英美文学读书报告.doc

英美文学论文英美文学论文The gothic characteristics in A Rose for Emily-Faulkner lived in the South for a life long, and the field of south fertilized him and shaped his character. Therefore, his habit, thinking way and life attitude closely related with this unfortunate field.(Jay Parinier, 1989:2031) As the representative of the American traditional thinking, the most important and unconscious content had deeply precipitated in the deep of his heart. That is why he showed his love to his hometown in such an unusual way-exposed the faults and gloomy aspects of the South. Maybe gothic characteristic in A Rose for Emily is the best way to express his emotion.The topic is mainly about murder, death, violence and necrophilia, which is the “gothic fiction”First of all, the topic is mainly about murder, death, violence and necrophilia. It “vividly pictures a terrified story of an old virgin. Emily is the last member of the Grierson. She is a slim and gentle lady, but she almost loses her beauty when she appears again in her 30s, She looks bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue.(para6) She dies in her 74 years old finally. Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town.( para3) As long as Emily is dead, all the proud and dignity of gentle lady is dead out. Even in order to give her a hand, the premayor Colonel Sartoris only uses an excuse to avoid hurting her. Emily has been separated from the outside for nearly forty years after her fathers death and after the missing of her fianc俄. Daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow grayer and more stooped, going in and out with the market basket.(para33) Sometimes, people could see her through the window, only find her “like the carven torso of an idol in a niche.(para33) It is until the end of her funeral that the people discover the secret which they find Homers skeleton in a locked room. Obviously, the gentle lady deliberately performs and covers a murder. Critics regard that Emily retaliates by killing the north man with poison because he refuses to marry her.However, on another angle, Emily is too empty to comfort herself. In order to make a man accompany with her, she has no choice but kills him-in the way, she can stay with him forever. But this gain just is the forever lost. The moment she kills him, she is dead in spirit. The grief, desolation and sadness fill in her inner heart forever. Emily can not stand the fact that a south lady courts a north worker but fails. It is a perfect satire under the history condition in that time. Even like this, she still carried her head high enough-even when we believed that she was fallen. (para21) In a word, the topic of A Rose for Emily is the Gothic topic, which describes about murder and dead. The character of Emily is stubborn, eccentric and mysterious, who is involved in “gothic form”The character of Emily is involved in “Gothic form. She is stubborn, eccentric and mysterious. She has been isolated from the outside world for forty-year since her father is dead and Homers missing. Her door remains closed all the year round and refuses all the visitors.Actually, she is an unrealistic stubborn woman. She does not want to dispose of her fathers body, and “She told them that her father was not dead. (para15) Despite the law, she refuses to pay the taxes and repeats that I have no taxes in Jefferson.(para8) Moreover, she asks the officials to get explanation from Colonel Sartoris, who ever remit her taxes. It seems that she dose not know Colonel Sartoris was dead before ten years. It can be believed that her refusal to pay the taxes symbolizes the refusal to accept the changed society to some extent.(Zhu Zhenwu, 2003:34) She takes pain to keep her superior, dignity and the southern fair lady impression.Emily is a typical example of the dead south.” The failure of the Civil War brought corruption and decline to the South, which was very obvious in economy and politics.(Zhang Kuiwu, 2002:74) However, it is imperceptible in moral and psychology. The South originally had their own unique economic form, cultural style, life way and moral standard, even their own language. All of these elements easily stimulated the southerner rise a feeling of the nostalgia, which had solidified for the failure of the South in the Civil War.(Yu Jianhua, 2004: 460) Therefore, the war led to a strange contradictory phenomenon: the old South die as long as the failure of the war, but it more obstinately survive than any other times. The South died in society and economy, but it is still alive in the culture and mental.Pitiable Emily is solidified by time. She falls into the past glories and honors of the South, but can not be brave enough to face the real life. Faulkner vividly pictures the southerners subtle, complicated and contradictory psychology through Emily. Emily only is the epitome of the southern declining aristocracies. As the famous critic Malcolm Cloy says The southern people lived under so heavy pressure that they almost lost their rational behavior, but responded mechanically.(Yu Jianhua, 2004: 460) Thus, they broke out some uncontrollable violence and unreasonable behaviors occasionally. On the other hand, they tightly clung on the luxury and glories in the past to escape the reality, which seems extremely unrealistic and ridiculous. In this way, Faulkner criticizes the southerners who live in a new time but keep outdated mind. And this distorted psychology is exactly the spiritual essence of the collapsing old south. Standing on a new angle, Faulkner re-examines closely and explains all of these, and sympathizes the southerners thinking way and moral standard.The flashback in A Rose for Emily expresses the mysterious atmosphereLast but not least, Faulkner deliberately sets a flashback form to tell the story. At the beginning, Emily is dead at her seventy-six years old. The whole town went to her funeral for different purposes: the men have a respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women curious to see her inner house. Who is Emily? What kind of person is she? Faulkner immediately catches readers interest to read on. She once was beautiful and slim, but her father drove all the men who pursue her. Only after her father died, she could date with a Northerner. Unfortunately, she could not marry with him, which hurt her so deeply that she had to keep herself far from the world from then on.However, the ending is out of expectation. She was shrewd and unscrupulous. She secretly murdered her fianc by rat poison, and kept his body in her bed and slept with him for forty years. It is really tricky and surprising. The ending may be unreasonable to some extent, but it really shows Faulkners creativity. He adopts the flashback to add much profound meaning to the short story, which is sup