英语专业本科毕业论文-定稿(2)

Civil War. Emily’s life was strongly dominated by her father, and she had no right to date with males and choose her lover. After her father’s death, she could only date with a northern worker. But to her disappointment, the worker refused to marry her, and the refusal drove her to kill him by using poison, and she let his body company her. After Emily’s death, the town people discovered a skeleton in the house, and found out that the poor Emily was a murder, and people were shocked by the discovery.

Thematically, this short story is not as simple as it seems. The conflicts in the story can be interpreted on different levels. On the superficial level, it was a murder story with gothic characteristics. It described an eccentric woman who lived in her old decaying mysterious house that other people had not visited for decades, and, of course, a dead body in the house finally was discovered after so many years. On another level, the story can be read as a conflict between the South and the North with Emily representing the declining South and Homer Barron representing the North. On a deeper level, the story explores the inner world of a human being, or the inner struggle in the human heart.

1.2 Introduction of the Gothic Characteristics in Literature

The word “Goth” came from the name of a Germanic tribe. The gothic people were famous for their brutal and uncivilized features. They ever lived in north Europe, then invaded in Rome Empire from the third AD century to the fifth AD century, and set many kingdoms in Italy, Spain, south part of France and North Africa. A thousand years later, after the Rome Empire died out, Italian Vasari (1511--1574) used the \for the first time to refer to an architectural style in middle age, which was \sharp pointed, vaulted roof or tower ,narrow windows, colorful glass, darkness houses, gloomy ladders.\ Criticism of Foreign Literature, 9) The gothic architecture was originated in France in 11th century, and it was popular in Europe from 13th century to 15th century. This kind of architecture style mostly is seen in the church, and also in common architecture. The gothic architecture has a high status in the history of architecture because of its excellent skill and its achievement in the field of art. The gothic characteristics not only appear in architecture, but also appear in many fields such as literature, movie, music and clothing.

The so-called “Gothic Revival\appeared in aspects of architecture and literature during eighteenth century to nineteenth century, which was the gloomy and depressed

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tone in middle age. Meanwhile, some literary works enjoyed the same tone with \fiction\example for early classic gothic fiction. The birth of \with the \characteristics\，the aesthetic standard of Edmund Burke (1729-1797) as well.

The gothic characteristics in literature are that the story mostly takes place in a distant ages and desolate places, the characters are locked or imprisoned in narrow spaces or in a mysterious gothic building and suspense often mingles with love. There are some usual ways of suspense, such as mysterious inheritance, secret antecedents, lost will, the secret of family, ancestral curse and so on. And at the end of the story, the mystery or the suspense is solved, the evildoer is discovered and the impediment of the love between the hero and the heroine is brushed aside. Compared with romantic fiction, the gothic fiction mostly describes adventurous story and the impediment of love mostly is caused by the evildoer, while the romantic fiction mostly describes the family’s triviality, and the impediment of the love in the romantic fiction between characters is caused by them. The theme of the gothic story mostly reveals through death, murder, violence and horrible scene. In a short, the novels with the gothic characteristics reveal a mysterious, horrible, depressed and gloomy atmosphere. Since the 18th century, the gothic characteristics had been used in the literary works popularly, and there are many famous novels with the gothic characteristics, such as Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights，Notre Dame de Paris, A Rose for Emily and so on. A Rose for Emily is especially the most representative work of gothic fiction.

2.Literature Review

After I look up in CNKI, China Journal Net, VIP information and other journals I have found two academic journals that are consistent with my thesis.I foundthree similar papers ,they are Zhang Qi, Zhangxuezhu. A Rose for Emily on the Gothic Features 【M】. Leshan Teachers College, 2003,11, Huang Fu Yan, 2011, rose ashes, love into a poem - on the Gothic features of Emily Rose, \Yuhuan Huan, 2009.8 William Faulkner dedicated to Amy ? Gothic Rose Li in the complex \Literature \main view is that \

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Faulkner's short stories. A striking feature of this novel is the use of Gothic Marxism.This article will focus on the Gothic complex in\Rose for Emily\in orderto help readers better understand this masterpiece.In \Rose for Emily\Faulkner uses the gothic literary artistic expression,making their characterization, description of environment, atmosphere, setting and plot are all rendered with rich Gothic colors, through the description of Ai Millie's life tragedy to expose the dark side of Southern society, accused the South Puritan tradition and patriarchal society the persecution of women.

3. The Gothic Characteristics in A Rose for Emily

Savoy Eric(1970) mentioned: “it’s very contradictory that a kind of literature, which is twined by the immortal history and attracted by queer grief, came into being in the country which believes in freedom and pursues the happiness of individual.” He said ironically the existence of gothic characteristics in American literature. Although the society advocated pursuing happiness and freedom, the unfairness and ugliness still existed and then the gothic literature appeared. Faulkner, the author of this novel lived in a special environment which was full of depressing and gloomy atmosphere due to the South’s loss in the Civil War. “Therefore, his habit, thinking way and life attitude closely related with this unfortunate field.” (Jay Parinier, The Norton Anthology of American Literary, 633). He had complicated feeling for his hometown’s loss in the Civil War. On one hand, he complained about the poor or miserable life caused by the war, and had a little hatred for the North. On the other hand, he praised the improvement of human being caused by the war, because the war opened the door of eliminating slavery system, so he only could express his complicated feeling for the South’s loss precisely by using gothic characteristics in his literature. In A Rose for Emily, he used gothic characteristic in many aspect such as scene or the description of Emily’s house, theme, narrative way, character.

3.1 The gothic characteristics in the description of environment

The gothic story usually takes place in isolated places where people seldom visit, such as a hidden castle in the jungle, a farmstead, and old dilapidated house and so on. The author attached much importance to the description of the scene and playing up the mysterious and horrible atmosphere. Baron Armond(1972)said:“ the word “mystery”

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connects with the gothic characteristics naturally.” Emily's house embodies gothic characteristics.

Emily's house was a special style building made of wood. When her parents were alive, the house was noble style, which \spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the Seventies.\Faulkner, A Rose for Emily). As the time passed, however, the house still kept its outdated style and \its stubborn and coquettish decay.\A Rose for Emily).We could feel an incompatible atmosphere with the age. And the description of the house also revealed Emily’s character that she rejected the modernized or changed world stubbornly.

Several years later, the deputation had a chance to go into Emily's house for the first time. They went into “a dim hall from which a stairway mounted into still more shadow.\(William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily). Moreover, there was \dank smell\ A Rose for Emily). in the air. The parlor was \heavy, leather--covered furniture.\(William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily). Faulkner described a dim and mysterious picture for us. And this mysterious picture made readers curious about her life in the house.

It was really shocking that the town people saw in Emily's base room. “A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as a bridal.\(William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily). Homer's skeleton \apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace.\(William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily) . The second pillow which was in the same bed was the indentation of a head. It is clearly that it was Emily's \strand of iron--gray hair.\ Homer had been missed for forty years, and Emily had been slept with his skeleton for forty years. Sepulchral atmosphere spread the air. It is shocking and absolutely terrible. But it is not Faulkner who originally adds the terror element in fiction; it is the traditional style of “gothic characteristics.\only uses these characteristics in A Rose for Emily, but exaggerates several details such as murder, violence, etc. So the description of Emily’s house created the mysterious and horrible atmosphere successfully and connected the mystery with gothic characteristics naturally.

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3.2 The gothic characteristics in the theme of A Rose for Emily

Mostly, the characteristics of the theme in gothic literature are that the author reveals the evil of human being and attacks the dark side of the society, such as the unfairness and crime through death, murder, violence and revenge.

Gross, Louis.S(1979) pointed out: “the difference between American gothic literature and European gothic literature is that the European gothic literature is mostly regarded as escapism and rejected by people, while American gothic literature speaks out people’s voice, especially people who are special such as females, homosexual, colored races and so on, although American gothic literature is still fictitious.” Due to people are not allowed to express their depressed feeling caused by the insecure society or the dark side of society, they can only express the feeling indirectly by gothic discourse or using gothic characteristics in literature.

At Emily’s times, women were controlled by men strongly. Before marriage, women were controlled by fathers, so they had no right to choose their lovers or partners. Emily couldn’t go out to make friends as often as she can, and her father thought there’s no man who’s good enough to match his daughter in their town, so she was still single when she was thirty years old. When her father died, she depended on her father so much that she was not wiling to bury his father. After his father’s death, she had no courage to face the outside world alone, so she went outside seldom, and her neighbors were curious about her life and guessed how her life was going from her and her servant’s actions. And then the Northern worker Homer appeared and Emily was attracted by him, and Emily was too lonely and empty, and she was eager to his company, but to her disappointment, he refused to marry her. She knew that she couldn’t control his life when he was alive, so she decided to kill him. In order to own him forever, Emily killed him by using drug. To a large extent, Emily’s life was deeply affected by her father’s control, even ruined by her father. If there’s no her father’s strong control, she might get married at the right time and certainly she wouldn’t make her lover company by killing him.

So the theme of the short story which the author was trying to show was that he attacked the men’s domination over women by Emily’s murder, her necrophilia, and her separation from outside for many years, and meanwhile the author also showed his

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