英语论文扭曲的爱—艾米丽悲剧分析

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专业英语教育
班级 XXXX级英语教育X班
学生 XXX
指导教师 XXX XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）开题报告书
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论文（设计）题目：扭曲的爱—艾米丽悲剧分析
学院： XXX学院专业：英语教育班级： XXXX级英语教育X班
学生姓名： XXX 学号： XXXX 指导教师： XXX 职称：教授
1、论文（设计）研究目标及主要任务
本论文的研究目标是探究福克纳的《献给爱米丽的玫瑰》中艾米里的悲剧原因。

主要任务是通过分析小说中艾米里的悲剧原因，引导读者更深入理解福克纳的小说中南方情怀，女性意识以及男权影响。

2、论文（设计）的主要内容
本论文分为三章，第一章介绍艾米丽所生活的小镇上的居民对她的扭曲的爱，第二章阐述艾米丽的父亲对艾米丽的影响，最后一章讨论了艾米丽与荷默之间的爱。

3、论文（设计）的基础条件及研究路线
本论文的基础条件是国内外不同学者对福克纳小说以及对《献给爱米丽的玫瑰》的研究。

研究路线是对艾米丽的悲剧原因从内外因进行探讨和深入分析，以对福克纳的约翰纳帕塔法世系小说进行深入理解。

4、主要参考文献
Xiao, Minghan. Study on William Faulkner. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1997
Chang Yaoxin, A survey of American Literature,南开大学出版社，2008年9月第三版
[美]罗德·霍顿，赫伯特·爱德华兹，《美国文学思想背景》。

人民文学出版社，1991年1月第1版。

李文俊.《福克纳传》[M].北京：新世界出版社，2003.
教师：年月日
教研室主任：年月
注：一式三份，学院（系）、指导教师、学生各一份
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XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）文献综述
本科生毕业论文设计
题目扭曲的爱——艾米丽悲剧分析
作者姓名 XXX
指导教师 XXX
所在学院 XXX学院
专业（系）英语教育
班级（届） XXX级X班
完成日期 2013 年 5 月 8 日
Twisted love
——An Analysis of Emily‟s Tragedy
By
XXXX
Pro. XXXX, tutor
A Thesis Submitted to Department of English
Language and Literature in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of B.A in English
At XXXX University
May 8th, 2013
iii
Abstract
A Rose for Emily, written by Faulkner, is one of the best short stories in America. It was originally published in The Forum, in 1930. In 1979, the magazine Foreign Art published this story, and the scholars at home began to study Faulkner deeply of his story. According to the study of many scholars both at home and abroad in recent years, the research of “A Rose For Emily” can be divided into the following aspects: Faulkner‟s complex of the South; the Gothic and terrifying sense; the character analysis of the black slave; the image of the elder generation; feminist study; the ways of narration; comparative study and so on.
The story of “A Rose for Emily” is about a southern lady, who lived under the traditional morals, after getting rid of the restrain of her despotic father, tried to pursue her love, but finally was betrayed. At last she killed her lover Homer and slept with his dead body for the rest of her time. It is a horrible story with twisted love and gothic sense.
This paper tries to analyze the tragic sense of this work, the twisted love in terms to Emily, in order to find out the reasons that account for Emily‟s tragedy. This thesis consists of three chapters: the twisted love of the town‟s people, of her father, and twisted love between Emily and Homer.
Key words：Emily twisted tragedy causes
摘要
福克纳的《献给艾米丽的玫瑰花》是美国优秀的短篇小说之一。

它起初是在1930年发表于《论坛》杂志中。

在1979年，中国的《外国文艺》发表了这篇文章的译文，中国的学者开始深入地研究福克纳及其小说。

根据近年来国内外学者的研究，献给艾米丽的玫瑰花主要在以下几个方面进行研究：福克纳的南方情怀；小说中的哥特式风格；对文章中黑人角色的研究；对老一辈的分析；小说中的女性主义研究；小说的叙事方法；与其他小说主人公的对比研究等等。

《献给艾米丽的玫瑰花》是关于一个南方女性艾米丽的故事。

他生活在传统的道德体系中，在摆脱了专制父亲的控制后，她勇敢地追求自己的幸福，但是最后被她的爱人背叛。

于是，她杀死了荷默并且在她的余生，与他的尸体同眠共枕。

这是一个夹杂有扭曲的爱和哥特式恐怖的故事。

本文试图通过艾米丽身上体现的扭曲的爱，分析小说的悲剧色彩，进而来发掘导致艾米丽悲剧的深层原因。

文章通过三个章节:镇上居民对艾米丽扭曲的爱，父亲给艾米丽的扭曲的爱以及艾米丽和荷默之间扭曲的爱，来阐释艾米丽的悲剧原因。

关键词艾米丽扭曲悲剧原因
Table of Contents
Introduction (01)
ChapterⅠ.Twisted Love of the Town’s People (04)
A. From the Instinct and Helpless Love (04)
B. Choking Love of the town‟s people (05)
ChapterⅡ.Twisted Love of Father (10)
A. Despotic Love of His Father (10)
B. Influence of His Despotic Love (13)
Chapter Ⅲ. Twisted Love of Homer and Emily (16)
A. Passionate Love of Homer and Emily (16)
B. Faded & Eternal Love of Homer and Emily (18)
Conclusion (22)
Notes (23)
Bibliography (24)
Introduction
William Faulkner, one of the most important American writers in 1920s, is famous for his Yoknapatawpha County, where he set most of his work. He is very good at describing the local conditions and traditions in the wide south of America. Faulkner was introduced to the readers in China in the 1930s. Then came an interruption of his study. In the late 1970s, our scholars began to pay special attention to him. 1990s saw a summit of the study on Faulkner in China.
Among the 129 short stories he wrote, only about 40 have been translated. Compared to the study of his long novels, this field remains a large part of blank. The study of Faulkner in our country began late and some aspects of the research remain to be explored. Thus, it is necessary to have a deep research on his short stories, in much more original ways. It was after he wan the Nobel Prize in 1950 that scholars in our country began to pay special attention to him. In the twenty-first century, a rapid growth has appeared in the study field on Faulkner. Now more and more young scholars begin to study Faulkner, and their methods are more original and novel than before. More papers about Faulkner appear, from the analysis of his technique of writing, the themes of the works, even from the comparative point. Great figures in this field are Li Wenjun, Tao Jie, Liu Daoquan, Gao Fen and Ji Lin.
Then let‟s have a brief review of the Faulkner study in America. Before 1970s, the critics in America held different ideas to him, some supporting him and some other people against him, especially between the 1930s and the 1950s. Some critics admit the creation of novel in its forms, but they neglect the history sense and theme of the stories. Some think that it is not proper for Faulkner to focus the hatred to women and the black. These comments are lacking of objection, the attack reaching to the summit. The attempt of Malcolm Cowley and Robert Penn Warren make people regard and reconsider Faulkner fairly. Warren noted that we should pay attention to the theme of the black, the symbolism, the feminism, and so on. American Literature and Southern Literary Journal are the main position where American scholars study Faulkner. Many works of great significance come into existence, such as Linda
Wagner Martin‟s “William Faulkner: Six Decades of Criticism (2002)”, Charles Hannon‟s “Faulkner and the Discourses of Culture” “William Faulkner, Gavin Stevens, and the Cavalier Tradition and so on. Since 1974, Faulkner‟s annual meeting has been held over 30 years, which put forward many valuable research results. In modern times, scholars are trying to explore new thoughts and methods to achieve great significance.
Among the novels Faulkner wrote, the short stories attract reader‟s attention by their profound themes and delicate diction. As we know, he created the Yoknapatawpha County, and his famous short story “A Rose for Emily”, published in 1930, is a part of this series. It tells us a story, in which a beautiful young lady, Emily, was born in a southern noble family. With the impact of her father, she missed the best time for a marriage. When her father died, she totally broke down, and refused to admit the reality of losing her beloved relative. She locked herself in the house for years, losing touch with the outside world, until a northern worker, Homer, came here. Though they fell in love in the eyes of the town‟s people, Homer seemed to reject her request. Then one day, she poisoned him and slept with the body to her death. In this story, Faulkner represents the decline of the old system, thus it is called the allergy of the south. With the end of the Civil War, the advanced northern civilization impacts the southern traditional one. The period Faulkner lived in is the transitional one in which people love and worry about the south, and at the same time, they can‟t avoid accepting the commercial culture of the north. People are in a contradictory situation and experience the turn of the history and the breakdown of the southern cultivating culture.
According to the study of many scholars in recent years, th e research of “A Rose For Emily‟ can be divided into the following aspects: Faulkner‟s complex of the South; the Gothic and terrifying sense; the character analysis of the black slave; the image of the elder generation; feminist study; the ways of narration; comparative study and so on. This paper tries to analyze the tragic sense of this work, the twisted love in terms to Emily, in order to find out the reasons that account for Emily‟s tragedy. Emily‟s twisted love results from many aspects, of which the m ain ones are
love of the town people, of her father, of Homer and herself.
ChapterⅠ.Twisted Love of the Town’s People The twisted love of the Town‟s people may be one of the causes that lead to Emily‟s tragedy. It seems tha t their curiosity, chatting, and gossiping appear through the story. For them, Miss Emily is“a tradition, a duty, and a care, a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town”⑴, and this destroyed Emily‟s life.
A. From the Instinct and Helpless Love
Love of the town‟s people came from their instinct, for they regard Emily as a monument, thus would not like to witness the fall of the old tradition. So they were curious about Emily all the time. What‟s more, their love resulted from the social background when there were fierce conflicts between the north and the old south. This chapter tries to analyze the causes of the twisted love of the town‟s people from the two aspects of conflicts between the North and South and the town‟s curiosity.
1.Conflicts between the North and South
The town in which Emily lives is a miniature of the American South. And it represents the living conditions, cultural values and traditions of the south. As Chang Yaoxin wrote in his “A survey of American Literature”:
The American south has been a unique region all along. There was the historically significant conflict between the Hamilton north and the
Jeffersonian south. For a long time after the Civil War the agricultural south
remained subordinate to industrial north, and there existed a glaring gap in
culture and way of thinking between the two parts of the country. Measures
were taken to develop the south; economic improvements slowly came about.
⑵
It is true that before the Civil War, superiority complex existed in the south, while after the war, capitalism rose quickly, disrupting the cultivating system. On the other hand, with the feudalism deeply in mind, the south still remained conservative attitudes towards the new system, and they even tried to stop the history from
continuing.
In the small town Jefferson, the old hierarchy system began to collapse while the modern civilization starts to boom quickly. We can get this information from the text, when Emily‟s father died, the town began to pave the sidewalks, and the constr uction company came with some passionate workers like Homer. This scene shows clearly that the small town was in the transitional period, when the old system was replaced by the new one. Homer was very optimistic and brave, which is the characteristics of the north. When Emily fell in love with him, it was doomed to be a tragedy for they stood for two different cultural values. So under this circumstances, the town‟ people were imprinted by the time.
In this story, being a tradition, a duty, and a care, a sort of hereditary obligation, Emily attempt to maintain her nobility, hiring black slave and ignoring the tax notice. She lives in the glory of the passing south, without noticing that history had changed, the absolute unify of values in the south rest rict her deeply. The town‟s people seem to care about Emily, but they only destroyed Emily‟s life.
2. Their curiosity
In this story, the curiosity of the town‟s people can be seen almost everywhere. When her father died and her sweetheart went away, people had no chance to see her, but some women tried to ask her for something, hoping to get some information useful, only to get nothing. When Emily fell in love with Homer, the town‟s people began to gossip about her behaviors, regarding she had set a negative example to the town. Even when Emily died, the town‟s people went into her house, with curiosity to see what is in the house.
All of these show that the town‟ people seem to notice Emily all the time, always chatting, gossiping about Emily. This creates a tense atmosphere around Emily. Whatever Emily did, it was always on the stare of the town‟s people. Their curiosity is the cause of their twisted love, because they are always keeping an eye on Emily.
B. Choking Love of the town’s people
Choking Love of the town‟s people fell upon Emily all the time. On the one hand,
they tended to protect Emily‟s nobility very well; on the other hand, their love weaved a net where Emily could not escape, and lived within it with the loss of her freedom and rights forever.
1. The Protect of the Seniority
When Emily was alive, the seniority tended to protect her. Colonel Sartoris remitted Emily‟s taxes, for the reason that her father had loaned some money to the town, and as a result, the town repaid his money and made up this kind of tax exemption, from the death of her father into perpetuity. In fact, nearly no one would believe this, except the women in the town.
When Emily was about forty years old, she gave lessons on china-painting. Colonel Sartoris' contemporaries sent their offspring to Miss Emily. “She fitted up a studio in one of the downstairs rooms”⑶to teach them. The seniority tried to help her when she was in trouble financially. And still she was remitted of her taxes.
When some neighbor complained to the mayor, Judge Stevens, who was about eighty years old that a smell came from Miss Emily‟s house, and they want the mayor to do something, he answered, “will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?"⑷And
“So the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily's lawn and slunk about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base of the
brickwork and at the cellar openings while one of them performed a regular
sowing motion with his hand out of a sack slung from his shoulder. They
broke open the cellar door and sprinkled lime there, and in all the
outbuildings.”⑸
This was also a way of protecting Miss Emily. The mayor, being very old, wanted to cover up something Emily had done, and to avoid embarrass of Emily, then to maintain her nobility. Actually, he must have known something, but as a way of protecting Emily, he chose to be silent.
When attended Miss Emily‟s funeral, some very old men dressed “their brushed
Confederate uniforms on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression”⑹. This also shows that the elder were in memory of the old system, and they don‟t want to accept the new one. They do not want to face up the change of the time.
All these examples show that the seniority in this town loved Emily, and they tried to protect her. Miss Emily is an embodiment of the old hereditary system. They wanted to go on with the old south, dreaming about going back to the past. Emily was the very person upon whom they can put their feelings and thoughts. They respected her, looked after her and secretly helped her, in order to preserve her noble status. Being nostalgic, they regard Emily as a monument, one which would not fall down, for it representing the old south. The care from the old generation made Emily realize the dignity of her family, and her duty as a noble woman. To maintain her image as a perfect noble woman, and to live up to the old, she finally took extremely cruel measures to get her love. To conclude, their twisted love leads Emily to her tragedy.
2. Compromise of the Young
The younger generation, with its new ideas of culture and value, should have different view from their seniority. So it is not so difficult for us to understand when they came to power, they began to hold different attitudes from their father. It can be seen from the following three aspects.
Firstly, i n terms of the tax matter, the old generation made up a story that Emily‟s father had loaned money to the town, with the purpose to maintain Emily‟s noble status. As soon as the younger generation replaced them, they expect Emily to pay for the taxes. And actually, they did take some measures. We can infer from the dialogue the attitudes of the two sides. The first year, they mailed Emily a notice. Then they called at Emily‟s ho use by themselves. But when they referred to this matter, Emily did not seem to pay much attention to it. "See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson."⑺"But, Miss Emily--""See Colonel Sartoris." (Colonel Sartoris had been
dead almost ten years.)⑻She did not know the fact, still believing she is free of tax. What‟s more, her manners are firm and decisive as usual. This made the young compromise finally.
The next one is about the smell. Emily killed Homer with poison, to get her love forever. The old generation knew the fact, but they tried to cover it up by saying that it might be done by the black slave. This kind of behavior made the younger generation difficult to deal with. It was not proper for them to refer to this matter to Emily face to face. So they secretly got to M iss Emily‟s house, and sprinkled lime in and around her house. When they finished this activity, a window was lighted and Miss Emily sat in the room. The story described vividly -- “They crept quietly across the lawn and into the shadow of the locusts that lined the street.”⑼From this the new generation, still hesitated to take measures to Emily, fearing to offend this noble woman.
Then about the postal delivery, the new generation made an order that the town could get free postal delivery, Miss Emily refused to accept it. The younger generation could do nothing but pretend to be blind.
If the new generation, standing for the new civilization and cultural values, could do something to challenge the old system, forcing Emily to obey the new system, to change her attitude, and sticking to their ideas, but Miss Emily would have a chance to go outside her dark house and accept new thoughts. Maybe a complete new world was waiting for her, and she could pursue her own happiness and have her new life. In this way her tragedy may be avoided.
3. Too Much Focus of the Neighbor on Emily
Emily，as a noble woman, was a represent of the old south, in the eyes of the neighbor. And they put much focus on Emily. In this story “A Rose for Emily”, their care goes through the whole. When Emily‟s father died, they began to talk about how she could survive in the society. They cared for her on the surface, while indeed, with no one to turn to, she lost all the glory she once had. Her life then was as normal as
the neighbor. So they had a chance to pity and sympathize her. When they came to see her after her father‟s death, they wanted to meet their demand of taking pleasure in her misfortune.
When Emily finally broke away from her father, trying to pursue her own happiness, and have a connection with Homer, her neighbors on the other hand, started to chat about her, considering her against the so-called “noblesse oblig e③”. They even asked Emily‟s female cousins to interrupt into her marriage，for they can‟t bear the fact that Emily marry a northern worker. Later, as they saw Homer and Emily play outside together, they would sigh: “Poor Emily”⑾, and criticized her. When Emily bought some men clothes, and other things for marriage, they began to guess that the two had married, and felt happy for her. However, this happiness had some meaning of critic. The neighbors were glad to see a noble woman degenerate completely. And the last one was about the suicide. When the neighbor knew that she had bought some poison, guessing she would have suicide, they all agree it a good thing. How cruel the neighbor was to sacrifice Emily to maintain the old tradition of the south.
It was the over focus of the neighbor that make the old moral system restrain, nitpick and satire Emily all the time. The whisper behind jalousies seemed to continue always. Emily was under this condition that put much pressure on her. She was suffocating totally. In the end, she picked the way to stop the slanderous gossip.
ChapterⅡ.Twisted Love of Father
Emily‟ father played a signif icant role on Emily. The twisted love of him is the main source of Emily‟s tragedy. His love once protected her and in the end buried Emily.
A.Despotic love of His Father
Emily‟s father played a very important role in her life. In the story, he was a very deposic person. He defended Emily and protect her virginity carefully. His characteristics were typical of that time. This chapter will discuss this topic from the following aspects: Patriarchal chauvinism in the South, deep meaning of the two pictures in the story and the influences of the Patriarchal chauvinism on Emily.
1.Patriarchal chauvinism in the South
As is stated in the Bible, God created man first, and then he used a bone from the man, making woman as his company. It can be inferred from the Bible that women are subordinated to men. This kind of thoughts has a great influence in the society where Christian is dominated. And the South, to some extent, is a society of Puritanism. This restrained women deeply. On the other hand, family plays a central role in the agricultural society which is based on the plantation system. Thus father, as the head of the plantation, is the dominator of the family. What he said was supreme to the whole family.
Patriarchal chauvinism means that it is the father who determines the matters in the family, and possesses the unshakable powers, from the aspect of religion. The Patriarchal chauvinism is the deep-rooted tradition in the Puritan South. It defends the absolute authority of the father in the family, and orders the women and children to obey everything the father has put. The father controls each member of the family.
In the circumstances of the Patriarchal chauvinism, women are required to follow the instructions of the father of the family, having no choices of their own. They are expected to behave in the way that father thinks is proper and right. In this novel “A Rose for Emily”, Faulkner created an autocratic father who determines everything for Emily before he died. With the permeation of the northern industrial civilization, the
whole are in the atmosphere of loss, where their old tradition would be replaced by the new one. But the glory and brilliance still remains in the heart of them. Emily‟s father is one of the representatives of the old south. They cherished the memory of the south, and wanted to live in the past forever. In this sense, he deprived Emily of everything she deserved and locked her in the house.
2.Deep Meanings of the Two Pictures
In the story, Faulkner depicted two pictures related to Emily‟s father. One is when her father was still alive, “Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a straddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door.”⑿The other is when her father had died, the new generation came into her house, led by the Negro. “On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss Emily's father.”(13) These two static pictures had deep meanings.
From the fi rst picture, It can be seen that the back of Emily‟ father is to Emily, and he clutched a horsewhip. This means that her father actually did not communicate with Emily at all. He did not know what the girl needed, and what she thought. This is why Emily was not in touch with the outside world. Her father clutching a horsewhip means that he was so despotic that he drove away many young men who loved Emily. This horsewhip is the symbol of the patriarchal chauvinism, which dominates Emily totally.
From the second picture, after her father died, Emily had long watched the crayon portrait of him. This is the memory of her father on the surface. What the story wants to tell is the deep influence of her father on Emily. He deprive Emily of all she should possess, after his death, Emily still lived under the shadow of it, not knowing what to do without the love of her father. It is the old tradition of the south that restricted her, her father being only a performer.
Although in this story, Miss Emily‟s father did not say anything, and his appearance is quite vague to the readers, his influence on Emily is profound and far-reaching. In one way, we can say that it was her father who destroyed Emily totally.
3. Influences of the Patriarchal Chauvinism on Emily
In the story, patriarchal chauvinism shows its appearances from all aspects.
Firstly, it restrained Emily‟s freedom. His father was so strict to her, and regulated Emily with the old moral system, and as a noble lady, Emily should bear the responsibilities which the Griersons ought to. Brought up by his father and in the “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 s elect street”⒁, Emily was isolated with the outside world. For she was regarded as the private property of her father, who stripped of all her happiness and freedom.
Secondly, it suppressed Emily‟s desire for love. The Griersons had been the noble family in the town. Emily‟s father considered themselves as the upper class, and looked down upon all the black and the ordinary people. He would not let Emily make even one step out of the “big, squarish frame house”⒂, for this is the symbol of their identity of nobility. Al l the other young men in the father‟s eyes were not proper for Emily. So when she was at the best age for marriage, her father just drove them all who proposed marriage to Emily. He tried to protect Emily, and maintain her as the noble lady, only to destroyed her and ruined her love completely.
Thirdly, it left Emily depending upon him greatly. We have discussed the influence upon Emily when her father was alive. Emily was controlled by his father and lived under his shadow forever, even after his death. It is described as following, “Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead.”⒃It is showed clearly that Emily can not bear the sudden lose of her father. Because he had long been guarding her and she was used to this. The death of her father means that she can no longer depend on
anyone else, and she had lost the belief and goal of her life. Her father was the breath of life to her. When his father was alive, she at least had the purpose to live, for the instructions of her father. Now she had lost everything, except for the house.
B. Influence of His Despotic Love
Emily was great influenced by her father. And her father‟s deposic love controlled her all of her life. This twisted love lead to Emily‟s loss of self-consciousness, b lank of Emily‟s love and bud of the revolt sense began to appear on Emily.
1. Emily‟s loss of self-consciousness
A man, with a horse-whip in his hand, is the image of Emily‟s father in the reader‟s eyes. Emily was brought up by this man, and did not enjoy the love from her mother. Her father drove away one after another young man who proposed marriages in her life. Under the protection of her father, Emily was gradually used to this kind of life, and step by step, she lost the touch with the outside world. On the other hand, her father was always teaching her the concepts of noble behaviors, which made Emily, form the characteristics of diffidence and taciturnity. This made it difficult for her to communicate with others. Thus she could adapt to the changing of the town, and refused to admit the transformation. So with the guide and teach of her father, Emily lost her own thoughts, happiness, feelings and so on little by little, deprived of her self-consciousness.
It was the case when her father was still alive, and after her father died, the situation became worse. She could not accept the fact and rejected to admit the death of him. She even stopped the town‟s people from burying her father. The fac t that she could not accept her father‟s death actually reflects that she was not willing to affirm that she had lost the mental support. When he was alive, Emily obeyed him, and followed his instructions. Now she had no one to depend on, and did not know what to do with the rest of her life. So she totally broke down.
Alive, her father protected her in the beautiful house; dead, his house became the grave of her. She had already lost everything except the house. The dependence to her。