Analyzing a Short Story

1
Analyzing a Short Story

• Instructions for Analyzing a Story, and a Sample
  Analysis

2
An Explanation of the Assignment

• The sample critical analysis I will do in this
  presentation (an example of the Formal Outline
  for Paper 2 and Paper 2 itself) will be written
  in a very different way from the Formal Outline
  for Paper 1, and Paper 1.
• The assignment for Unit 6 calls for the student
  to fit a short story into one of the literary
  movements we discussed in the first slide
  presentation of Unit 6.
• Each of the characteristics of the literary
  movement must be discussed in Paper 2. The
  importance each plays in the overall story must
  also be discussed.
• You must have a claim/thesis for your Paper 2.
  You must have at least as many supporting points
  for your argument as there are characteristics of
  the movement you are using.
• You must have an argument in Paper 2.

3
The Six Steps to Doing a Critical Analysis

• To begin, you should complete the first three
  steps
• Step 1 Reread the short story
• Step 2 Annotate the short story
• Step 3 Make a formal outline
• Then, once have submittedand had returned marked
  acceptedthe Formal Outline for Paper 2, you
  should complete the next three steps
• Step 4 Select quotations
• Step 5 Expand the formal outline into a critical
  analysis Formal MLA Style
• Step 6 Do a Works Cited page

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Step 1 Reread the Story

• The short story I will use for the sample outline
  and critical analysis is A Rose for Emily by
  William Faulkner.
• This short story is to be found on pages 531-538
  of the Norton Anthology.
• If you have not read the story thoroughly
  already, please do so now.
• The more familiar you are with Faulkners short
  story, the more you will learn from this sample.

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Step 2 Annotate the Story

• Mark the main tools (setting, narration, plot,
  symbols, etc.) the author is using and write them
  down in the margins.
• Look carefully for characteristics of a
  particular literary movement. Underline
  quotations that you think make good examples of
  these characteristics to use in putting together
  your analysis.
• Comment on the importance of each characteristic
  to the story as a whole.

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Step 3 Make a Formal Outline

• First you should make a list of the
  characteristics of the literary movement you have
  identified in the story and your comments about
  the importance of each individual characteristic
  to the story as a whole.
• Then you should organize your list by assigning
  the comments to their component characteristics.
• Each characteristic must be identified and an
  example given from the story. Then the
  characteristic must be discussed in relation to
  its place in the story as a whole.
• Next you should note down your overall evaluation
  of the short story, including its style.
• Then expand your list into a formal outline of a
  critical analysis.

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Step 3, Continued

• The List
• A Rose for Emily is an example of Southern
  Gothic fiction.
• The first characteristic of Southern Gothic
  fiction is that it has a dark, scary setting.
• The second characteristic of Southern Gothic
  fiction is that it is meant to be disturbing.
• The third characteristic of Southern Gothic
  fiction is that it is darkly violent.
• The fourth characteristic of Southern Gothic
  fiction is that is deals with Christian mythology
  and/or themes.
• All these characteristics are present in A Rose
  for Emily, in addition to a Southern setting and
  Civil War related references and themes.

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Step 3, Continued

• I. Introduction
• a) The title of the story is A Rose for Emily.
• b) The author is William Faulkner.
• c) A general plot summary of the story is that it
  is a Southern Gothic tale of dark and violent
  revenge by a scorned woman.
• d) The setting is Jefferson, Mississippi, a
  fictional town in a fictional county named
  Yoknapatawpha.
• e) The general characteristics of Southern Gothic
  Fiction are that is has a dark, scary setting
  that it is meant to be disturbing that it is
  darkly violent and that it deals with Christian
  mythology and/or themes.

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Step 3, Continued

• II. The first characteristic of Southern Gothic
  Fiction is that it has a dark, scary setting.
• a) The setting for A Rose for Emily is the old
  Grierson mansion. This mansion is dark and
  mysterious.
• b) There is also an element of decay.
• c) The house is full of deathliterallyfor
  decades. Images of death and decay are
  constantly associated with it.

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Step 3, Continued

• III. The second characteristic of Southern Gothic
  Fiction is that it is meant to be disturbing.
• a) Faulkner goes beyond merely trying to frighten
  the reader in this short story.
• b) Miss Emily does not just kill Homer Barron.
  She sleeps with his corpse.
• c) The details of the iron gray hair and the
  indentation of the pillow show that she has been
  doing it for decades.

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Step 3, Continued

• IV. The third general characteristic of Southern
  Gothic fiction is that it is darkly violent.
• a) Miss Emily poisons Homer with arsenic, after
  making him believe that she is going to make love
  to him.
• b) Miss Emilys father is also depicted in a
  strange and violent manner. The townspeople
  remember seeing him sitting around the house with
  a horsewhip.
• c) This dark violence is important to the story
  because it shows what Miss Emily and her family
  are capable of.

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Step 3, Continued

• V. The fourth characteristic of Southern Gothic
  fiction is that it involves Christian mythology
  and/or themes.
• a) A Rose for Emily begins and ends with a
  Southern funeral held in the Grierson house.
• b) The collective narrator (who speaks for the
  whole town of Jefferson) uses this Southern
  Christian tradition to introduce the reader to
  Miss Emilys storyand to set up the horrific
  ending.
• c) Also, the Christian wedding traditions of the
  bride and grooms giftgiving and sharing the
  marriage bed on their wedding night are twisted
  by Faulkner to create the surprise at the end.

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Step 3, Continued

• VI. Conclusion
• a) William Faulkners A Rose for Emily is a
  Southern Gothic classic told with a new and
  experimental narrative technique.
• b) The characteristics of Southern Gothic Fiction
  are used by Faulkner to piece together his tale
  of macabre revenge.
• c) Southern themes of outraged honor and the
  North/South divide are shown, along with a
  thoroughly Southern setting.

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Step 4 Select Quotations

• Once you have submittedand had returned marked
  acceptedyour Formal Outline for Paper 2, you
  should continue on with the next three steps.
• The first of these is to select quotations. You
  should select quotations of two kinds from the
  short story itself
• those which serve as good examples of the
  characteristics of the literary movement.
• those which the help show the importance of each
  particular characteristic to the short story as a
  whole.
• You must select at least one quote from an
  outside source. For example, you might find
  biographical information on Jack London in
  Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
• Remember to note down the information you will
  need to do your Works Cited entry.

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Step 5 Expand the Outline into an Analysis

• William Faulkners short story A Rose for
  Emily is a Southern Gothic tale of dark and
  violent revenge by a scorned woman. The setting
  is Jefferson, Mississippi, a fictional town in a
  fictional county named Yoknapatawpha, based
  partly on Ripley but chiefly on Oxford and
  Lafayette county and characterized by frequent
  recurrences of the same characters, places, and
  themeswhich Faulkner was to use as the setting
  for so many...novels and stories (Faulkner,
  William). Faulkner uses all four
  characteristics of Southern Gothic fiction in the
  story. The general characteristics of Southern
  Gothic fiction are that is has a dark, scary
  setting that it is meant to be disturbing that
  it is darkly violent and that it deals with
  Christian mythology and/or themes.

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Step 5, Continued

• The first characteristic of Southern Gothic
  fiction seen in A Rose for Emily is the dark,
  scary setting. The story mostly takes place in
  the old Grierson mansion. This mansion is dark
  and mysterious. There is also an element of
  decay. At one point in the story, the smell of
  death is so strong that men from the community
  sneak in at night and spread lime around the
  house to try and cover up the smell of rotting
  flesh. But it takes a week or two (Faulkner
  534) for the smell to go away. The spooky
  setting adds tension to this horror story. The
  house is full of deathliterallyfor decades. In
  the last scene, when the reader sees the iron
  gray hair (538) on the pillow, there is no doubt
  that Miss Emily has sleeping with Homers corpse
  for years.

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Step 5, Continued

• The second characteristic of Southern Gothic
  fiction is that it is meant to be disturbing.
  Faulkner goes beyond merely trying to frighten
  the reader in this short story. Miss Emily does
  more than just kill Homer Barron. She violates
  his corpse, actually sleeping with the dead body
  in a marriage bed. As Faulkner writes, the body
  had apparently once lain in the attitude of an
  embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts
  love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had
  cuckolded him (538). Clearly not only murder,
  but necrophilia, is at work here. This
  characteristic of Southern Gothic adds a great
  deal of shock value to the already horrible end.
  

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Step 5, Continued

• The third characteristic of Southern Gothic
  Fiction at work in A Rose for Emily is dark
  violence. For ruining her name and then refusing
  to marry her, Miss Emily poisons Homer with
  arsenic. And Miss Emily is not the only family
  member who is shown as being strangely violent.
  The townspeople were all afraid of Emilys
  father. They remember him as a spraddled
  silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and
  clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by
  the back-flung front door (Faulkner 534). All
  this dark violence and almost supernatural
  behavior adds impact to the narrators revelation
  of the marriage bed and the sleeping
  arrangements.

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Step 5, Continued

• The fourth characteristic of Southern Gothic
  fiction seen in the story is the emphasis on
  Christian mythology and/or Christian themes.
  Although Christian symbolism is scarce in A Rose
  for Emily, the Southern Christian tradition of
  holding funeral services for the deceased at
  their residence is key to the tale. The story
  begins and ends with a Southern funeral. At the
  beginning, the narrator makes a sly comment on
  the nature of Christian charity when he reveals
  that the women have come mostly out of curiosity
  to see the inside of her house (531). In a way,
  Miss Emilys lack of church attendance falls into
  line with her sleeping habits. She is a dark
  figure, almost a kind of demi-goddess. Her torso
  is compared to that of an idol (534). At the
  end, when the servant lets in the ladies and
  heads straight out the back door, the reader
  knows something awful is coming. But the power
  of the ending is enhanced by the funeral setting.
  And the funeral beginning sets the tone for the
  entire story.

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Step 5, Continued

• In conclusion, William Faulkners classic
  Southern Gothic short story A Rose for Emily is
  a twisted tale of gross revenge. Faulkner does a
  beautiful job of building suspense through his
  use of the characteristics of Southern Gothic
  Fiction. The Southern setting and the
  North/South confrontation between Miss Emily and
  Homer Barron further accent this Southern Gothic
  masterpiece.

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Step 5, Continued

• Works Cited
• Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. The
  Norton
• Introduction to Literature, 8th Edition. Eds.
  Jerome
• Beaty, et al. New York W.W. Norton Co. 2002.
• 531-538.
• "Faulkner, William" Encyclopædia Britannica
  Online.
• 1994-1999 (16 December 1999)
• .

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Step 6 Doing Your Own Works Cited Page

• To do both your parenthetical citations and your
  Works Cited page (like the ones in the slide
  directly before this one) you should use the page
  numbers from the Norton Anthology.
• You should use the title/Library of Congress
  information page at the beginning of the Norton
  Anthology to do the bulk of the short story entry
  for your Works Cited page.
• You should also use the examples in Chapter 22 of
  The St. Martins Guide to Writing. For your
  short story Works Cited entry, see the example in
  St. Martins on page 755 for A WORK IN AN
  ANTHOLOGY. However, the example in St. Martins
  is incomplete. It lacks page numbers for the
  story. You must include the page numbers for the
  target story in your Work Cited entry.
• For Internet-based Works Cited entries, see St.
  Martins, page 758-761.
• Also see the sample research paper on pages
  772-779 for multiple examples of parenthetical
  citations and Works Cited entries.