The Poetics of Loss
Is there a
perfect crime?
…
A Rose for Emily
William Faulkner
(1897- 1962)
- Born William Cuthbert
Falkner.
- One of the most
important writers of
Southern Literature.
- Was relatively unknown
until he received the
Nobel Prize in 1949.
A Rose for Emily
- The “South” refers to the Southern parts of America:
Mississippi, Texas, etc.
- "A Rose for Emily" is a five-part short story narrated by the
townspeople of Jefferson, Mississippi, in the first- person
plural perspective (“we”).
- Its theme is based on what the South struggled for in
decades: race, gender, repression, myth, and heroism.
- There are some speculations that this story is loosely
based on Maud Falkner, Faulkner’s own mother, who was
fiercely independent and fostered in him the love for art
and literature. They were very close.
- It is the story about an old woman who had been much
talked- about in the community, and when she dies, the
townspeople learn about her gruesome secret.
THE
CHARACTERS
PARTS: A Rose for Emily
Section One: Emily Grierson has died … without
paying her taxes.
Section Two: The horrible smell and the death of
her father.
Section Three: Homer Barron, their relationship
and his leaving.
PARTS: A Rose for Emily
Part Four: Homer Barron’s disappearance (or
goodbye), and Emily’s cloistered life after.
Part Five: The discovery!
INTERPRETATIONS
CELIA RODRIGUEZ:
The story is a contrast between the
past and the present. Emily, Colonel
Sartoris, the old Negro servant are
the past. The present is in Homer,
and the new generation with more
modern ideas.
INTERPRETATIONS
CLEANTH BROOKS:
Miss Emily’s actions are the result of her strong
independence; her constant refusal (most
especially her refusal to conform to public
opinion). It is, "heroic isolation pushed too far
ends in homicidal madness.”
INTERPRETATIONS
JUDITH FETTERLEY:
Within her patriarchal society, Emily
suffers from being forced into the
position of a lady. And because of
them forcing her into this position,
she is able to get away with different
situations.
WHAT IS YOUR OWN
INTERPRETATION OF
THE STORY?
THE POETICS OF LOSS
Bharati Mukherjee’s
The Management of
Grief
Bharati Mukherjee
I maintain that I am an American writer of Indian origin, not
because I'm ashamed of my past, not because I'm betraying or
distorting my past, but because my whole adult life has been
lived here, and I write about the people who are immigrants
going through the process of making a home here... I write in the
tradition of immigrant experience rather than nostalgia and
expatriation. That is very important. I am saying that the luxury
of being a U.S. citizen for me is that can define myself in terms of
things like my politics, my sexual orientation or my education.
My affiliation with readers should be on the basis of what they
want to read, not in terms of my ethnicity or my race.
(Mukherjee qtd. in Basbanes)
Bharati Mukherjee
(1940 – present)
- Born to wealthy parents, Sudhir Lal
and Bina Mukherjee in Calcutta,
India.
- She learned how to read and write at
the age of three (3).
- Graduated from the University of
Calcutta, M.A. in English and Ancient
Indian Culture from the University of
Baroda.
- Earned a scholarship from the
University of Iowa, where she
finished her M.F.A. in Creative
Writing.
- Met a Canadian student from
Harvard, Clark Baise, and married
immediately.
- Currently teaching at the University
of California, Berkley.
THE MANAGEMENT OF GRIEF
How do people
cope with their
grief?
THE MANAGEMENT OF
GRIEF
- Published in 1988.
- Included in the short story collection,
The Middleman and Other Stories.
- Based on the true- to- life terrorist
attack on Air India Flight 182, about
which Mukherjee and her husband
have written about in another
anthology.
- Shows the different ways of coping and
dealing with sudden grief.
THE MANAGEMENT OF
GRIEF
Who are the characters in the story?
Where is it set?
How do the characters take in the
initial news of the incident?
THE MANAGEMENT OF GRIEF
We all must grieve in our own way.
You must finish alone what we started
together.
Rejection, depression, acceptance,
reconstruction.
THE MANAGEMENT OF GRIEF
The different means and mechanisms of
coping.
The signs for moving on.
Your time has come, they said. Go, be brave.
FINAL QUESTION:
How can you move on
from loss?
TASK FOR NEXT MEETING:
Conduct an archival research on the historical
incident that inspired the story of The
Management of Grief. You can put together your
findings in a well- scripted reporting like ones the
CNN anchors doing a presentation, or create a
mini- documentary to be presented in class. Try
to insert the characters of the story in your
presentation.
This is over twenty- five (25). Again.