英语专业高英课程课件 Lesson A ROSE FOR EMILY

• All this time, he had been reading, first whatever interested him, and later, the great poets and novelists. In New York, Faulkner met Sherwood Anderson, a famous writer, and then when he traveled to New Orleans in 1925 he gained entry into this artistic center through Anderson. Inspired by Anderson, Faulkner began to write novels.
• The majority of his works are based in his native state of Mississippi. Faulkner is considered one of the most important writers of the Southern literature of the United States, along with Mark Twain, Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, Thomas Wolfe, and Tennessee Williams. Though his work was published as early as 1919, and largely during the 1920s and 1930s, Faulkner was relatively unknown until receiving the 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature.
• Because the setting of most of his works is the American South, he is regarded as a regional writer. But the word “regional” is misleading because Faulkner deals with some of the major universal themes in literature so profoundly that he is read and recognized nationally and internationally.
• As far as writing techniques are concerned, Faulkner is among the greatest experimentalists of the 20th century novel. His effective use of the stream of consciousness, multiple points of view, symbolism and imagery, place him among the rank of the greatest modern writers along with James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. In 1950 he received the Noble Prize for Literature.
• Faulkner wrote 19 novels and nearly a hundred short stories. The setting of 15 novels and the majority of the short fiction is the American South. In them the author tells stories about people from a small region in Mississippi, a fictional place the author calls Yoknapatawpha Country. He even drew a map of the place and gave specific details about the population there. His major works include novels The Sound and The Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Light in August (1932), and Absalom, Absalom! (1936).
About A Rose for Emily
• It is a short story by American author William Faulkner first published in the April 30, 1931 issue of Forum. This story takes place in Faulkner’s fictional city, Jefferson, Mississippi in the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha County. It was Faulkner’s first short story published in a national magazine.
• In “A Rose for Emily” we can see how the author tells a good story skillfully, how he creates an atmosphere needed for the storytelling, how he keeps the suspense and unfolds the conflict bit by bit, and how he digs deep into the social world of his character.
• During WWI Faulkner served with the Royal Canadian Air Force. After the armistice(休战) in 1918 he returned to Oxford, a small town in Mississippi, and for some time he lLeabharlann Baidud a life in a rather listless way. He attended the University of Mississippi but left the university within a year; he tried his hand at poetry but without success; he went north to the cultural metropolitan city of New York, but was driven back home soon by loneliness. He became a postmaster, but in less than three years he resigned from this post.
• This story is a rich and modern 20th century literary text. Those who are not so familiar with modern American literature may encounter some obstacles in reading this story: vague references, ambiguities, symbolism, experimental point of view, jumbled time sequences, avoidance of clear transitions, withholding of vital information, etc. By exploiting those “tricks”, Faulkner hopes to invite us readers to participate in the process of seeking the truths of reading the story. It’s like working at a puzzle: when we start to figure it out, it will become more and more interesting.
• Although it is one of his most frequently anthologized(收入选集的) short stories and is widely used in the American classroom, Chinese students may find it difficult to understand and appreciate. Some of them may think it is a bizarre story about an old eccentric lady in an American Southern town. It’s true that the setting of the story is the American South. Yet, the theme of the story is universal, transcending the boundaries of time and space, like many other works of literature, this short story tells about love, death, honor, pride, change, and loss.
• The younger Faulkner was greatly influenced by the history of his family and the region in which he lived. Mississippi marked his sense of humor, his sense of the tragic position of Black and White Americans, his characterization of Southern characters, and his timeless themes. The boy grew up listening to all sorts of stories about his greatgrandfather and other people in his hometown. The stories the Negro nanny told him and the gossip he heard from the townspeople resting and chatting on the small downtown square provided Faulkner with an oral tradition of storytelling as an important part of his education.
A Rose for Emily
I. Background Information
About the Author
• William Faulkner
• (Sep 25th,1897–Jul 6th,1962) was an American writer of novels, short stories, poetry and occasional screenplays. When we talk about William Faulkner’s life, the most important fact is that he was born and bred in the American South and lived there almost all his life.