“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner
Diction Debate
What are the most important words in “A Rose for Emily”?
Here are six that appear most frequently: (besides “Miss,”
“Emily,” etc)
Smell
Old
Father
Dust
We
Rose
1)
Your job will be to find the word given to you
where it occurs in the text. Underline, highlight, or copy the passages
containing the word.
2)
How many times does the word occur?
3)
At what point in the text does the word occur?
(Early, late?)
4)
What does your word tell us about the text?
5)
Why is your word important? (Think of your word
as “doing work”; what kind of work is your word doing in order to convey
meaning?)
The word you have appears multiple times in the text. Your
word tells us many things about the story. Compared with the other five words,
explain why your word is the most important in the story for giving context and
meaning to the plot / characters.
·
Your first argument must be strictly
argumentative information: it must explain why your word is important.
·
Your second and third arguments can also be
arguments in your favour; however, they can also be “deconstructive” arguments,
which means they can be aimed at one or more of the other five words, showing
why they are not important.
·
You must use at least three quotations
containing your word (or that of your opponents) in each of your arguments.
·
Once you have 3 major reasons why your word is
the most important to the story (or why somebody else’s isn’t), then we will
have a debate.
How to Debate:
1)
Give your arguments as if they were a speech: in
complete sentences, explain how your arguments prove that your word is the most
important out of all of them. Be as convincing as you can.
2)
Take notes while the others are speaking; when
they inevitably say something disparaging about your word, you should write it
down to address it in your speech. Explain why they are wrong, giving specific
reference to what they said.
3)
The person to go first will have a free minute
at the end of all the speeches to address any points that may have been made
against their word by his or her opponents.
4)
You will be given hand signals to indicate time:
minute signals, 30 s signal, 10 s signal, 15 s grace. Use the last 15 s grace
period to say the following: “Because of all of the reasons I have given you,
our team believes that the word, __________ is the most important in “A Rose
for Emily”
Here is a copy of the instructions I wrote for myself:
Divide the room into groups; we should have 22 students, 4
groups of 4 and 2 groups of 3 (Are there six people with laptops?)
Assign each group a word.
Give the following example:
The word “Miss” is the most important word in “A Rose for
Emily”
1)
The word “Miss” is used to refer to Miss Emily
consistently throughout the story. The word is repeated throughout the story 35
times. At the beginning of the story, the narrators claim that when she was “alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care,”
indicating that she has several roles within the community. While they must
take care of her, they mark her as a “tradition” and a “duty” which corresponds
with their decision to consistently refer to her as “Miss”; the word Miss is a
traditional way to refer to an unmarried woman, and thus they use the honorific
as a means of maintaining their Southern traditions of politeness and
propriety.
2)
While the word “Miss” indicates her unmarried
status, and is usually thought to be a polite term, as previously mentioned, it
may also be superficial: by constantly referring to her as “Miss” despite her elderly
age, the community may also be thinking of her as a little girl who can’t quite
take care of herself. In calling her “Miss,” the townspeople are behaving both
ironically and mockingly: she is obviously no longer a young lady, and she is
well beyond “marriageable” age. As though becoming married enables a woman to
participate in society, they call her “miss” as if she has missed a step in
becoming a person, and is stuck in the virginal temporal space of being a
“Miss.” The townspeople claim that they “had long
thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the
background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground.” They
see her as a static unchanging figure in white – suggesting virginity – and
behind her father – suggesting that she is fully at his mercy and control. Her
identity is defined by her disused body and her lack of a father and husband.
Her name, then, represents that feeling that she should be pitied for having
not found a husband, and secretly mocked for the same.
Together, these two ideas of the word Miss
used both as a tradition and as an insult demonstrate further insight into the
actions and beliefs of the Southern community. The complexity of their feelings
towards Miss Emily are wrapped up in the way they name her: with pity, mockery,
and disdain. In calling her “Miss” they can call her all of these things, too,
without breaking the rules of propriety set by their Southern society.
3)
The lack of the word “Miss” in the title is
particularly interesting, because it is the only place where her name is not
preceded by the honorific. The title itself is worthy of further thought,
because it indicates a “rose” for Emily, and yet there is no rose within the
story. A rose for Emily may be an offering of marriage or a relationship, and
it may also be the gift of a rose. However, I think the rose might be an
offering at her funeral; while the community disdains and mocks her, the story
itself becomes a rose offered to her as a means of saying that she is
understood, if not by the speakers, than at least by the writer. The writer
gives her this rose – the story – as a way of saying that she isn’t crazy or
pitiable, but that her motivations and actions can be comprehended. Likewise,
she is called “Emily” rather than “Miss Emily” in the title, because she is
being recognized as a person with real thoughts and feelings, rather than the
mockingly and ironically named Miss Emily.
Give debate instructions.
This is excellent.
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