Read Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily." There's a brief intro about Faulkner on p. 77; the story starts on p. 78. Why follow up Gatsby with this? It's coming from the same era, for starters. Faulkner is also a modernist who had a huge impact on American literature. (He would go on to win the Nobel Prize, and we'll look at his acceptance speech when we read his novel As I Lay Dying later in the year.) Another parallel with Gatsby is Faulkner's approach to time; the way past and present (a present which, itself, is often decades before the present moment) interact is of great interest to Faulkner. Additionally, like most modernists, Faulkner took a profound interest in the question of point of view, as you'll see.
Questions (type the answers; have them printed out to hand in):
1. Who is telling the story? Why would Faulkner choose this point of view for this story? (That is, you're considering the relationship between the author's choice about technique and the ideas the writer wants to convey.)
2. Time is disordered in the story. What effect(s) does it have to put the events in this particular order?
3. In the final scene, what is odd about the order in which Faulkner presents the details? Why does he put the details of the scene in this particular sequence?
As always, I'm not looking for a right answer; I'm looking to see whether you're observing closely and commenting on what you've observed.
