Free Journal: Intro to Paper

The setting of a story has a lot to do with the characters and the plot as well. In the story "A Rose for Emily", the setting of isolation and mystery about the house she lives in portrays her character as well. The specific context from the story gives reason why she choses to seperate herself from the rest of the town, as well as keeping her house as private as possible. The setting of her house that is described in the story as having the smell of "dust and disuse", looking like "an eyesore among eyesores", and "the house filled with dust and shadows". These descriptions of the house are the same as the characteristics of Miss Emily.

The main things that I want to focus on for this essay are the specific details of the slow decaying of the house, the occasion leaving of the house, and later people not seeing Miss Emily for long periods of a time. In this story, it is as if the house serves as a replica for Miss Emily herself, the house that once was "white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our mose select street" and now "only Miss Emily's house was left". This gives evidence that her house has not only began to grow older and more mysterious, plus the last house on the street that was once so lively, gives reasoning why Miss Emily's character is so lonely and mysterious.

Free Journal: Essay Thoughts

I have absolutely no idea what story I want to chose for my paper. I feel like there are two or three stories that stand out and I have a lot of good information for all of the stories, but not quite enough to write about just one. For a literary analysis about setting, I would choose Miss Emily's house in "A Rose for Emily". The mysterious and isolated house portrays the story in such a way that you can relate things about the house to Emily's personalitly. Like her shutting her house away from the entire town, rarely going outside of her house, this resembles her character as never wanting to open up to anyone or make any new friends after the death of her father. The other story I would consider writing about is the point of view in the story "Hills Like White Elephants". The fact that it's solely narrative and there is no outside opinions, or thoughts of the characters to clue the audience in on what the story is about, makes the story more interesting. The story is objective third person, which is where the narrator only tells what is going on the surface, simply the facts. The only information you have about this story is simply the text provided in the book. You could use expressive theory, which is when a story can be tied in with information from the autor who wrote it. The only problem I would have with writing this story is limited amount of context to support my theories.

Character & Setting

In the story, "A Rose for Emily" I find the setting and the main character, Emily, a lot alike. In the story, Emily is once described as looking like one of those "angles in colored church windows- sort of tragic and serene". Emily is a lot like her setting. The mystery of what's inside the house the entire time and why there's a terrible smell resembles her personality as well. It reminds me of how she keeps secrets to herself, yet people are still aware that she's holding things back. When Emily boards up her house upstairs, it's as if she's closing off parts of her life...she's only got so much longer to live. The solicity of her house and how it's not welcoming to others matches her personalitly because she also shuts herself away from the people in her town, just as her house is. "Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced." This resembles how Emily has shut away herself from outside people around the town for forty years as well, just as that particular room has been shut away from the rest of the town. "From that time on her front door had remained close, save for a period of six or seven years" is another sentance from the story that relates to how Emily choses to be alone and doesn't want any visitors or anything to do with the people around the town, and this reflects on her personalitly as not only partially mourning the loss of her father, but her will to be alone and away from everyone else.

The Literary Canon

For literature to become a literary canon it must posess characteristics that are appealing to everyone, including the younger generation. In seventh grade, you are givin no choise on what you want to read. Our first book was To Kill A Mockingbird, and to me and most of our class, it wasn't a very interesting book to us at first. Some students found it hard to understand, others liked it, but most weren't interested in the book at all. It would be beneficial to include literature that students can get interested in so that they would be more willining and more likely to read more often. The literary canon should be something different for every individual human being. Wouldn't a politician's literary canon differ from an average teenager? Things that seem to be extremely important literature could be completely irrelevant to anything a student would benefit from knowing. To me, the literary canon should include three important things: The Bible, history, and human equality. This literature is so important for everyone to know and understand. People don't always realize what's right from wrong and how prejudism is ruining our world. If these three types of literature could be incorporated and understood by our generation it would change people's beliefs and help put an end to racism. Or even books about women having a higher stand in politics could influence more women to run for president. Personally, I'm tired of having men as presidents and feeling as though they are the smarter gender, but then again...I'm not about to have Hilary Clinton running our country. Racial variety to me is the very important because if a student was raised bias against a certain race, reading a required book in school could allow students to open their mind to other races. I think that literature plays a smaller role in today's culture. It's always television shows, internet, magazines that come first. People aren't as interested in literature compared to all of the additional media. I think that literature should play a larger role in people's life because certain literature, like those included in the literary canon, could be life changing.