week 2

discussion 2 is messing second post i will let you know when someone post 

Week 2 Assignment: Essay

Resources

Read/review the following resources for this activity:

· Textbook (Foster): Chapter 19

· Textbook (Charters):

· Zora Neale Hurston – “The Gilded Six-Bits”

· Art Spiegelman – “Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History”

· Marjane Sartrapi – “Persepolis: The Veil”

· William Faulkner – “A Rose for Emily”

· Lecture 1, 2, 3

· Minimum of 3 outside resources (Resources may include .edu or .org website and/or peer-reviewed journal articles from the TU library.) 

Activity Instructions
Please select one of the two essay topics below. Please use cited examples and quotes from the stories. If you are applying concepts from Foster, please be sure to cite examples and quotes from his text as well.

1. The events that happen to us when we are children often determine the adults we will later become. Often, what happens to a child cannot be overcome. Whether that is positive or negative depends on the event and the child. This is why we often refer to youth as the formative years.’

1. How did setting determine the adult Marjane Sartrapi became?

2. Explore how time, place, and history formed this character’s personality.

3. Use outside sources to find out more about Marjane Sartrapi’s life and the actual events that took place during her childhood in Iran.

2. Emily is her house. We are not merely reading a story where a character is impacted by her setting; we are reading a story where character and setting are one. Consider the way in which we get to know Emily and the way in which we get to know the home in which she lived.

1. Using examples from “A Rose for Emily,” explain how an exploration of Emily’s setting is in fact an exploration of character.

2. Use outside sources to back up any claims you make about how people are represented by (or are represented of) their environments. Suggestions for such sources include articles by designers, psychological theories, etc. 

Writing Requirements (APA format)

· Submitted file type must be x or or .rtf (rich text format). If you use an Apple format or something else, you should download/export/save-as a x or .rtf before submitting.

· 3-4 pages (approx. 300 words per page), not including the reference page

· 1-inch margins

· Double spaced

· 12-point Times New Roman font

· Reference page (minimum of 3 outside resources)

Grading and Assessment
This activity will be graded based on academic content, integration of resources, and college-level writing and grammar. 

Course Learning Outcome(s): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
1.   Gain an appreciation for short stories, their themes, and the social or political backdrops against which they were written.
2.   Improve interpretive and critical thinking skills through reading, discussion, and writing.
3.   Evaluate the works’ importance to readers on emotional, artistic, social, and literary levels.
4.   Research secondary, supporting sources for further opinions about the literature.
5.   Develop analytical essays with a clear thesis for a defined audience.
6.   Demonstrate competency in sophisticated sentence construction.
7.   Present organized and coherent analyses and show technical control of writing skills. 

Resources

Read/review the following resources for this activity:

· Textbook (Foster): Chapter 19

· Textbook (Charters):

· Zora Neale Hurston – “The Gilded Six-Bits”

· Art Spiegelman – “Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History”

· Marjane Sartrapi – “Persepolis: The Veil”

· William Faulkner – “A Rose for Emily”

· Lecture 1, 2, 3

 

Introduction
The wonderful thing about graphic novels is that their images give them the opportunity to show readers what their characters actually look like, as well as what the setting looks like. They can direct the reader’s attention with pictures, words, and the juxtaposition of the two. 

Initial Post Instructions
Consider “Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History” and “The Veil” as opposed to “The Gilded Six-Bits” and “A Rose for Emily.”  How does being able to see the setting and character alter your reading experience?  Do you find that you focus more on location in one form or more on character in another? 

Additionally, examine the sparse language used in both graphic stories.  How important is the visual content to understanding the story?  Do you feel either of these stories would be effective in a text only format?

Secondary Post Instructions
Some of you feel that the imagery of our graphic novel shorts lends to the stories. Others feel that the imagery weakens the story. Seek out classmates who have expressed an opinion different than your own. Read through their posts carefully. Express which portions of their opinions you agree with and ask your fellow classmates questions that might guide them to see your point of view more clearly. If you can’t find anyone with whom you disagree, add additional support (in the form of examples/reasons your classmates have not previously mentioned) to strengthen their posts. 

Writing Requirements

· In addition to one initial post, respond to at least two peers.

· Initial Post Length: minimum of 250 words

· Secondary Post Length: minimum of 200 words per post

· Using APA format, incorporate appropriate in-text citation(s) referring to the academic concept with corresponding works cited page for the initial post.

Grading and Assessment
Meeting the minimum number of postings does not guarantee an A; you must present an in-depth discussion of high quality, integrate sources to support your assertions, and refer to peers’ comments in your secondary posts to build on concepts. 

Course Learning Outcome(s): 1, 2, 3
1.   Gain an appreciation for short stories, their themes, and the social or political backdrops against which they were written.
2.   Improve interpretive and critical thinking skills through reading, discussion, and writing.
3.   Evaluate the works’ importance to readers on emotional, artistic, social, and literary levels. 

First post:

The construction and deliverance of a powerful message within a piece of literature may surface from a text only format or a visionary format depending on how the author wants us, the readers, to convey a certain message, and whichever style will address the message in the most effective way for the reader.  I believe both graphical and textual novels are acceptable and favorable styles of literature, but depending on the complexity of the story, one may be more of an adequate approach. 

 

When an author uses the visionary approach, such as in graphic novels (“Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History,” and “The Veil”), readers, like myself, may find it easier to comprehend the message because graphics may be easier to look at and understand the author’s intended message.  Graphic novels may also give us a better understanding of the mood of the character and the setting because we are able to visually see it without having to be creative on our own, which often times makes our minds wonder in a hundred different directions.  It is famously stated that a picture is worth a thousand words.  One researcher suggest that, “images contain more information than text and that this information can be more easily processed and understood by the observer (Van Amerlsvoort, 2013).  I believe there are times this is true in certain pieces of literature, especially when looking at the two pieces we read this week.  More specifically in “Prisoner on the Hell Planet,” because the setting is illustrated by shades of dark colors suggesting a time of gloomy dark sadness.  I believe just looking at the illustrations we are able to see the sadness that is portrayed throughout the story.  Being able to visually see graphics allows us to also become emotionally involved because we are presented with illustrates that define the type of feelings the characters are experiencing, and these feelings sometimes have a personal connection because we experienced something so similar.  We are not required to imagine what a piece of text is trying to convey, we are given a visual of the feelings which makes it easier for us to personally experience the characters feelings.  The character is shown many times with tears running down his face, portraying a time of grievance, but with all the apparent sadness, the author illustrates a frame where he is trying to defend himself with other alternatives to his mother’s suicide, and escape the guilt that filled his heart.  In this frame, the author presents five different illustration of the character proposing alternatives for the cause of his mother committing suicide, with the last one pointing the finger back at him as he sits there in clothing similar to jail attire (Spiegelman, 1972, pp. 819).  The graphics in this novel assisted significantly in presenting an ending of blame and sadness which I believe was the theme throughout the entire story. 

 

The use of illustrations is typically favorable by many readers (especially me) because it is less overwhelming than looking at a full page of text.  However, when a story line or intended message from literature piece becomes more complex the use of text over graphics becomes more appropriate.  The stories “A Rose for Emily,” and “The Gilded Six-Bits have a more elaborate plot which takes place over an extended period of time.  When an author does not use graphics in their literature, the reader is given the opportunity to explore the journey differently than their peers.  This makes these stories so powerful because the reader is not limited to what the author presents in a given graphic.  It would be difficult for authors to use a graphic novel to illustrate literature that requires much involvement of the reader, because illustrations limit the creativity of the reader and the complexity of the stories plot.  Also another benefit of using text over graphics is the opportunity for the reader to analyze and imagine certain settings and characters in their own way.  This was true for me in “The Gilded Six-Bits,” because the setting changes throughout the story.  At the beginning we are welcomed into a loving and caring atmosphere within a happy married couple, however, this changes throughout the story when Missie May engages in acts of adultery and betrayal against her committed husband (Hurston, 1993, pp.421-429).  This piece carries a more complex plot which would make it different to illustrate in a graphic piece.    

 

The visual content in both graphic novels is vital to understanding the story even though the stories have a much different ending.  In “The Veil,” there is a young girl who is facing a difficult time coping with the Cultural Revolution because her uniqueness of dedication and motivation not to follow the majority, but rather to follow her own dreams and ambitions of becoming a prophet resulted in being ridiculed by others.  However, In “Prisoner on the Hell Planet,” there is a mentally disturbed man who is trying to cope with his mother’s suicide, by placing blame on other factors, because he felt as he betrayed his mother early in his childhood.  These stories end in completely different directions as the ‘The Veil” concludes with a young girl filled with hope and ambition, while “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” ends with a disturbed man filled with distress.  Both authors were able to illustrate emotional experiences within their graphic novels that convey a concrete message of dedication and happiness in one ending and sadness in the other. 

 

Hurston, Z. N.  (1933). The Gilded Six-Bits. In Charters, A. (Ed.). (2015). The story and its writer: An introduction to short fiction, Compact 9th Ed.  (pp. 421-429). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

 

Spiegelman, A. (1972). Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History. In Charters, A. (Ed.). (2015). The story and its writer: An introduction to short fiction, Compact 9th Ed.  (pp. 816-819). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

 

Van Amerlsvoort, M. (2013). Images and Memory: A Literature Review of Issues in the Use of Images to Aid Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension and Recall . Kanagawa Prefectural Institute of Language and Culture Studies, 19-31. doi:https://doi.org/10.20686/academiakiyou.2.0_19.   

Second:

Authors use different types of styles to engage and entertain the audience. Graphical and textual novels are both great ways to write just depending on what the author is trying to focus on. When the author decides which style, they know how much their story is going to impact the audience and in which way.

 

Personally, I go back and forth between which style I prefer.  I would say textual novels are more in my favor when it is a topic I want to reader or genre I prefer. If the genre isn’t what I prefer I would have to go with graphical. Normally graphical are shorter and more to the point so it allows me to get through a topic I might not prefer. When looking at graphic novels such a “Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History”, and “The Veil”), the graphics I found made it easier for me to comprehend what was going on. Especially at the ending of “Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History” when it shows he was “in” prison because he had the weight of his mother’s suicide on his shoulders. At first when I look at this story I just looked at the pictures before I actually read to see if I could figure out what was going on and I got the jest of it but not pure detail. That graphic novel had very huge impacts with such little words. But I believe that graphic novel could be a great textual novel as well because they could build up to the ending and but in a lot more detail.

 

The stories “A Rose for Emily”,  and “The Gilded Six-Bits” have plots that are needed to have a lot more texts then graphics. It allows the stories to have the more elaborate plot they do. When there is more text the reader is allowed to use their imagination. For example, in “The Glided Six-Bits” it allows the audience to think about how time would be back in that era. Instead of having images to do that for you. It allows you to picture the relationship between Joe and Missie May and how this may affect them.  “A Rose for Emily” allows a slow methods Emily to use careful thinking to figure out. The text allows the author to really focus how let the reader figure out what is going on without pictures giving it away.

 

Authors can use different ways to express. In my opinion, it is easier for a graphic novel to turn into a textual novel. Being able to develop and add more to see the beginning of the outcome is a lot easier than trying to cut out main, huge points. In my opinion authors use different techniques in both novels allowing them to catch the reader’s attention. So, one isn’t more beneficial than the other.

 

References

Faulkner, W. (1931). Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History. In Charters, A. (Ed.). (2015). The story and its writer: An introduction to short fiction, Compact 9th Ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Hurston, Z. N.  (1933). The Gilded Six-Bits. In Charters, A. (Ed.). (2015). The story and its writer: An introduction to short fiction, Compact 9th Ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Spiegelman, A. (1972). Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History. In Charters, A. (Ed.). (2015). The story and its writer: An introduction to short fiction, Compact 9th Ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

This one is missing second post I will post it when someone post something

Resources

Read/review the following resources for this activity:

· Textbook (Foster): Chapter 19

· Textbook (Charters):

 

· Zora Neale Hurston – “The Gilded Six-Bits”

· Lecture 1, 2, 3

Introduction
Every setting in a story carries certain associations that an author uses to establish a certain atmosphere. Characters in the story respond to the setting, because the characters have feelings; and you respond to the setting, too, when you enter into the world of the story.  

Initial Post Instructions
Examine how setting creates a feeling or atmosphere for you the reader and for the characters in Hurston’s story. How do you think setting influenced the feelings and actions of the characters? 

Secondary Post Instructions
Different readers are likely to have different feelings about setting.  Select two classmates’ scenarios about setting and agree or disagree with their depiction. How would changing an element or two of the setting create a different atmosphere or feeling for the reader or characters? 

Writing Requirements

· In addition to one initial post, respond to at least two peers.

· Initial Post Length: minimum of 250 words

· Secondary Post Length: minimum of 200 words per post

· Using APA format, incorporate appropriate in-text citation(s) referring to the academic concept with corresponding works cited page for the initial post.

Grading and Assessment
Meeting the minimum number of postings does not guarantee an A; you must present an in-depth discussion of high quality, integrate sources to support your assertions, and refer to peers’ comments in your secondary posts to build on concepts. 

Course Learning Outcome(s): 1, 2, 3
1.   Gain an appreciation for short stories, their themes, and the social or political backdrops against which they were written.
2.   Improve interpretive and critical thinking skills through reading, discussion, and writing.
3.   Evaluate the works’ importance to readers on emotional, artistic, social, and literary levels. 

First:

The setting of a story indeed creates certain feelings for the characters and us that develops a certain atmosphere that may change throughout the story, which sometimes has an emotional or shocking effect.  I believe the emotional connection we develop throughout a story is greatly affected when the atmosphere and characters action change.  In Hurston’s story, ‘The Gilded Six-Bits,” the atmosphere changes several times, causing many different emotions for the characters and myself.  As the story begins, Hurston describes the “perfect” married couple filled with happiness, joy and love committed to one another living in an ideal home who seemed to have it all going for them (Hurston, 1933, pp. 421-422).  The atmosphere is filled with cheerfulness and pleasure, I felt a sense of comfort as I viewed them as having an amazing and healthy relationship.  There was a sense of contentment and delightfulness that overcame my heart, especially in a world today that cheating on a spouse or significant other and divorce is such a norm.

 

However, the atmosphere was struck with a devastating storm and an uneasiness arose throughout the characters. Joe introduced his wife, Missie May, to Otis D. Slemmons who opened up an ice cream parlor in their town and was portrayed as a wealthy man, wearing his up to date clothes and flashing all his gold to all the women (Hurston, 1933, pp.423).  It would be that one day that all that happiness and love vanished from the atmosphere as betrayal and disloyalty filled the air.  The disappointment and anger of Joe surfaced when he caught his wife, who he thought was loyal and committed to their relationship, cheating on him with Otis Slemmons, and soon after learned his wife was pregnant but uncertain if the child would belong to him or Otis (Hurston, 1933, pp. 427).  The atmosphere was greatly affected by the character’s actions, Joe became distant, silent and untrustworthy of his wife. The house that once was filled with laughter and love was now quiet and unwarming to my heart. I find it pretty powerful that Hurston used a female figure to be disgraceful and commit adultery because it seems that it is usually the male figure that is guilty of such.  Women tend to be more virtuous and caring.  I was caught off guard with Hurston’s choice of the guilty party, because I typically see the male being treachery.  I have seen in my life far too many relationships crumble because men have stepped out on their wives.  This story is transparent to real-life besides in the story the female engaged in infidelity, but I believe Hurston was making a statement, that betrayal and disloyalty may be provoked by either gender. 

 

The characters altered the setting one last time at the conclusion of the story when the darkness was filled with light and joy once again.  The silence and distance became of great joy and happiness when Joe figured out the baby was truly his.  The setting seemed to be of forgiveness.  Although Missie May may have caused Joe a great deal of pain and suffering, making their marriage weak at one time, Joe was able to surpass the mistake she made and forgive her.  Foster stated, “Geography may define and even develop characters (Foster, 2017).  I believe this is clearly present in this story.  The unthinkable act of adultery that Missie May committed, may have played an impactful factor in the growing and developing of Joe’s forgiveness, and the development of a stronger and healthier relationship between the couple.  They were blessed with a precious child, which brought great happiness and joy to both.  The relationship once again resembled a “perfect” relationship between the wife and husband. 

 
 

Foster, T. C. (2017). How to read literature like a professor: a lively and entertaining guide to reading between the lines. New York, NY: Harper, an imprint of Harper Collins.

 
 

Hurston, Z. N. (1933). The Gilded Six-Bits. In Charters, A. (Ed.). (2015). The story and its writer: An introduction to short fiction, Compact 9th Ed.  (pp. 421-429). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Second:

Week 2 Lecture 1

Setting and Its Impact on Character

This week we see settings ranging from Iran to the Deep South of the United States, and that is merely when it comes to location.

Setting includes so many ideas beyond locale. Often when asked to describe the setting of a story, people make that mistake. Setting, as we see from Foster, includes time, season, weather, and countless other smaller ingredients. By defining the time and place for a particular story, we are already narrowing the world and its possibilities. One starts to make assumptions about race, gender, religion, wealth, vehicles, jobs, politics, war, peace, love, etc.

As you read the selections this week consider the following:

· How the setting creates a feeling or atmosphere, both for you and for the characters in the story.

· How the setting and the action of the story work together.

· How the setting contributes to understanding the important ideas and themes in the story.

Making a few minor adjustments to the story may cause the events to appear unbelievable.  For instance, the end of the twentieth century, versus, the beginning of the twentieth century.  What do you think about changing the race of a character?  Would the story shift….how drastically?

The setting of a story often influences the action, or at least works together with what the characters in the story are doing.  A foggy street in East Berlin is much better for the action in a spy thriller.  A rocky landscape on Alpha Centauri, 4.4 light years from Earth, suggests the action you would expect in science fiction much better than any typical street in the United States.

Character and setting are often dismissed by readers as just another word for scenery. Add some rain. Add some wind. Tell me what time of day it is. Tell me exactly where this person is standing. Is our black woman accidentally walking past a bar filled with angry members of the Ku Klux Klan? Is our German lover a Nazi? Is our American Soldier storming into a mosque to capture a member of Al Qaeda? Look how much that fine-tuning of setting did to the tales whose plots and characters you still do not know.

Consider this: if I kept telling you more and more specific things about the setting, would you begin to limit the possibilities for character? What if I told you our black woman is walking past the Klansmen on the night President Eisenhower forced Alabama to integrate its schools? Are you getting a more limited sense of possibilities for this character? Do you have a better sense of who she is and what could take place in the story than if I merely told you she is a woman in America? Bare in mind, we still do not know her age or what she is doing here.

That is only half of the equation. We were generating our notion of character by using setting as our springboard. Authors often do this. They want to tell the story of a time and place. William Faulkner, with the exception of much of his Hollywood screenwriting, was a man who devoted his writing to the South. Why? Because that is where he was from. Marjane Sartrapi is writing about personal experience, as well. “Write what you know” often proves to serve writers best.

However, what if someone has come up with a character first. The personality is entirely fleshed out. The physical description is so perfect that you swear you could describe the character to a police sketch artist and the author would beam with pride when she saw the outcome. But where and when do they exist? The world around a character determines a character’s fate as much as the events of the plot.

Each of the stories we are reading this week present characters in very specific settings. Think about the ripple effect of sliding the time forward or backward when reading each of these tales. Spin the globe beneath the characters’ feet a few hundred miles in any direction. Alter the weather. Lower the sun. Is the person the same? Can the story be the same?

Week 2 Lecture 2

Spiegelman and Sartrapi – Graphic Novels as Short Stories

I have tried simply referring to “Prisoner on the Hell Planet:  A Case History” and “The Veil” as “Graphic Short Stories.” The end result is that people assume they are either lewd or violent. Thus, until I come up with something better, “Graphic Novels as Short Stories” will have to do.

When it comes to Art Spiegelman and Marjane Sartrapi, we are dealing with very different artists and very different writers. The amazing things about writers who have decided to embrace the visual form is that their first pages – even their first “cells” (the official term for a comic book or graphic novel frame; it can be spelled with one or two l’s) – tell us so much. Reading these stories is entirely different than reading a standard “prose tale.” There are certainly those of us who look at the first page of a book and make our judgments based on the size of the font, the length of the first paragraph, the first word that catches our eye. It’s true but is that judgment nearly as drastic as the one you made when you flipped to the first page of or saw the first cell of “The Veil?”

When it comes to graphic novels, authors are given the opportunity to juxtapose words and images at every turn. Though it is next to impossible to read Spiegelman or Sartrapi’s words at the very moment when you are looking at the image, the experience is as simultaneous as possible. The eye shifts back and forth from the images to the words. We do not simply read the words, then look at the picture, then move on. There is an ebb and flow, a back and forth. Image and language almost dance with one another. They are inseparable. 

Art Spiegelman
In “Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History,” Art Spiegelman describes in horrific detail, through pictures, his failed effort to overcome his mother’s suicide. This dark, gloomy, depressing cartoon enables Spiegelman to express his feelings of loneliness, doubt, fear, anger, and blame.  This was also an attempt to express the lack of closure. It is a descriptive essay.

Art Spiegelman also has another story in our collection. He is the author of the Pulitzer Prize Winning graphic novel Maus. Spiegelman set out to tell a true story: his father’s surviving a concentration camp. When Spiegelman sat down to write the story, he drew a graphic novel where the Jews were mice, the Nazis were cats, and a variety of animals represented the other parties of World War II. When people asked Art Spiegelman how he came to this artistic conclusion, he responded that telling his story with these images presented the reality more effectively than concrete descriptions or realistic drawings. To Spiegelman, what took place during the holocaust was so beyond the realms of comprehension and description, the only storytelling method that sufficed was to step as far away from reality as possible.

In Spiegelman’s “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” we have a son recently released from a mental hospital, his mother, who is a Holocaust survivor, and Art’s father, who he refers to as the “murderer,” in a week where we are studying setting and its impact on character. Can you extract these characters from their setting? Are the characters the setting? Is the setting the main character? It is difficult to tell. 

Marjane Sartrapi
Marjane Sartrapi is also writing and drawing about the Middle East. Persepolis, the graphic novel from which “The Veil” is an excerpt, was made into an Academy Award nominated animated film only a few years ago. The impact of her story and the way it has brought the female Iranian experience to light for the rest of the world is astounding.

In this novel, we have a more traditional plot taking place. It is also a work of non-fiction, but, rather than being a journalistic account, “The Veil” andPersepolis as a whole are Sartrapi’s memoir. What Sartrapi does so masterfully in this brief piece is present a slice of world history as seen through the eyes of a child. This first person account leads us through the story and also addresses us directly. We are not only spoken to through the narration that borders the top of each cell, young Marjane addresses us directly through dialogue.

The entire tale moves expertly between narration and dialogue, using each sparingly but providing the reader with precisely the right about of information. I doubt if you typed up the text from “The Veil” if it would be much longer than a page. And yet, there is so much more happening here than a page worth of story. This elaborate plot explains, through images and words, a key moment in Marjane Satrapi’s life and the ripple effects of this historic event on her friends and multiple generations of her family. That is an amazing thing to accomplish with a page worth of words. We truly get to know this character. We travel through her life. We follow her through her dreams. We meet God! All that in six pages. Imagine if this story were only the words: think of the impact it would lose.

Look at the first two cells of the first page. Cell one: we meet the individual. Cell two: we see how the veil obscures that individual’s identity. Could that have possibly been explained more effectively with language? Consider how even in these first two cells we see the impact of the veil on Marjane Sartrapi. This individualistic voice will guide us through the tale, yet, by the time we reach only the second image, we have already lost visual track of which of these young girls is speaking to us – purely due to the uniformity of the veil. As we read graphic novel short stories, particularly ones that move from cell to cell as Sartrapi does, it is vital that we keep track of the juxtaposition of one image to the next and the story elements that juxtaposition emphasizes. We are not merely dealing with the words and images; we are dealing with their connective relationship to one another as we proceed through the tale.

Week 2 Lecture 3

William Faulkner and Anne Beattie 

William Faulkner – “A Rose for Emily”
William Faulkner is considered by some to be the greatest American author of the 20th Century. Bare in mind, I am going to point that out about more than one author in our class: that accolade is not reserved for Mr. Faulkner. But being in the running for greatest author of any century is worthy of note. He was born in Mississippi and — even though he traveled the world and spent a considerable chunk of his life as a screenwriter of hits like The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not – he died in Mississippi. Faulkner’s home was the South. He knew it well. It was the setting of nearly every piece of fiction he wrote. Though that may seem narrow and one might wonder why he didn’t write more about his experiences in other parts of the world, his descriptions and use of language were effective enough to win him two Pulitzer Prizes and a Nobel Peace Prize. 

I long debated whether to include this story in the madness category or whether it worked best in the setting category. Though this story has great relevance to our illness and madness unit, ultimately it seems the most powerful literary element in Faulkner’s tale is setting and its demonstration of emotion and character. “A Rose for Emily” is such a rich tale, giving readers the perfect insight into the power of Faulkner’s writing and what an effective storyteller he was.

Think of the timeline of this story. “A Rose for Emily” is what is referred to as a “frame narrative.” The story starts in one time period at one location. We bounce through multiple time periods and events working our way back to that original location. Despite its many events and the order and manner in which Faulkner reveals Emily’s story to the reader, the plot remains clear and the portrait of his title character only increases with detail. We start knowing virtually nothing about this woman. By the end, she could not be a more specific character. This does not mean there aren’t endless questions about Emily, her motives, or her lifestyle. Of course there are! But would you ever confuse this character with anyone else?

The mystery character is the narrator. To some extent this voice sounds as if he speaks for the town. He uses collective pronouns that seem to express not only his opinion, but also the communal mindset of Jefferson. This rendition of the story, according to our narrator, is not merely his account: it’s the tale a group has agreed upon. But why does Faulkner use this technique? Why not simply tell the story from a third person omniscient point of view? Why not simply tell the story from a specific character’s point of view? Could it be that using this collective narrating voice was Faulkner’s expert way of turning the entire town into one voice?

Setting is obviously crucial to this story, as it is to any tale. Faulkner’s familiarity with the South and his ability to paint pictures of locations with extreme specificity bring the story to life. One of our essay topics will be about setting and character in “A Rose for Emily,” thus you can explore the topic more there. But this specific town and time tell us such a great deal about who this character was. She is dead at the start of the story. We get to hear so little from her own mouth when we journey into her past. And yet, through the setting and a couple of distinct moments this person jumps off the page as a rich character full of life. Consider how much setting breathed life into this character.

Anne Beattie – “Snow”
From Faulkner’s Jefferson to Anne Beattie’s home in the country: what a grand shift of setting between these two tales. What starkly different authors with surprisingly different writing styles. 

With Joe Sacco, it seemed as if he were writing a travel brochure. Here, with Anne Beattie, we have a directly addressed account of a relationship, where the narrator blasts the recipient over his ideas of their relationship and what took place between them. Rather than exploring the elaborate plot of “A Rose for Emily” or “The Veil,” rather than revealing a tragic part of the world like “Refugeeland,” Anne Beattie has used a continuous stream of descriptive settings to explain the contents of her heart.

We must always consider what the author is attempting to do with his or her story. Telling a tale is not always the only point. If I were to ask you to summarize the plot of “Snow,” I wouldn’t be surprised if you shrugged or if you had the opposite reaction and ended up giving me a summary that is longer than Ms. Beattie’s mere page and a half tale. But what were her intentions? Answering that question seems to get to the point of “Snow” far more than asking what took place. The intentions have far more to do with what “Snow” is about than the events do. Yet look at the way in which Anne Beattie chose to express those intentions. She could have ranted and raved about emotions. She could have described the man who is no longer here. Instead, she opted to use setting to express everything. She even shows the disagreement between the narrator and her former lover by pointing out how he would have recounted the setting differently. Why not tell us what he thought of the relationship? Why not explain to us why he left? Why not give us the dialogue from the final argument between these two lovers?

Could it be because that this account answers far more than a direct retelling of the relationship ever could demonstrate?

It’s a bizarre story, experimental even. But it has a certainly loveliness to it. The sentence — “Even now, saying ‘snow’ my lips move so that they kiss the air” (Charters 75) – carries so much weight. What a perfect way to encapsulate remembering this particular lover. What a beautiful way to describe that there is no one for her to kiss. What a masterful way to have a character speak about setting to demonstrate where she once was and where she is now.

Last modified: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 8:52 AM