Derek Holt's List: Literature & Criticism

• n the beginning, Miss Emily receives a  deputation from the Board of Aldermen.  We already  know her attitude toward taxes before this.  If  this anecdote does not advance the plot or offer a clue  to the eventual story of Emily and her lover, what  function does it serve in the story?
• What people and values does the narrator  represent?  Does your view of the narrator affect  your reception of the story?
• In paragraphs 1 and 2, the author speaks  of buildings and structures, describing Miss Emily as a  fallen monument.  Where else do related images  occur?  If Miss Emily is a fallen monument, what is  she a monument to?

• • Notice references to the Civil War in  this story.  Where do they occur?  How does  that war play a role in the story?

     
   

  • In this story, an aristocratic Southerner  murders a Yankee carpetbagger.  Is the story about  the triumph of a defeated South over a supposedly  triumphant North?  What is this story really about?
• What is the significance of sidewalks?
• Why do we need to know about Miss Emily's  hair changing color?
• What purpose is served by telling us that  the Negro "walked right through the house and out  the back and was not seen again"?
• Why did they wait until after the funeral  to open the closed room?  What word in the story  informs you about the reasons for this delay?  Is  the delay consistent with the world of this story?

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