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摘 要

《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》堪称短篇经典之作，作者是享誉盛名的美国南部小说的代表人物威廉福克纳。他才思敏捷，寥寥数笔就为读者塑造出了一个典型的没落贵族小姐——艾米丽的悲剧形象。本文尝试从她对于南方传统文化的愚忠，对于父权的矛盾态度以及对爱情的疯狂痴迷这三个方面来解读艾米丽的悲剧成因。通过分析我们可以发现，一方面南方社会环境的客观作用造成了艾米丽的悲惨经历，另一方面艾米丽主观的性格因素，尤其是她自我意识的局限性导致了自身的悲剧结局。本文的重点在于让读者换一种思维来理解艾米丽的悲剧成因，同时从深层次的角度唤醒女性意识，给现代女性以启迪——要自力自强，自我尊重，自己主导自己的命运。

关键词：《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》；悲剧；女性自我意识；局限性；

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. Embodiment of Emily’s Tragedy 3

3.1 Emily’s Blind Loyalty to Southern Traditional Culture 3

3.2 Emily’s Ambivalent Attitude towards Patriarchal Authority 4

3.3 Emily’s Madness in Love 6

4. Causes of Emily’s Tragedy 8

4.1The Objective Function 8

4.2The Subjective Effects 9

5. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 11

1. Introduction

William Faulkner (1897-1962) is the representative author of American Southern literature. “In his works, he generally showed a bleak picture of human society, where violence and cruelty were frequently included. His intention was to show the evil, harsh events in contrast to such timeless virtues as love, honor, pity, compassion, and self-sacrifice, and thereby expose the faults of society.”(Li Wenjun, 1987：11) Take Faulkner’s famous short story, A Rose for Emily, for example, the Southern woman Emily was disgraced even destroyed by the ruthless and savage society. In this thesis, the writer manages to analyze the causes of Emily’s tragedy from two aspects, the objective function and the effect of subjectivity. That is to say, the Southern society played an objective role in engendering Emily’s tragedy. While Emily inner character, especially the limitations of her self-consciousness resulted in her tragic ending subjectively.

To study the limitations of Emily’s self-consciousness, we first should have an idea of about what self-consciousness is, and what is related to self-consciousness. In accordance with Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, “consciousness” is defined as “the state of being capable of using your senses and mental powers to understand what is happening” “the state of being aware of something” or “the ideas and opinions of a person or group” (352). When we talk about “self-consciousness”, particularly women, the description will be more detailed and the scope ought to be narrowed down. Female Consciousness refers to a kind of awareness which describes the economic, social and political relationship between one’s experience and the larger society. This is a personal motivation which makes women seek for independence and liberty.

William Faulkner had been popular among a large amount of Chinese scholars since early 1980s. They have studied this story A Rose for Emily from different aspects. All the research findings reveal the tragedy of Emily from a certain level, especially from the perspective of social culture. However, diverse people have different points of view, and none of these has been capable of exhausting its sources. This short story “A Rose for Emily” focuses on a peculiar Southern spinster Emily’s miserable life. To be frank, Emily is the voice of the writer William Faulkner. And Faulkner aims to show his nostalgia of the Southern civilization in A Rose for Emily. The way that Emily persisted to the traditional morality expressed the deep feelings of William Faulkner for the Southern civilization. Emily’s tragic fate is regarded as consecration of the faded traditional culture. In consequence, the writer William Faulkner not only treated Emily with great sympathy, but also showed his sincere worship by presenting a rose for Emily.

2. Literature Review

A Rose for Emily is quite a famed literary work of William Faulkner who is one of the great global literary giants. This fiction shows the conflict between the traditional rule and the new life style in the south of America. Meanwhile a number of scholars at home and abroad such as David bowling (1989), Reed, J. R (1997), Xiao Minghan (1997), Shao Jinti (1995), Huang Xue’r (1997), Zhang Deliu (1990), Wang Mingin (2002) and Guan Jianming (2003) etc. (Lin Liuchen, 2004:145) have already researched this work from the viewpoint of feminism, the contextual analysis, the interpretation of A Rose for Emily and so on.

As a matter of fact, A Rose for Emily arouses the interest of many critics as a noted short story and they criticize it from a plenty of perspectives at home and abroad in recent years. On the basis of the accomplishment created by the previous scholars, this thesis is intended to push the writer’s ideas forth by analyzing the tragedy of Emily. The study can be divided into two aspects: from the viewpoint of objective function, the tragedy of Emily is the consequence of Patriarchy and the Ladies System of the American South; from the perspective of subjective effect, the personality, especially the limitations of Emily’s self-consciousness which leads to the tragic ending of Emily.

In reality, it is so necessary to cultivate female consciousness either in the past or present. As well as feminism, female self-consciousness made women ask for the equal right and freedom. Simone de Beauvoir in her works The Second Sex brings forward an important feminism: the principle of freedom. “Freedom means the scope to shape our own future. And oppression is the denial of the future.” (Myerson, 2008: 157) Therefore, the female consciousness means that females should be conscious of their own position, role and merit. And they need recognizing themselves as subjects in the objective world. Generally speaking, if women sober and make sense of their self-consciousness probably, they will try to take part in social activities and fulfill the historical mission, public responsibility along with the personal obligation. The women who have the capacity to balance the relationship with the traditional society, the patriarchal authority as well as the lover, must own the self-conscious. If Emily is this kind of woman, thus she may not endure this wretched existence and she could have a happy ending in this fiction.

3. Embodiment of Emily’s Tragedy

3.1 Emily’s Blind Loyalty to Southern Traditional Culture

The American South is such a distinctive place and noted for its plantation economy. William Faulkner was the well-known Southern author of the 20th Century. “Being deep-rooted in the life of the American South, earnestly concerned about the fate of human beings, and courageous in artistic exploration, Faulkner has made outstanding contributions to treasure-house of world literature by creating a large number of works characterized by a unique artistic style, a strong local color, and a profound consciousness of history.”(Blotner, 1974: 45) As a splendid Southern author, William Faulkner was particularly noted for the South’s special history and politics and for the unique blend of humor and tragedy showed in his works. In order to talk about the evil and obstinate of all the human beings, he took the southern people for example. Being the pioneer of short fictions, William Faulkner created a large number of vivid characters highly and showed a picture of the whole Southern society successfully. And most of his works describe the decline of southern nobility after the civil war in the United States and made a stunning emotional impact on the readers.

Emily Grierson, the leading figure of this short fiction, is famous as a “Southern gentlewoman.” The story teller starts the story in the place of Jefferson Town. After the South was defeated, in contrast the North won during the civil war. New orders, values and some sense of behaviors of the North were substitute for almost everything of the South little by little. It is so crucial that the Civil War helped to bring about the development of the Southern culture. In addition, the unique historical experience made the Southerners own their special features, including culture identity, writing styles and ways of living. As a result, more and more women emancipate their mind and realize the self-consciousness by degrees. Nevertheless, Emily is one of the restricted people who still stick to the traditional opinions, obsessed with the past and neglected the passage of time. Emily was such a southern stubborn character that she accepted the traditional culture and customs blindly no matter whether right or wrong. On the one hand, she did not allow people to install a mail-box on the wall no matter whether she has the right or not. On the other hand, when she was asked to pay taxes by the new government, she refused to do so and even ridiculously stick to the old laws made by a dead colonel nearly ten years ago. It indicates that Emily kept the traditional views all the way and resisted changing anything.

It is well-known that Southern culture is constantly suppressing women. As the passing of the time, Emily shows that it is destined to fail for traditional Southern culture. She did not realize herself as the subject in the society which resulted in the tragedy of Emily. She still abided by the old tradition and acted as an accessory of the society. Under such social pressures, women could not release their mind but be piety and submissiveness. Given this situation, this is quite conspicuous outcome of Emily’s failure for she could do nothing but stick to the shackles of the Southern conventions. In fact, there are close connection between the traditional Southern culture and Emily’s tragic ending. As a matter of fact, instead of living a life for her, Emily is not only a symbol of the system and culture but also acts as the spiritual pillar supporting the virtue of the ancestors. On account of persisting in the traditional Southern culture blindly, Emily can not integrate herself with the society. As a consequence, she lost a lot in order to complete such an arduous task, because as a respective of the traditional civilization, she has to cover up the real ego by suppressing the mortal opinions or desires, and give up the rights to participate in social life and even have a family. In other words, it is the traditional civilization that made Emily tragic.

3.2 Emily’s Ambivalent Attitude towards Patriarchal Authority

According to the viewpoint of the Patriarchy, the fiction A Rose for Emily described how the leading character Emily was persecuted by the male authority and the Lady System of the south of America. Patriarchy literally means “the rule of the father”，“father of a race” or “chief of a race, patriarch ”and comes from the Greek. According to American scholar Truxal Andrew, “the Christian doctrine has melted into the family rules, and what’s more, just like God, Father of Heaven reigns nature, father of a family should have the whole family under his control.”(Andrew, 1947：52) Actually, the female should have a kind of active behavior. However, Emily did not realize the self nature, meaning of life and her own position in society from a woman’s point of view, which made her bear the patriarchal authority with her behavior wordlessly.

The father’s influence on Emily is so tremendous that she has been deprived of roughly everything that a woman’s desires and deserves especially women’s most cherished thing, marriage. Emily was born in the patrician but degraded Grierson family. Though the family has declined economically, they stubbornly try to maintain the reputation of the family. As the town people comment on, “the Grisons held themselves a little too high for that they really were. None of the young men was quite good enough to Miss Emily and such.”(Faulkner, 2006： 214)This is especially the case with Emily’s father Mr. Grierson, who was extremely fastidious about her daughter’s marriage and prevents any youth from marrying Emily in his lifetime, since in his eyes the young men are not from a distinguished family like his own. However, he was never aware of the case that Emily is left alone and impecunious when he died on account of his closed mind of social status. Meanwhile, it is quite normal for such a feudal woman Emily to stick to the traditional morals and conventions around herself. With the supervision the patriarchal authority and social rigid orders, the declining aristocratic spinster Emily Grierson lost the basic self-awareness and self-esteem, completely obeyed to male values, so she constrained in a low life.

In spite of her father’s dominance lasted Emily’s whole lifetime, yet Emily still respected and cherished the old Grierson as the mainstay of her life. When her father passed away, “Miss Emily met them [the visitors] at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead and she did that for three days.” (Faulkner, 2006：57)Obviously, both the body and mind of Emily are kept in bondage by the traditional taboos. Emily did not possess her own soul and consciousness and acted as a puppet because of living all the time under the shadow of his father and her noble Grierson family. As a result, when the old Grierson passed away, Emily could not accept the case. In order to rely on her father as usual, Emily still kept the body of her father and insisted that the old Grierson was not dead. Then she could do nothing but disposed her father’s body. Thus, there is still a portrait for her to depend on, and that’s why she does not take the portrait down. Moreover, here is a very graphic description of Emily’s father, “We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a straddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door.” From such descriptions, the readers can find the relationship of Emily and her father, being controlled and to control.

In fact, Emily unintentionally becomes a traditional gentlewoman because she lives with such a father. Emily, the young lady, was short of spontaneously revolt consciousness. And it is the patriarchal culture that made Emily’s character weird and solitary. Therefore, the patriarchal authority confined the development of Emily and prevented Emily from being independent. What is more, the patriarchal authority stopped Emily being mature spiritually. The Patriarchy is the blasting fuse of Emily’s tragic fate.

3.3 Emily’s Madness in Love

Between male and female, the view of love and family is unequal because in such a male-dominated society women lack of self-consciousness roughly. And for each traditional Southern woman, the only way to strengthen their social position is to marry a man who is superior to her either materially or economically. The essence of such a cruel reality lied in women’s economic and mental dependence on men fundamentally. For women, the most necessary duty is to marry and have children. (Zhang Ruobing, 1998:97).In this society which was totally controlled by man, women mainly have no chance to access to education and social activities all their lifetime. In consequence, women are not equal to men both spiritually and materially. And if women want to become an excellent wife and mother, they will have to be peaceable, submissive and full of femininity, abundant in piety and emotion. Thus the southern feudal women became tragic since they almost have no self-consciousness for they are only the shadow, the slave or the appendix to their self-conceited husband.

Comparing with such women who lost their consciousness totally, Emily had the sense to pursue the love and marriage for her own, even played a positive role in this love relationship. Instead of finding a man who has the exclusive advantages of men, such as confidence and authority, Emily fell in love with Homer, a poor and base-bred Northerner. As a Northerner, the relationship is considered inglorious between Homer and Emily. In fact, the North aims to open and reform for the sake of more profits, in contrast, the Southerners cut themselves off from the outside world deliberately, and these proud and confident Southerners had great difficulty in coming to terms with the sound defeat. “For these reasons the southerners purpose to adopt a hostile attitude towards the industrialism brought here by the Yankees, as they call the north men with contempt.”(Chang Yaoxin, 1999:263)Regardless of the townspeople whispering “Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer” and saying “even grief could not cause a real lady to forget noblesse oblige-without calling it noblesse oblige”. The most surprising thing is that Emily did not take the others’ opinions into consideration and she never cared how they look on her as well. The young lady just held this big and dark man as the spirit lodge in her whole life. In addition, Emily is indifferent to all people, “She carried her head high enough--- even when people believed that she was fallen. It was as if she demanded more than even the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson; as if it had wanted that touch of earthiness to reaffirm her imperviousness.” (Faulkner, 2003: 216) However, Emily’s self-consciousness also remained the limitations. Her father had protected her whole life as a bodyguard, and living alone for many years made Emily lack a sense of security, so she loved the Yankee easily only when he was kinder to her. It seems that Emily loved the man who brought her life both hope and disappointment so much that she did not would like to give up her love, even the cost is murdering her own lover. Emily tried her best to be with the Yankee regardless of her lordship and status. But the man did not appreciate her emotion and had the intention to abandon her. As a result, Homer turned his back on Emily without hesitation. In a male-dominated society, the woman is a totally “something” which belongs to the man. Owing to the traditional social rules, woman must obey man’s orders. They are unable and have no right to struggle against the social orders. Perhaps the easiest thing that women can do is submissiveness. What is more, it is what people really expect women to do so. Life is such a vast prison for women because the female have to restrict their freedom to make males satisfied. The male can regard women as his property and carelessly deal with them like rubbish. In contrast, the female could do nothing but accept unconditionally. From this, Homer’s indifference and brutality kept Emily at bay. She did not realize that she could live better on her own as an individual. In contrast, the only way to stop Homer’s departure and keep him with her is to kill him in her opinion. Such a horridly love tragedy is caused by lack of individual consciousness. In fact, in this tragedy about love Emily is the chief victim. Actually feminists seek for their ego and freedom on their own. That is to say, women are supposed to be full of confidence and self-consciousness. As women, we all require to love people and feel wanted to be loved by others. If women waken their self-consciousness fully, they will live as independent subjects. If Emily can be wiser in love, the tragedy maybe no more happens.

4. Causes of Emily’s Tragedy

4.1The Objective Function

As a matter of fact, Emily’s destiny is doomed from the beginning because woman’s identity had traditionally depended on parents, husbands and children, especially for these obedient women who have no social status or economic base. Emily was a submissive daughter born in a typical patriarchal-typed family. Her father was the master of herself. And the old Grierson also made the rule in Emily’s life. Since Emily was born, she was treated as properties of his father. Without considering his daughter’s feelings and perspectives, the old Grierson made every decision for Emily according to his own will. With time running out, Emily took her father’s authority for granted and her self-consciousness was restricted little by little.

No matter how unreasonable her father’s orders were, Emily learned from him without any doubts. In consequence, when Emily was in the presence of the inevitable decline of the Old South, she kept the old tradition with her severe stubbornness and blind loyalty. ”She passed from generation to generation-dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.” (Faulkner, 2003:46)What’s more, she refused to believe that the time was changing and changed into the new society. She lived a completely dull life without a soul. Emily is considered as a “monument”, “a tradition, a duty, and a care,” of traditional Southern civilization. On account of adhering to the traditional Southern manners and following the ways of the old Grierson, Emily was doomed as a tragic woman.

4.2The Subjective Effects

Actually the objective functions of the society changed Emily’s life, restricting her self-development, while the distorted inner personality, especially the limitations of her self-consciousness, is the subjective cause of the tragedy.

As a matter of fact, Emily Grierson is typical for restricting her own self-consciousness, so as the emblem of the Old South and at the same time the victim of the Old South’s traditional aristocratic system. With the end of the American Civil War (1861-1865), the foundation of the South’s economy, the agriculture economy was crushed and the life-styles of the Southerners underwent a major shirt. As a result, more and more women became the weaker members of the Southern society gradually. The women did not make sense of their own consciousness and worth. What’s more, women characters’ ideas are apt to lag behind the times than those of men. And Emily is one of the women whose self awareness has limitations.

In order to shape Emily as a traditional Southern lady, she cut all her ties with the outside world. The loneliness for years as well as the suppressed desire and instinct resulted in Emily’s falling behind the development of consciousness. Female self-consciousness ought to be female self, self awareness, self development. In contrast, Emily did not recognize the equal rights between Homer and her. When Homer chose to desert her, Emily felt sad just like losing the entire world. The reason is that she concealed her true feelings as the traditional women did.

This is the distorted personality which restricts Emily’s self-consciousness, so she never found her unique and irreplaceable. What’s more, it is the limited self-consciousness that resulted in the catastrophe of Emily. We believe that if a woman awaken her self-consciousness fully and then she will find the right to be free from the old social limitation and seek for the same position as well as men in life. As an individual, what we should learn is to accept new things and build more confidence as well as have strong will. To some extent the leading character, Emily, is this kind of woman who is short of confidence and limited by self-consciousness. Nevertheless, if Emily can change her personal attitudes and opinions, maybe the tragedy won’t happen.

5. Conclusion

Although the title is “A Rose for Emily”, “the Rose” is still merely mentioned in this fiction. From my point of view, the “Rose” which is always interpreted as a symbol of love, represents decay and death in this fiction. Emily, such a pitiful person, was manacled by the stubborn conventions and Lady System of the South of America. She was incapable of motivating self regulation and self evaluation which led to the tragedy of her life. Under the influence of moral rules of the Southern society, Emily is not only a tragedy of social taboos, but also a victim of the old tradition. “In terms of Emily in the story ‘A Rose for Emily’, Faulkner’s attitude is somewhat complex, he once said that he was afraid of her,” (Xiao Minghan, 1997:154)and in the novel, he also showed the sympathy, admiration and understanding towards Emily by presenting her a rose.

This fiction is not only an eminent short story, but also has a great meaning for all the people at home and abroad. Emily is such a sincerely sympathy emerges that leaves a deep impression on the reader. When confronted the protean society, we ought to adapt ourselves to the environment instead of bounding the soul. No matter when we should keep ourselves independent instead of being men’s accessory. It is indispensable for women to cultivate the self-consciousness. If people can awaken the self-consciousness, they will achieve really equality between masculinity and femininity. Women in the new era can emancipate their mind and become more initiative, individual and independent. By studying the causes of Emily, both the man and the society should learn to keep up with the diverse change. If so, the people will not be left behind and the tragedy of Emily will not happen any more.

Works Cited

[1]Andrew, Truxel. The Family in the American Culture New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1947.

[2]Blotner, Joseph. Faulkner: A Biography New York: Random House, 1974.

[3]Faulkner William. A Rose for Emily, American short stories Beijing: Xinghua Publishing House, 2006.

[4]Faulkner William. A Rose for Emily: Foreign Language Press, 2003.

[5]Myerson, George. Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, Dalian University of Technology Press, 2008.

[6]常耀信.《美国文学简史》.天津: 南开大学出版社，1999.

[7]林六辰.《英美小说要素解析》.上海:上海外语教育出版，2004.

[8]李文俊.《福克纳评论集》. 北京: 中国社会科学出版社，1987.

[9]肖明翰.《威廉 福克纳研究》. 北京：外语教学与研究出版社，1997.

[10]张若冰.《女权主义文论》. 济南山东教育出版社，1998.

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