Theme2021/6/71 The theme of a story is whatever general idea or insight the entire story reveals.2021/6/72 A theme need not be a moral or a message; it may be what the happenings add up to, what the story is about. The theme in fiction is its generalized view of life and human nature. 2021/6/73Subjects or topics:“loss of innocence”, “loyalty and conspiracy （背叛）”, “revenge”, “life and death”, “racial discrimination” “womens self identity”2021/6/74 One reason for the difficulty of abstracting the theme from a story is that the theme is fused （熔化）into the other elements of the story, and these elements must be carefully examined in relation to one another as well as to the work as a whole. 2021/6/75Thus, the theme emerges from the interplay of the various elements of a work and becomes valid when its details of character, plot, point of view, and other elements are taken into account. 2021/6/76Why do we need to find the theme? Trying to sum up the point of a story in our own words is merely one way to make ourselves better aware of whatever we may have understood vaguely and tentatively. 2021/6/77Why do we need to find the theme?By examining the theme of a literary work, we try to find a writers meaningful and challenging insight （领悟）into human existence and human character, which will help us reflect critically about our own beliefs and values and enlarge our vision of life.2021/6/78A Rose For EmilyWilliam Faulkner William Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897. 2021/6/79Faulkner belonged to a once-wealthy family of former plantation owners. Both parents came from wealthy families reduced to genteel (上流社会的) poverty by the Civil War. 2021/6/710His invention of the mythical Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, gave him an almost endless source of colorful characters and stories. His greatest novels and short stories are set in Yoknapatawpha. A Rose for Emily happens in Jefferson, a town in this county.2021/6/711Because Faulkner came from a family with an aristocratic （贵族的）bearing （举止风度）and associated with other similar families, he was familiar with the arrogance （傲慢）of characters like the Griersons. Some of these people continued to behave as if they were still privileged plantation owners although their wealth was gone. 2021/6/712 However, Faulkner spent much of his time observing ordinary townspeople as well, and this is why he was able to capture the voice of the common people of Jefferson in the character of the narrator.2021/6/713 Faulkner used pieces of his own life and family history in his fiction. His great-grandfather, William Clark Falkner (Faulkner added the “u” to the spelling of his name when he joined the RCAF so that it would appear “more British”) who was also known as the Old Colonel served as the inspiration for Colonel Sartoris. 2021/6/714 Colonel Sartoris, who plays a small but important role in “A Rose for Emily,” is also a major character in the novel Flags in the Dust. Faulkner based part of the character of Emily on a cousin, Mary Louise Neilson, who had married a Yankee street paver named Jack Barron. 2021/6/715He won two Pulitzer Prizes, a National Book Award, and the Nobel Prize for Literature. Faulkner died on July 6, 1962, the same day his great-grandfather, the Old Colonel, had been born on 137 years earlier.2021/6/716Critical Overview Faulkner is now regarded by most critics as one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. 2021/6/717 As is often the case with many challenging American authors, Faulkner was identified as a unique American voice in Europe long before he gained respect at home. 2021/6/718 In fact, as late as 1950, after he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the New York Times (quoted in Robert Penn Warrens introduction to Faulkner: A Collection of Critical Essays) published an editorial claiming that his work was “too often vicious (cruel), depraved (immoral), decadent （颓废的）（颓废的）, and corrupt （腐败（腐败的）的）.”2021/6/719 “Americans most fervently （热诚地，热烈的）hope,” The Times continued, that neither the award given by Sweden nor the “enormous vogue of Faulkners works” among foreigners meant that they associated American life with his fiction.2021/6/720Southern Gothic Gothic novel or Gothic romance, a story of terror and suspense, usually set in a gloomy old castle or monastery (修道院)(hence Gothic, a term applied to medieval architecture and thus associated in the 18th century with superstition). 2021/6/721 In an extended sense, many novels that do not have a medievalized setting, but which share a comparably sinister (threatening), grotesque (strange), or mysterious atmosphere have been classed as Gothic.2021/6/722Haddon Hall, Bakewell, Derbyshire, England (2002)The hall that inspired the creation of thornfield hall2021/6/723Wuthering Heights2021/6/724Southern Gothic is a subgenre of the Gothic style, unique to Amecican literature. Like its parent genre, it relies on supernatural, ironic, or unusual events to guide the plot. Unlike its predecessor, it uses these tools not for the sake of suspense (悬悬念）念）, but to explore social issues and reveal the cultural character of the American South. 2021/6/725 The Southern Gothic author usually takes classic Gothic archetypes （原（原型，典型）型，典型）, such as the damsel in distress （落难的少女）（落难的少女） or the heroic knight （有英雄气概的骑士）（有英雄气概的骑士）, then portrays them in a more modern and realistic spinster (老处女老处女), or a white-suited, fan-brandishing （挥舞扇子的）（挥舞扇子的）lawyer with ulterior （秘而不宣的）（秘而不宣的） motive （动机）（动机）.2021/6/7262021/6/727 And there are several important American tales and novels with strong Gothic elements in this sense, from Poe to Faulkner and beyond. Charlotte Bronts Jane Eyre (1847) Emily Bronts Wuthering Heights2021/6/7282021/6/729 Faulkners most famous, most popular, and most anthologized short story, “A Rose for Emily” evokes the terms Southern gothic and grotesque, two types of literature in which the general tone is one of gloom, terror, and understated violence.2021/6/730 The story is Faulkners best example of these forms because it contains unimaginably dark images: a decaying （腐朽的）mansion （宅第）, a corpse, a murder, a mysterious servant who disappears, and, most horrible of all, necrophilia (恋尸癖) an erotic or sexual attraction to corpses.2021/6/731Cultural Context The Old South has been idealized (理想化) as a land of prosperous plantations （种植园）, large white houses, cultured people, and a stable economy based on cotton. Like any utopia （乌托邦）, however, this picture is a distortion. It hides many of the unpleasant, even appalling, realities of plantation life one of which was slavery. 2021/6/732 Still, long after the Civil War (1861-1865), with much of the South destroyed and beset （困扰）by economic hardship （困难）, the myth persisted among many white Southerners (like Emily and her neighbors) as a kind of nostalgia （怀旧）for a golden age.2021/6/733Themes of the Story2021/6/734 Among other themes, it emphasizes the differences between the past, with its aristocracy （贵族） Colonel Sartoris gallantry (polite unselfish attention paid by a man to a woman), the Griersons aloofness and pride, and the board of old aldermens (地方官员)respect for Miss Emily and the modern generations business-like mentality （心态）, embodied in the board of new aldermen and the many modern conveniences we hear about.2021/6/735 As Frank A. Littler writes in Notes on Mississippi Writers, “A Rose for Emily” has been “ read variously as a Gothic horror tale, a study in abormal asychology, an allegory (寓言) of the relations between North and South, a meditation on the nature of time, and a tragedy with Emily as a sort of tragic heroine.”2021/6/736Why such a title for the story?2021/6/737 When asked at a seminar （讨论课，研讨会）at the University of Virginia about the meaning of the title “A Rose for Emily,” Faulkner replied, “Oh, its simply the poor woman had no life at all. Her father had kept her more or less locked up and then she had a lover who was about to quit her, she had to murder him.2021/6/738 It was just A Rose for Emily thats all.” In another interview, asked the same question, he replied, “I pitied her and this was a salute(致意), just as if you were to make a gesture, a salute, to anyone; to a woman you would hand a rose, as you would lift a cup of sake to a man.”2021/6/739Plot of the Story One way of explaining the excellence of “A Rose for Emily” is by considering its lack of chronological order. Such a dissection (分解)of the short story initially （一开始）might appear to weaken it, but this approach allows us to see Faulkners genius at work particularly his own unique way of telling a story.2021/6/740 In the manner that Faulkner tells it, he leaves us horrified as we discover, bit by bit, why this so-called noble woman is now a “fallen monument.”2021/6/741Point of View of the Story “A Rose for Emily” is a successful story not only because of its intricately （错综复杂地）complex chronology （时间顺序）, but also because of its unique narrative point of view. The story is told by an unnamed narrator in the first person collective. By using the “we” narrator, Faulkner creates a sense of closeness between readers and his story.2021/6/7422021/6/743 The narrator-as-the-town judges Miss Emily as a fallen monument, but simultaneously as a lady who is above reproach, who is too good for the common townspeople, and who holds herself aloof. 2021/6/744 While the narrator obviously admires her tremendously the use of the word “Grierson” evokes a certain type of aristocratic behavior the townspeople resent her arrogance an her superiority; longing to place her on a pedestal (当成十全十美的人) above everyone else, at the same time they wish to see her dragged down in disgrace.2021/6/745 Nevertheless, the town, including the new council members, shows complete deference （顺从）and subservience （卑躬屈膝）toward her. She belongs to the Old South aristocracy, and, consequently, she has special privileges.2021/6/746部分资料从网络收集整理而来，供大家参考，感谢您的关注！