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William Faulkner, "A Rose for Emily"

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Reading "Critical Contexts: A Fiction Casebook" Critically

As a reader of "A Rose for Emily," you take your place among many others who have had different interpretations of the story. Being able to read criticism without losing your own interpretive stance (though you may well modify it as your attention is drawn to particular passages) is difficult even for scholars and is even more daunting for readers who are less secure about the value of their opinions and their ability to focus on the most significant passages. You may be tempted to push your own questions and highlighted passages aside and adopt an interpretation which seems strongly argued. You may decide that you are "wrong" and that you are not a very good reader and so should depend on critics to tell you what a story is about. If so, you are undermining your own ability to read and enjoy literature.

Writing papers after reading criticism can present particular problems, unless your task is to present reviews of critical essays. As you will note, the student paper presented in your text was written before Daniel Bronson read any criticism. As you read his paper, do you think that it could have been improved by taking into account any of the four articles presented here? Would any of the critics argue with his perspective? Would you argue with his interpretation? Are there questions you have, from your reading or from considering the response questions, that his essay does not address? Are there passages that you marked that his interpretation does not take into account?

Sometimes it is not too difficult to see where your interpretation varies from that of another student, but arguing with a critic seems to be impossible, for he or she generally presents abundant textual support and may focus on passages which you did not notice as particularly significant. In fact, if you highlight passages as you read, you may often find yourself going back after reading other interpretations to highlight additional ones (perhaps wondering why the ones you chose are not mentioned). One of the values of reading other interpretations, including criticism, is that they can bounce you back to the text, drawing your attention to passages and ambiguities that you may have passed over as you paid attention to first reading questions like "what is happening and why do these characters act as they do?" Any kind of incentive that makes you re-read the text is good and can enrich your own interpretation.

If you read criticism in this spirit, you will still be able to keep and enhance your own interpretive instincts. Even when you see conflict between your idea and that presented by another reader, whether student or critic, you should compare the textual evidence. Perhaps you are misreading; it happens, generally because readers for some reason (probably personal) want the story to say something more suited to their own experiences or, of course, because of careless reading. A misreading can tell you much about yourself, and perhaps even point out something subtle in the story which most readers miss.

Read the criticism in the Fiction Casebook (p. 529–576 of the full Ninth Edition and p. 529–576 of the shorter Eight Edition) critically and in comparison with your own initial responses. Note that each piece is focusing on a particular issue in the story and so may not be talking about points or questions that struck you as important. To get the most from reading these articles, you might take the following suggestions:

1. As you read, highlight passages which are mentioned in each article which you did not highlight (or would not have) on your own reading of the story. Why do you think they did not seem so important for you? Do any of them make you reconsider your own interpretation of the story?

2. George L. Dillon talks about three styles of reading: the Character-Action-Moral (CAM) style, the Digger for Secrets style, and the Anthropologist style. Try to figure out which one best fits your own way of reading this story. Would you describe your own style of reading differently? Does it combine elements of all three?

3. Lawrence R. Rodgers presents "A Rose for Emily" as a detective story. Are you familiar with this genre? If so, would you have thought of it in these terms? Are there any particular stories (or films) that came to mind as you read this?

4. How does Rodgers's reading of the story match up with Dillon's "Digger for Secrets" style? Do you think it helps you understand the story to put it in a specific genre, as he does? What aspects of the story are minimized when it is seen in this way? Is the story changed by thinking of the narrator as a detective? How would you read the story differently if you thought of yourself as a detective, trying to put together the clues?

5. Dillon also talks about the Judith Fetterley article, noting that it "flushes the codes out of hiding" and that it is not a "totalizing reading." The editors of your text also note that Faulkner was not sympathetic to women and perhaps to feminism, yet Fetterley's feminist critique is still valid. Do these comments limit you as a reader of her article? Do you agree that the story "requires a primary awareness of the fact that [Miss Emily] is a woman" living in a patriarchal society?

6. Many students are confused by the shifting timeline of the story, with its frequent flashbacks and lack of clear chronology. Gene M. Moore offers help by discussing different readings of the dates, including his own. How might considering the dates help a reader in understanding the story? Does it matter whether Emily was born in 1850, 1856, or 1864? Why do you think Faulkner would have left this unclear?

7. What sort of issues do you see that are not addressed by these critics or that are mentioned and dismissed? You might look at some of the response questions and consider which ones are either still open or have answers different from your own.

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