A Rose for Emily – Lit Bits

On Re-reading for Class

I don’t know about anyone of you out there, but at a certain point in the semester I feel an exhausted relief when I look at the scheduled readings and see that I’ve been smart enough to assign texts that I’ve read before, that I’ve taught before. I have that moment when I think, “I don’t necessarily have to re-read this – I’ve done this before. I’ll just do what I did last time.”

It’s not a good habit, but it’s an understandable one, I think. And I suspect that most of us give in to the temptation from time to time.

But last week, I was reminded once again why it is that I need to re-read for class – and not just because I need to be sure that I’m completely prepared. Continue reading “On Re-reading for Class”

Listening In

Young writers often get the advice—and sometimes the assignment—to eavesdrop. I’ve always found this a little funny, since after all, don’t most of us spend large portions of our lives in conversation? Why do we need to listen in on somebody else’s conversation in order to learn about conversation? I wasn’t sure of the particular value of being outside of the conversation. So I decided to try it.

Like many a writer, I often find myself in coffee shops. But I also happen to live in a town that is a prime destination for people in recovery programs, who also naturally find themselves in coffee shops. And so one of the first things I heard was one highly caffeinated young guy saying to another, “It was a tell-tale sign when we did free hugs and Ted wouldn’t hug anybody.”

A few days later, walking out of the gym behind a young woman and her probably four-year-old son, I heard this exchange:

Toddler: I want a snack.

Mom: I have something in the car for you.

Toddler: What is it?

Mom: Juice.

Toddler: What kind of juice?

Mom: Orange juice.

Toddler, with outright exuberance: Hallelujah, baby!

Later, sitting in a Barnes and Noble café near the customer service counter, I heard this:

Female customer, probably sixty-something, brandishing the bondage bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey: Do you think this would make a good gift?

Customer Service Rep: Well, I wouldn’t give it to someone you didn’t know well.

Next customer, a very thin woman around seventy in a denim mini skirt and high-heeled sandals: I need a ride home.

Customer Service Rep: But we’re a bookstore.

Continue reading “Listening In”

Shock Value

I have to confess that I take a great deal of delight in teaching “A Rose for Emily” to my introduction to literature students. It’s a wonderful story to talk about sequence versus chronology, foreshadowing, and concepts of time. But it’s getting to the shocking ending that’s most fun for me.

It’s one of the few stories where I walk students through everything piece-by-piece, mapping out the major plot points on the board. I do this, in part, because it’s helpful to have all those disparate plot points in visual form (the students figure out that the arsenic and the smell are connected once they see everything written up on the board). I also do this because I typically teach the story at a time in the semester when the students are worn out and class participation has dropped off.

We walk through the sequence of the story, and then we read the final section of the story aloud (okay, I read it). I love to pause at the line “The man himself lay in the bed.” And we get to that closing sentence about the iron gray hair. Continue reading “Shock Value”