pervading dust.
Death and dust and the unknown are all characteristics of Southern Gothic
15 Matching Annotations
- Dec 2017
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xroads.virginia.edu xroads.virginia.edu
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She died in one of the downstairs rooms,
Miss Emily seems to be buried in the house that she spent the most time in and fought for the most. Like those bodies of the Confederate soldiers that were buried in Jefferson.
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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.
Death is a characteristic of Southern Gothic. It is interesting that Miss Emily died where there was no sunshine. Nothing to illuminate her body. The mold suggest the out-datedness of Miss Emily.
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So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated
The Southern women to be unwed by a cretrain age was rare. I this case, as Miss Emily represents the Old South, she had no mate to procreate with, so the ideals of the Old South, that lineage, ended with her. This could be why the townspeople were a bit vindicated by Miss Emily being single.
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SHE WAS SICK for a long time. 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
We see the sickly Southern Belle
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"It's probably just a snake or a rat that nigger of hers killed in the yard. I'll speak to him about it."
Slavery, which is associated with the South.
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"See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson." "But, Miss Emily--" "See Colonel Sartoris." (Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years.) "I have no taxes in Jefferson. Tobe!" The Negro appeared. "Show these gentlemen out."
Colonel Sartoris was a war veteran who granted Miss Emily a tax-free estate, but as this promise was upheld while Colonel was alive, this is similar to the values that were upheld at the time. As the war veterans pass, so does the value of the Old South and the values that were associated with them. This promise of superemecy or white invincibility seemed to come to a demise.
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Miss Emily Grierson
Miss suggests Southern voice
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Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.
This commentary about the eyesore of a house that Miss Emily has speaks not only to the architecture, but to the ideals that surrounds the house. What did the house represent, what values and lives did the house harbor? This house, with it retro style had become an eyesore in the sea of modernity. Which is similar to the dated ideals surrounding the New South and the decay of the Old South.
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And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.
The anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers: this reminds me of Ode to the Confederate dead, but this statement also looks as those who shed blood for the Union as nameless peoples. This suggests that the battle for the Southern tradition, slavery had passed and this was no longer the concern of those living in the town.
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and the very old men --some in their brushed Confederate uniforms
This phrase, "the very old men.. in their Confederate Uniforms..." suggest the dying or declination of the ideals surrounding the Old South: the ideals that the Confederate enthusiasts fought for will soon die along with the very old men that continued to sport these uniforms.
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THE NEGRO met the first of the ladies at the front door and let them in, with their hushed, sibilant voices and their quick, curious glances, and then he disappeared. He walked right through the house and out the back and was not seen again.
The Negro in this sense reflects slavery. The South, the Old South's economy was based on slave labor. Slaves often served in the house as well as planted and harvested crops. But as you can see in this sense, the negro's owner is deceased. This reveals the declination of the South. Hence, this reveals elements of the Southern Gothic tradition in literature.
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- Nov 2017
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centroderecursosmarista.org centroderecursosmarista.org
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Miss Emily
"Miss" is typically used in Southern dialect
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When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral.
This is an example of the Southern Gothic literature: the death/decaying image we are met with. Resembles elegy: begins and ends with a death. This death sets the tone of the story and this decaying society.
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When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral.
- This is Southern: small southern towns had a sense of togetherness. Shared identity, sense of place.
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