A Stylistic Analysis of A Rose For Emily

摘要:《献给艾米莉的玫瑰》是威廉・福克纳著名的短篇小说,本文从措词、句法结构和叙述视角几个方面对小说进行了文体学解读,表现出作者在故事叙述方面的独特技巧。

Abstract: This paper gives an analysis on American novelist William Faulkner’s short story A Rose for Emily from a stylistic perspective, focuses on the diction, syntactic structure and narrative method of the story.

关键词:文体学解读措词句法结构叙述视角

Keywords: stylisticsanalysisdictionsyntactic structurenarrative point of view

作者简介:赵茜,(1981-)陕西西安人,西安邮电学院外语系教师

The short story A Rose for Emily is written by American novelist William Faulkner. The story focuses on Emily, “an eccentric spinster who refuses to accept the passage of time, or the inevitable change and loss that accompanies it” (Zhang, 1998, p.617). Because of its unique Faulkner’s style, this story has been studied by many researchers from various perspectives―symbolism, character interpretation, feminism and also stylistics, to name just a few. However, most of the stylistic researches into this novel focus on Faulkner’s non-chronological story-telling style or the figure of speech. This paper will pay more attention on the diction, syntactic structure and narrative method of the story.

1. Diction

In the choice of words, the author employs onomatopoeic words and sensible words to give a vivid description of the certain situation in order to make it as if the readers are personally on the scene.

Onomatopoeic words imitate the real sounds, which could make readers associate the sounds with the activities of characters in the novel. In the sentence “She did not ask them to sit. She just stood in the door and listened quietly until the spokesman came to a stumbling halt. Then they could hear the invisible watch ticking at the end of the gold chain”, “ticking” is an onomatopoeic word. When the officials come to visit Emily, her attitude towards them is absolute indifferent with extreme pride, which makes the visitors so nervous and upset that they can even hear the ticking sound of Emily’s invisible watch. Here “ticking” foregrounds the embarrassing atmosphere at that moment. Onomatopoeic words can also be found in the sentence “This behind their hands; rustling of craned silk and satin behind jalousies closed upon the sun of Sunday afternoon as the thin, swift clop-clop-clop of the matched team passed: ‘Poor Emily.’”. “Clop” is the sound of horses’ hoof while running. When Emily and Homer are seen by other citizens, the repetition of “clop” not only describes the sound of the houses’ hoof, but also expresses citizens’ responses to this matter―their shock, nervousness and antipathy.

Faulkner also uses a lot of sensible words to make sure the readers can see, smell, feel and touch what he would like to describe. This can be seen clearly in the description of Emily’s house, such as “It smelled of dust and disuse――a close, dank smell” and “When the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray”. Emily symbolizes the past and her house also conveys a feeling of downfall, which is vividly presented by the author. In these sentences, the description of sun-ray, dust, and smells makes the reader’s feelings sensitive enough to experience the horrible and dead atmosphere of the house.

Besides, the author employs lexical repetition in order to produce some certain effects. The most evident one is the repetition of “poor Emily”, which appears six times in the story. “Poor Emily” is the comment from the citizens, and also the words from the author’s bottom of heart showing great sympathy for her tragedy. While describing Emily’s house, the word “dust” is used several times to show her unwillingness to clean the house which may reflect her insistence to the past. Maybe the “dust” can retain her father, her lover and her noble priority. While the city authorities are trying to persuade Emily to pay taxes, the repetition of “I have on taxes in Jefferson” in a very short conversation gives readers a vivid portrait of an eccentric, stubborn, and prideful old lady.

2. Syntactic Structure

This story has many long sentences with complex structure, which is the writing style of Faulkner. At the very beginning of the novel, the author uses a long sentence to tell the death of Emily and others’ responses to her death, establishing the severe tone of the story. In the sentence “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor――he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron-remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity”, the author employs a 63-word-sentence to set up an oppressive atmosphere, which gives the reader the same feeling as Emily and the Old South tradition would give. These long complex sentences are also used to describe Emily’s house such as “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street”. The sentence gives readers a solemn feeling, just as the building style of the house, which may tell how the owners of the house used to be respected. Besides, this sentence is a periodic sentence, putting “set on what had once been our most select street” at the end of the sentence in order to stress Emily family’s glorious history. Such examples can also be seen in the sentence “When we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows――sort of tragic and serene”. The author put the important conclusive information to the end in order to give readers certain time and room to imagine and judge by themselves towards Emily’s change.

Besides long complex sentences, the author also uses short simple sentences especially in dialogues to make the conversation more vividly and to show the character’s personality as well. What is worth noticing is that all the sentences spoken by Emily are rather simple and short. It not only reflects Emily’s reluctance to communicate with others, but also show her pride and inviolability. Take the dialogue between Emily and the druggist for example. "I want some poison," she said./"Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such? I'd recom――"/"I want the best you have. I don't care what kind."/The druggist named several. "They'll kill anything up to an elephant. But what you want is――"/"Arsenic," Miss Emily said. "Is that a good one?"/"Is . . . arsenic? Yes, ma'am. But what you want――"/"I want arsenic." In this short dialogue, Emily uses short sentences with the beginning of “I” just as making orders, and she interrupts the druggist three times in such a short conversation. All of these show Emily’s pride and strong-determination. In addition, Emily’s sentence is simple but grammatically correct compared with the druggist’s fragments, which shows Emily’s good education and the druggist’s nervousness. From it we can see the druggist is totally defeated by Emily. Similar examples can be found in the conversation between Emily and the city authorities who are trying to persuade Emily to pay taxes.

Sometimes, the author uses long sentences combined with short sentences intentionally to make some special effects, for example, irony or arousing readers’ attention. In the sentence “When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She would not listen to them”, the short sentence “She would not listen to them” follows the previous long sentence to form a strong contrast in syntactic structure making ironic effect. Emily tends to resist the development of the society with her own pride and stubbornness. She even wants to put the clock back. How ridiculous! However, we cannot help admiring her strong determination to cling to the old tradition at the same time. This short sentence gives us such complicated feelings while reading the story. In the Chapter 5 of the story, the short simple sentence “The man himself lay in the bed” in the middle of two long paragraphs is very eye-catching. The information this sentence conveys is important enough to make the sentence a paragraph. This short sentence answers readers’ guess about the secret of the house, and produces new suspense of the story. Readers could not help wondering who this man is; why he is lying here; who killed him. Therefore, readers will not delay to continue reading in order to get the answer. Although the author gives no obvious answers in the following sentences, the horrible atmosphere is well-developed. From here, we can notice that Faulkner’s skillful syntactic techniques make his story very compact, interesting and meaningful.

3. Narrative Point of View

As to the narrative point of view, the author uses the first person plural form “we” rather than the omniscient point of view to tell the story for the following reasons.

The first person plural form “we” includes reader as one of them. This narrative method could shorten the distance between readers and the characters in the story, and the distance between readers and the author as well. Readers would have the feelings that they are invited to experience the whole story with other characters, and the author can communicate with them by using this narrative point of view.

“We” in the story refers to all of the citizens in the town. They represent the mainstream of the society. The narrator is the local people who actually experience the whole story and can narrate clearly and calmly enough from the outsiders’ point of view. In the story, they not only convey the citizens’ emotions, but also the author’s. This kind of emotions is complicated and ambivalent. On the one hand, people yearn the past life of the Old South. They admire and respect Emily. For them, Emily is a monument which represents the Old South way of life. On the other hand, citizens disgust the downfall of the old tradition. Therefore, they have some conflicts with Emily, such as trying to persuade her to pay taxes, which is refused by Emily. The narrator as well as the local citizens witnesses the changes of

Emily. The emotions conveyed are the emotions from the community. Thanks to the unique narrative point of view, the ambivalent emotions can be expressed explicitly. “We” tell the story in a peaceful and thoughtful tone without personal judgment of the matter, which relieves the conflicts between Emily and the citizens, and eases the horrible atmosphere. We can feel the author’s sympathy for Emily between the lines.

In conclusion, Faulkner shows his talented story telling skill in the novel, especially in the ways of diction, syntactic structure, and narrative point of view, which make the short story a masterpiece. There are more stylistic features of this story such as non-chronological story-telling style or the figure of speech deserved studying.

References:

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[2] Lai, H. (2003). On style in a rose for Emily. Journal of Yunmeng, 1, 88-89

[3] Liang, Y. J. (2002). A stylistic analysis of “A Rose for Emily”. Journal of Guangxi Normal University, 2, 48-51

[4] Pan, X. Q. (2008). An interpretation of “A Rose for Emily” from the perspective of linguistic iconicity. Journal of Hubei University of Education, Vol.25 (3), 20-22

[5] Zhang, B. X. (1998). Selected Readings in English and American Literature. Beijing:Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press