noble Tradition of Old South 3. The Surveillance of Family 3.1 The Supervision of Emily’s Father 3.2 The Supervision of Emily’s Relatives 4. The Surveillance of Self 5. Conclusion Works Cited

Abstract: This paper will discuss the tragedy and surveillance in A Rose for Emily. Emily’s tragedy is closely related to the surveillance around Emily. In this paper, three aspects will be discussed to find the reason for Emily’s tragedy. This paper will prove that Emily’s tragedy is irrecoverable. Key Words: Emily, tragedy, surveillance

1. Introduction

1.1 Background Information

A Rose for Emily is a short story written by William Faulkner. He was an American writer and won Nobel Prize from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of written media, including novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essaysand screenplays. He is firstly known and praised for his novels and short stories, many of which are set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County which also was the set of the story A Rose for Emily. A Rose for Emily was first published in the April 30, 1930 issue of Forum. It was Faulkner's first short story published in a national magazine. The themes of this story are resistance to change, isolation, versions of reality, compassion and forgiveness. 1.2 Literature Review

Many researches have been written to work on the short story A Rose for Emily. Looking into these analyses, we can conclude a lot of aspects of research: the symbolism, the writing technique, the cause of Emily’s tragedy, the comparison with others and so on. In these analyses, the cause of Emily’s tragedy is the most popular topic. Many scholars has written papers about it in different perspectives.

Firstly, some researches believed that Emily’s tragedy was caused by three reasons——the oppression of paternity, inhuman doctrine of woman, and dislocation of times. On the Tragedy of A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner written by HONG Liu, School of Arts&Law, An Hui, Ma’an shan showed that the causes of Emily’s tragedy lie in the paternalism and feminie morality of Puritanism governing the south of America. It is said in this paper that Emily’s character was distorted by the oppression of inhuman doctrine of woman and father’s autocracy.

The Cause for Emily's Tragedy——On A Rose for Emily written by LIU-Peng, English Department, Yunyang Teachers' College, gave a further discussion of the cause of Emily’s tragedy. Besides her father’s autocracy and inhuman doctrine of woman, the author also studied the cause for Emily’s tragedy from dislocation of times. The decline of the old south and the raise of industrial civilization directly lead

to Emily’s tragedy.

Secondly, many scholars has studied A Rose for Emily from the feminism perspective. Three Reasons for Emily's Tragedy———Analysis ofA Rose for Emily from Feminist Literary Criticism Perspective written by SHI Zi- juan, Foreign Language Department, Shaoyang College, discussed the reasons for Emily's tragic fate from the perspective of feminist literary criticism. It took Emily as the victim of patriarchal society.

An Interpretation of A Rose for Emily From a Feminist Perspective written by Zhao Qian analyzed the story A Rose for Emily from a feminist perspective, explores the social roots that lead to the tragedy of Emily. It also pointed out that Emily is victimized by the patriarchal oppression and her aristocratic status.

Finally, there are also some paper exploring the reason through comparison. Such as An Archetype Analysis of A Rose for Emily written by Su Ya-juan, institute of Foreign Languages, Lishui University. Through the approach of archetypal criticism, this essay focused on a comparative analysis of the two heroines in A Rose for Emily and Medea. Based on detailed analysis, it put forward the conclusion that both Medea’s and Emily’s tragedies are the result of the loss of love revenge and hatred that changes from it, and both the women are the victims of the patriarchal society. All the researches above has agreed that Emily is a victim and studied her tragedy from many different perspectives. But none of them has mentioned the surveillance in A Rose for Emily which is the essential of all kinds of oppressions.

2. The Surveillance of the Society

After the Civil War，the society has changed a lot. The feudal power has declined，the bourgeoisies spring up and the southern economy of plantation is inevitably attacked by the industrialization. The southern nobles struggle against the reality of losing the fortune，the statue and the reality of agony and chaos. They feel nostalgic for the old splendor times，in a large effort to impede the progress of the society. And Emily，as the descendent of the noble，has naturally become the soul of tradition，the one part of the past honor in the South. 2.1 The Persecution of Puritanism

In old south, women were seen as the embodiment of sin in Puritanism. Because of this, women’s normal desire were condemned by the society. The Puritanism required

women to be desireless and made every other people keep watching on them. People lived in old south all believed in Puritanism. They surveilled Emily with the standards of Puritanism. “Then some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young peopl …… 此处隐藏：651字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……