PART 2

教师进入正文讲解：

Para. 1

Q1: What does paragraph 1 tell us?

A1: It tells us who is the main character (Miss Emily) and who is telling the story.

Q2: Who tells the story?

A2: In “A Rose for Emily” Faulkner chooses “We”, the people of the town, as the collective narrator. The first sentence of the story says, “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to the funeral...” In the following parts “we” frequently appear as the narrator.

Q3: When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant—a combined gardener and cook—had seen in at least ten years.

A3: (1) save: (prep.) (formal) except for

e.g. She answered all the questions save one.

(2) 埃米莉•格里尔森小姐去世时，全镇的人都去送葬了。男人们去是出于一种尊敬，因为一个纪念碑倒下了。女人们则是出于好奇，想看看埃米莉小姐的房子里面到底是什么样子的，因为除了一个作花匠兼厨师的老男仆之外，起码有10年没别人踏进过她家的大门了。

Para. 2

Q4: What is the function of paragraph 2?

A4: This paragraph provides details about the setting of the story—the place being the Southern town of Jefferson and the time being after the south lost in the American Civil War. From the descriptions of the appearance of Miss Emily’s house we learn something about her family and her character, and from the visible changes on the streets over the years we get to know something about the historical and social changes that were taking place then.

Q5: It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street.

A5: (1) frame house: a house made or wood

(2) the heavily lightsome style of the seventies: This house was built in the 1870s after the end of the Civil War. Compared with houses of the Greek revival style with columns built before the war like those we see in the movie “Gone with the Wind”, this Gothic revival style was fancy, frivolous, and not very solemn-looking.

(3) select: (adj.) (formal) choice, excellent, outstanding; only lived in, visited or used by a small number of rich people.

(4) The detail description of the house reveals the identity of the Griersons as one of the richest families in the town.

Q6: But garages and cotton fins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and gasoline pumps—an eyesore among eyesores.

A6: (1)garage: a business establishment where motor vehicles are stored, repaired, serviced, etc.

(2) august: (accent on the second syllable) inspiring awe and reverence; imposing and magnificent; worthy of respect because of age and dignity, high position, etc.

(3) coquettish: like a girl or woman who merely from vanity tries to get men’s attention and admiration

(4)cotton wagon: a wagon carrying cotton driven to town to wait for the cotton fins to separate cotton fibers from the seeds

(5) an eyesore among eyesores: 丑中之丑. An eyesore is something that is very ugly, especially a building surrounded by other things that are not ugly.

Q7: And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.

A7: (1)cedar-bemused: transferred epithet

(2) bemuse; to plunge in thought; to preoccupy, usually in the passive voice. When “we” visit the cemetery, we would be plunged in thought, meditating, thinking about the dead, the war, and the history. Cedars are long-lived pine trees often planted in cemeteries.

(3) 不过，现在爱米丽小姐也加入到那些名门望族代表的行列中了，他们在令人沉思的雪松陪伴下长眠于公墓，他们的墓碑周围埋葬着一排排南北战争中在杰斐逊战场上阵亡的南军和北军的无名战士。

Para. 3

Q8: Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor—he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron—remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity.

A8: (1)Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town...

Miss Emily had lived a long life and had become a tradition because she represented the aristocracy of the Old South that had lost out in the Civil War. She was a care because she was old, unmarried, and without family, and the people in the town felt they must take care of her. They felt that taking care of her was their duty and obligation. And this obligation passed from generation to generation as long as she lived.

(2)埃米莉小姐在世时，一直是传统的化身，履行责任和给予关照的对象，这是全镇人沿袭下来的一种义务……

(3) Colonel Sartoris: He was the son of the Old Colonel who organized a regiment to fight in the Civil War.

(4) father: to bring into being; to found, originate, or invent

(5) edict: an official public proclamation or order issued by authority; decree

(6) no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron: 黑人妇女上街时必须系上围裙. By this time when the mayor issued the edict, the Civil War had been over almost 30 years. By law, the Negroes were free. In reality, they were still discriminated against and strictly segregated from the whites. In towns like Jefferson in the Deep South, Negro women were mostly house servants in rich white people’s homes. As servants they wore aprons at work. So an apron was a sign of a house servant. Colonel Sartoris’s edict was obviously one of racial discrimination, which revealed his conservative racial attitude.

(7) dispensation: special permission from someone in authority to do something that is not usually allowed特免

(8) ... dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity. ……从他父亲去世时开始直到永远。

(9) The two things Colonel Sartoris did—fathering the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron and remitting Miss Emily’s taxes—were not directly related. But they are mentioned in juxtaposition to show how Colonel Sartoris treated white upper class women and Negro women differently.

Q9: Not that Miss Emily would have accepted charity.

A9: “Not that” is used to say what follow is not true. Miss Emily would not have accepted charity. Charity would be humiliating to her. When her father died, Miss Emily was quite poor, but being a proud woman from an august family, she would not accept charity. Colonel Sartoris, born into another aristocratic family in Jefferson, had elaborate ideas about how white upper class women should be treated. With the decline of the South after the war, these rich white families also declined. He knew that the wives and daughters of declining plantation owners enjoyed very high but also outdated status. They should be looked up to, respected and taken care of. He knew exactly what Emily needed and how she felt now, and thus invented a tale to justify the edict so that he could give her some financial aid without appearing charitable.

Q10: Only a man of Colonel Sartoris’ generation and thought could have invented it...

A10: Colonel Sartoris was the son of the real Colonel John Sartoris who fought in the Civil War. From Faulkner’s novel Sartoris we learn that Young Colonel inherited his father’s plantation as well as his military title. He was the mayor of Jefferson. After his death (1919), his family declined. As one of the last aristocratic generation of the South, he tried to cling to the past glory, and he had the most traditional ideas about how elite white women should be deferred to.

Para. 4

Q11: When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction.

A11: (1)This sentence indicates that by now Mayor Sartoris had died and many years had passed. Occasionally the narrator points out the exact year of a certain event, but mostly he only makes vague references of time to keep the readers guessing and sorting out an approximate chronology by themselves. Faulkner is implying that most of the time the townsfolk who make up the “we” are not very precise about dates.

(2) with its more modern ideas: The author is frequently making contrast between the present and past. The past is represented by the Griersons, Colonel Sartoris, Old Judge Stevens, etc. and the present is represented by the new generation, the new mayors and aldermen.

Q12: On the first of the year they mailed her a tax notice.

A12: Here the author does not say which year, but later in paragraph 14 we get to know the visit was made almost ten years after Colonel Sartoris’ death.

Q13: They wrote her a formal letter, asking her to call at the sheriff’s office at her convenience.

A13: (1)First they sent a notice. As they got no reply, they wrote a formal letter in a very polite tone, asking her to come to the sheriff’s office.

(2) sheriff: In the U.S. a sheriff is the chief law-enforcement officer of a county, charged in general with the keeping of peace and the execution of court orders.

Q14: A week later the mayor wrote her himself, offering to call or to send his car for her...

A14: This shows the special status Miss Emily held and the kind of care she received.

Q15: ...and received in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink...

A15: (1)Miss Emily ignored the tax notice and the formal letter from the aldermen. She only replied to the letter by the mayor. This points to the fact that she was arrogant and held herself too high to deal with ordinary people.

(2)

in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink: 字体纤细，书法流畅，墨水已褪色了. one of the class markers of cultivated femininity in her generation was an elegant wispy handwriting.

Para. 15

Q16: A deputation waited upon her?

A16: (1)deputation: a group of people who are sent to talk to someone in authority, as representatives of a larger group

(2) wait upon: to act as a servant; to call on or visit (especially a superior) in order to pay one’s respects, ask a favor, etc. The second definition suits the context here.

(3) This brief sentence again shows Miss Emily’s unique position in the town.

Q17: ...since she ceased giving china-painting lessons eight or ten years earlier.

A17: China-painting（瓷器彩绘）was a traditional decorative skill and a common pastime for well-to-do women at that time. Miss Emily gave china-painting lessons at home in order to make some money. The fact that she ceased the lessons indicates that she no longer admitted anyone into her house and that she had become more isolated from the outside world.

Q18: They were admitted by the old Negro into a dim hall from which a stairway mounted into still more shadow.

A18: (1)Here the author is describing the inside of the house. Words like “dim” and “shadow” create a mysterious atmosphere. No one could see anything very clearly inside her house and perhaps in her.

(2) 老男仆把他们引进光线黯淡的门厅，厅里的楼梯通向更加阴暗的楼上。

Q19: It smelled of dust and disuse—a close, dank smell.

A19: dust and disuse: alliteration

(2) disuse: the state of being or becoming unused; lack of use

(3) close: study

(4) dank: disagreeably damp; moist and chilly

(5) The smell was one of decay.

(6) 房间里灰尘弥漫，散发着因长久不用而产生的气味——潮湿、发霉、令人窒息。

Q20: When the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sunray.

A20: (1) when the Negro opened the blinds of one window: This detail shows that normally the blinds of all the windows in the house were closed. This is proof that she wanted to cut herself off from the outside world.

(2) blinds: a covering that can be pulled down over a window; window shade, window shutters

(3) the leather was cracked: This is a sign of poverty and decay.

(4) ...when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray. ……当他们落座时，一股细细的灰尘在大腿周围慢慢扬起，尘粒在房间里唯一的太阳光束中缓缓地旋转着。

Para. 6

Q21: They rose when she entered—a small, fat woman in black, with a thin fold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head.

A21: (1) with a thin fold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt: The gold chain was the chain of a watch. The fact that it vanished (disappeared) into her belt means that the watch was hidden under her belt and therefore invisible. In paragraph 7 the narrator tells us, “Then they could hear the invisible watch ticking at the end of the gold chain.” Pay attention to the symbolic meaning of the watch. If the watch vanished into her belt, that means she did not look at he watch. The watch is a symbol of time. In his novel The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner also uses watches and clocks as symbols of time. Just as one of the characters in that novel tried to smash a watch to stop time, Miss Emily, by making her watch invisible, tried to ignore the passage of time as well as any changes brought about by the passage of time.

(2) leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head: In paragraph 5 we see a tarnished gilt easel in her house. Now there are her gold chain and gold head of an ebony cane. Gilt and gold suggest wealth. To tarnish means to lose luster, to discolor, to grow dull. This word “tarnish” can also mean to besmirch or sully (a reputation, honor, etc.). The repeated use of the word underlines the fact that the Grierson family used to be rich and august but now it has lost its splendor.

Q22: Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her.

A22: (1)plumpness and obesity: Plumpness means being full and round in form; being chubby. Obesity means being very fat; unhealthily fat. A note on word choice; fat, plump, obese, overweight, large, heavy, chubby, stout, tubby. If you want to be polite, do not say that people are fat. (A little) overweight or just large would be more polite. In American English, you can also say that someone is heavy when you don’t want to be offensive. Plump is most often used of women and children and means slightly (and pleasantly) fat. Chubby is most often used of babies and children and also means pleasantly fat and healthy-looking. When you describe adults, stout means slightly fat and heavy and tubby means short and fat, especially around the stomach. If someone is extremely fat and unhealthy, he/she/it obese. Obese is also the word used by doctors.

(2) （因为）她的骨架小，换了别人只是有点富态，而到她身上就显得肥胖了。

Q23: She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue.

A23: (1) pallid: pale, faint in color

(2) hue: color, a modification of a basic color

(3) In this sentence Miss Emily is being described as a dead person, drowned, bloated and pale. Both the house and the owner are in decay. Shutting herself from the outside world and living in complete self-isolation, Miss Emily seemed like a living corpse.

Para. 10

Q24: “Perhaps he considers himself the sheriff”.

A24: Her remark shows that she only acknowledged the authority of Colonel Sartoris. She was truly proud and stubborn woman.

Para. 11

Q25: “But there is nothing on the books to show that, you see. We must go by the ...”

A25: But there is no written document to show that. You see we must go by the written documents. Earlier Miss Emily also admitted, “Colonel Sartoris explained it to me.” Clearly the dispensation was only an oral permission. In the old days, things were done in the old-fashioned way: the verbal permission of Colonel Sartoris was good as a written document. The new generation acted differently: they wanted to go by written documents.

Para. 14

Q26: “See Colonel Sartoris.” (Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years.)

A26: (1) From the novel Sartoris we learn that the Young Colonel died in 1919. So we can infer that the deputation’s visit to Miss Emily should be around 1923-1929.

(2) Miss Emily’s insistence on their seeing Colonel Sartoris, who had been dead almost ten years, proves how she refused to acknowledge changes.

Part II (paras. 15-28)

Para. 15

Q27: So she vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell.

A27: (1) vanquish: to conquer or defeat in battle; to defeat in any conflict, as in argument

(2) horse and foot: a military idiom from the American Civil War, meaning totally

(3) 就这样她彻底打败了他们，把他们打得人仰马翻，正如30年前在气味问题上她击败了他们的父辈一样。

Q28: That was two years after her father’s death and a short time after her sweetheart—the one we believed would marry her—had deserted her.

A28: Her sweetheart and his deserting her are mentioned here as if casually. Actually this is an important detail. The narrator will come back to it. This is one of the characteristics of Faulkner’s narrative techniques—throwing out a bit of information here and there for the reader to piece together in order to get a complete picture.

Q29: A few of the ladies had the temerity to call, but were not received...

A29: (1) temerity: foolish or rash boldness that results from underrating the danger of failing to evaluate the consequences.

e.g.: He had the temerity to criticize his boss.

(2) 有几位妇女冒失地去看望她，但被她拒之门外……

Para. 16

Q30: “Just as if a man—any man—could keep a kitchen properly,” the ladies said; so they were not surprised when the smell develop.

A30: What the ladies said meant that they did not in the least believe a man, any man, could keep a kitchen properly. So when the smell developed, they believed it was because the manservant didn’t keep the kitchen clean.

Q31: It was another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons.

A31: (1) gross: vulgar, coarse; lacking fineness; disgusting, offensive

(2) teeming: full of (people and animals)

(3) high and mighty: talking or behaving as if you think you are more important than other people

(4) The Griersons regarded themselves as very important and the outside world as vulgar and full of people inferior to them. They belonged to two entirely different worlds. After her father died, Miss Emily shut herself in the house, retreating to her world of the past. However, the complaints about the smell served as a link between the two different worlds and compelled her to deal with the other world.

Para. 19

Q32: “Why, send her word to stop it,” the woman said. “Isn’t there a law?”

A32: (1) Word has many different meanings. Here it means a command, order or authorization.

e.g.: They were waiting for the word to go ahead.

(2) “Isn’t there a law?”

The law here refers to health or hygiene regulations passed by the town authorities.

Para. 21

Q33: The next day he received two more complaints, one from a man who came in diffident deprecation.

A33: (1) diffident: timid, shy; lacking self-confidence; marked by hesitation in asserting oneself

(2) deprecation: expression of strong disapproval or criticism

(3) The next day the mayor received two more complaints. One of them was from a man who came and pleaded to the mayor in a shy and timid way. This shows that the smell was bothering everybody and that even a shy man found it hard to put up with the situation any more.

Para. 23

Q34: ... “will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?”

A34: Judge Steven, eighty years old, was an old Southern gentleman. He thought it bad manners to tell a lady to her face that she smelt bad. So he didn’t approve of sending her word to clean up the kitchen in a direct way.

Para. 24

Q35: So the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily’s lawn and slunk about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base of the brickwork and at the cellar openings while one of them performed a regular sowing motion with his hand out of a sack slung from his shoulder.

A35: (1) slink: to move in a quiet, furtive, or sneaking manner, as from fear, guilt, etc.

(2) brickwork: the part of the house built of bricks

(3) 于是，第二天午夜之后，4个男人穿过埃米莉家的草坪，像破门入室的盗贼一样偷偷摸摸地绕着房子转悠，在房子的砖基部分以及地窖的通风处使劲地嗅着，其中一人从背在肩上的袋子里不时掏出一些药粉，好像播种一样将它撒在地上。

Q36: As they recrossed the lawn, a window that had been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol.

A36: (1) This is one of the vivid images of Miss Emily the author creates in the story. Here Miss Emily sat in the window with the light behind her. What people could see was her silhouette, a dark figure seen against a light background. The fact that she was motionless suited her rigid and stubborn personality. In this image she didn’t look like a living person but an idol, or a goddess. There are some other images of Miss Emily in this story. Pay attention to them and ask yourself why Faulkner portrays her in such a way and how these images change over the passage of time.

(2) 当他们又穿过草坪往回走时，原先一扇黑洞洞的窗子突然点亮了灯。埃米莉坐在窗口，灯光照着她的背后，她那挺直的身躯纹丝不动，就像一尊神像。

Para. 25

Q37: People in our town, remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great-aunt, had gone completely crazy at last, believed that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were.

A37: People in the town felt that the Grierson family regarded themselves more important than they really deserved to be. The fact that Miss Emily’s great-aunt, old lady Wyatt, had gone crazy had to do with this blind, excessive self-importance.

Q38: We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door.

A38: (1) tableau: a striking scene or picture, frozen in time for dramatic effect; a theatrical device in which a group of people who do not speak or move are arranged on stage to show a famous event or a dramatic moment

(2) spraddle: (colloquial or dialect) to spread the legs in a sprawling or straddling way

(3) back-flung: 向后开的

Q39: So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized.

A39: (1) When she got to be thirty and was still single, people in the town would have denied that they wanted such an outcome but it did confirm their predictions—Miss Emily was still single because the Griersons held themselves too high for what they were, and all the young men who had come to court Miss Emily had been driven away by the father. They knew that even though there was insanity in the family(the great-aunt Wyatt), Miss Emily wouldn’t have turned down all of her chances if they had really existed.

因此，当她30岁上仍未嫁人时，确切地说我们并不觉得高兴，只是觉得这证明了我们原来的想法，就算她有精神失常的家族史，她也不至于拒绝多有的机会，如果真有那么多人向她求婚的话。

Para. 26

Q40: Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized.

A40: Without her father’s over-protection and without much money, she had become a common person like the other townspeople.

Q41: Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less.

A41: old: familiar, experienced, heard or seen many times before

Ordinary people often become excited or worried when they get a penny more or a penny less. Being poor, now she would learn to appreciate the value of money like other people in the town.

Para. 27

Q42: How did Miss Emily behave when her father died?

A42: She told the ladies who came to see her that her father was not dead. She refused to let anybody in her house. She behaved in this way for three days. Then she broke down. They buried her father quickly, because otherwise the body would begin to smell. This detail sets up up for what is going to happen later to Homer Barron.

Para. 28

Q43: ... and we knew that with nothing left, she wold have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.

A43: Miss Emily refused to let the townspeople take away her father’s body for burial. She tried hard to hold onto it as long as possible. Note that the narrator says, “... she would ... cling to that which had robbed her”, instead of her father who robbed her. The implied meaning is that what robbed her of her love, marriage and freedom was not only hr father as an individual, but the traditional social fore he represented. She would cling to these very same conservative values.

Part III (Paras. 29-42)

Para. 30

Q44: ... and a foreman named Homer Barron, a Yankee—a big, dark, ready man...

A44: (1) Yankee: Homer Barron is one of those from the victorious North who, after the Civil War, came South in the hope of making money. Though the word does not appear in this text, they were commonly called “carpetbaggers”, and were objects of scorn or suspicion for most Southerners.

(2) a big, dark, ready man: 一个身材高大、皮肤黝黑、精明能干的男人

Q45: Presently we began to see him and Miss Emily on Sunday afternoons driving in the yellow-wheeled buggy and the matched team of bays from the livery stable.

A45: (1) buggy: a light carriage pulled by a horse

(2) bay: a reddish brown horse

(3) livery stable: a stable where horses and carriages can be hired

(4) 不久，礼拜天下午我们常看到他和埃米莉小姐驾着一辆从马车店租来的轻便马车出门，车轮是黄色的，配套的马是红褐色的。

Para. 31

Q46: Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer.

A46: a day laborer: an unskilled worker paid by the day 临时工

Q47: But there were still others, older people, who said that even grief could not cause a real lady to forget noblesse oblige—without calling it noblesse oblige.

A47: (1)noblesse oblige: This is a French term, meaning nobility has its obligations.

(2) But there were still others, older people, who said that no matter how sad Miss Emily was (over her father’s death), she should not forget she had certain obligations as a member of the nobility, though a real lady would not describe her self-restraint by the expression noblesse oblige. The implied meaning is that it should be unthinkable for Emily as part of the local “nobility” to consider marrying a man so far beneath her.

Q48: They had not even been represented at the funeral.

A48: 甚至举行葬礼时这家都没派人出席。

Para. 32

Q49: This behind their hands; rustling of craned silk and satin behind jalousies closed upon the sun of Sunday afternoon as the thin, swift clop-clop-clop of the matched team passed: “Poor Emily.”

A49: (1)behind their hands: People were whispering, talking in private with their hands over their mouths.

(2) rustling: making an irregular succession of soft sounds, as if leaves being moved by a gentle breeze

(3) silk and satin: the silk and satin dresses worn by the ladies

(4) jalousie: 固定百叶窗

(5) “Poor Emily”: Note the absence of the word “Miss”. This reveals the change of attitude of the townspeople toward Miss Emily after her dating Homer Barron. Instead of respect they felt pity toward her now.

(6) 礼拜天的下午，当拉车的马踏着轻快的步子哒哒驶过时，女人们站在遮阳的百叶窗后窥视，她们的绸缎长裙沙沙作响，人们交头接耳：“可怜的埃米莉”。

Para. 34

Q50: ... with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eye-sockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper’s face ought to look.

A50: A lighthouse keeper lives a very lonely life, and extreme loneliness and solitude would show on the face. Miss Emily was here compared to a lonely lighthouse keeper.

Q51: “I want some poison,” she said.

A51: The narrator does not tell us why she wanted some poison at this point. From paragraph 43 we know that the townspeople thought she would kill herself. But will she kill herself?

Para. 42

Q52: Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up.

A52: 埃米莉就那样瞪着他，她的头向后仰，以便能与他对视，一直看得他转移了目光，走进去取了砒霜并包好。

Part IV (Paras. 43-53)

Para. 43

Q53: ... “She will persuade him yet,”....

A53: This remark means he was not willing to marry her, and the reason is given in the “because” clause.

Para. 44

Q54: Then some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people.

A54: These ladies represented the traditional codes of the American South. When Miss Emily was first seen together with Homer Barron, they could hardly believe that a Grierson would think seriously of marrying a Northerner, a day laborer. Then when Miss Emily continued her courting with Barron without seeming in a hurry to get married, they began to accuse her of being a disgrace and a bad example. We can see here how Miss Emily’s father had ruined her life and how the whole town also played a role in interfering with her private life.

Q55: ...but at last the ladies forced the Baptist minister—Miss Emily’s people were Episcopal—to call upon her. He would never divulge what happened during that interview, but he refused to go back again..

A55: (1) Episcopal: Among the various Protestant denominations in such a town the highest prestige and class standing belongs to the American branch of the Church of England, known as the Episcopal Church (Faulkner himself and his family were all Episcopalians).

(2) the Baptist minister: The Baptists have less formal worship services and are associated with more enthusiastic and less cultivated modes of Christianity. The town’s middle-class ladies belonged to the Baptist Church, and so they forced their minister to call upon Miss Emily on behalf of the town.

(3) He would never divulge what happened during that interview...

He would never disclose what happened during his talk with Miss Emily. But we readers could infer that Miss Emily must have treated him with disdain when he came to express the community’s disapproval of her public courting activities with Homer Barron. That is why he refused to have another talk with Miss Emily.

Para. 45

Q56: We learned that Miss Emily had been to the jeweler’s and ordered a man’s toilet set in silver...

A56: a man’s toilet set in silver: a set of toilet articles made of silver used by men for dressing and grooming.

Q57: We were glad because the two female cousins were even more Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been.

A57: The townspeople were glad because they had been annoyed by the arrogant attitude of Miss Emily and now the two cousins were even more stubborn and self-important than Miss Emily. They believed that the two cousins would succeed in persuading Miss Emily and Homer Barron to get married quickly so that her public courting with Homer Barron would come to an end.

Para. 46

Q58: We were a little disappointed that there was not a public blowing-off ....

A58: (1)blowing-off: a loud quarrel that would signal the end of their courting

(2) The people in the town guessed that their relationship had turned sour and so Homer Barron had left. And they expected to see a quarrel between them. When nothing of the kind happened, they were a little disappointed. Then they began to think that perhaps he had gone to prepare for the wedding.

Q59: By that time it was a cabal, and we were all Miss Emily’s allies to help circumvent the cousins.

A59: By that time, the cousins had completed their mission and should leave Jefferson. Now the townspeople were taking the side of Miss Emily and made secret plans to help her deal with her cousins in a clever way.

Q60: A neighbor saw the Negro man admit him at the kitchen door at dusk one evening.

A60: We can feel that the author is hinting at something here. Did Homer Barron agree to marry Miss Emily? Did he go away to prepare for Miss Emily’s coming as the townspeople had supposed? Why did the Negro man admit him at the kitchen door instead of the front door? Why did he come at dusk?

Para. 47

Q61: And that was the last saw of Homer Barron.

A61: What did the townspeople think when Homer Barron disappeared? They supposed he had deserted her (“after her sweetheart—the one we believed would marry her—had deserted her” in Para. 15). We should be alert to the possibility that the author knows something that the narrator is not aware of yet.

Q62: Now and then we would see her a a window for a moment, as the men did that night when they sprinkled the lime...

A62: The author wants us to think of possible connections between the disappearance of Homer Barron and the smell that the townspeople complained about.

Q63: Then we knew that this was to be expected too; as if that quality of her father which had thwarted her woman’s life so many times had been too virulent and too furious to die.

A63: (1) thwarted her woman’s life so many times: Her father had driven away her suitors many times, thus preventing her from getting what she wanted as a woman.

(2) thwart: (formal) to prevent someone from doing that they are trying to do

(3) Why did the townspeople expect this?

They believed that Homer Barron’s disappearance meant he had deserted Miss Emily. This was a heavy blow to poor Emily, whose woman’s life had been already thwarted by her father so many times. So they were not surprised when she didi not appear on the streets for sic months. They had expected her to behave that way. This shows the townspeople’s sympathy for Miss Emily.

(4) 我们明白这也是意料之中的事，似乎她父亲那使她作为女性的生活屡遭挫折的性格太恶毒、太厉害了，很难消失。

Para. 48

Q64: Up to the day of her death at seventy-four it was still that vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man.

A64: The vigorous and iron-gray hair symbolizes her strong and stubborn personality, making her like an active man such as her father and Homer Barron.

Para. 49

Q65: ... they were sent to church on Sundays with a twenty-five-cent piece for the collection plate.

A65: the collection plate: a plate for holding the money collected during a church service

Para. 50

Q66: When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach mailbox to it.

A66: This says a lot about Miss Emily’s negative attitude toward any change and the marching of time. Refusing to have metal numbers fastened to her door can be seen as a gesture of refusing to view time with its mathematical progression.

Para. 51

Q67: Each December we sent her a tax notice, which would be returned by the post office a week later, unclaimed.

A67: unclaimed: 无人领取的

Q68: Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows—she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house—like the carven torso of an idol in a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which.

A68: (1)Carven: (archaic) carved

(2) niche: 神龛

(3) Now Miss Emily no longer went out. From time to time the townspeople would see her in one of the downstairs windows. She had evidently shut the top floor of the house. The word “evidently” shows that the townspeople were supposing that she had shut the top floor as they could not go into the house. In the final section of the text we shall learn that the corpse of Homer Barron was lying on her bed in the upstairs bedroom. Sitting in the window, Miss Emily looked like the carved torso of an idol for worship placed in a niche. Whether she was looking or not looking at us we could not tell and it was not important because she had ceased to be a real human being, but had completely become a sort of monument, a symbol of a tradition and hereditary obligation.

(4) 不时地，我们在楼下的一个窗口能见到她的身影，显然她已封闭了楼上。她的身影就像供奉在神龛里的一尊偶像的躯体，也许她在看着我们，也许没有，我们也搞不清楚。

Q69: Thus she passed from generation to generation—dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.

A69: The author uses five adjectives to describe how the townspeople felt about Miss Emily. These words are precise, but these are usual adjectives that don’t fit comfortably together. They reflect the townspeople’s ambivalent attitude toward Emily. She was dear because she represented the Southern heritage to a certain extent. She was inescapable because she was “a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town”. she was impervious and not affected by any changes taking place in the town, and her imperviousness was well reflected by her ignoring the tax notice and her refusal to pay taxes. She was tranquil. Though she was tragic, she remained calm and free from disturbance. Her tranquility as her rigidity was portrayed by her motionless silhouette in the window. She was certainly perverse, always behaving in an unreasonable way and regularly doing the opposite of what people expected her to do.

Part V (Paras. 54-60)

Para. 55

Q70: ... and the very old men—some in their brushed Confederate uniforms—on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years.

A70: (1)Some in their brushed Confederate uniform: Some of them fought in the Confederate Army in the Civil War a long time ago. They had put away their army uniforms and now they brushed off the dust on them and put them on for this special occasion.

(2) mathematical progression: sequence or succession of happenings in time marked by numbers

(3) diminishing: making, or making seem, smaller in size

(4) meadow: a piece of grassland; a field of low, level and grown with wild grass and flowers

(5) bottleneck: any place, as a narrow road, where traffic is slowed up or halted; any point at which movement or progress is slowed up

(6) The very old men, who were even older than Miss Emily, came to the funeral. Some of them were veterans of the Civil War, and they had put on their old Confederate uniforms to pay their last respect to this Southern lady from an aristocratic family. Standing on the porch and the lawn, they talked of Miss Emily, mistakenly thinking of her as someone their own age, born around 1840 or so whereas she (born around 1855) was much younger than they were. They imagined they had danced with her and courted her perhaps. As the old people often do, they confused the dates and years of past happenings. To the old people, all the past should be like a road that becomes smaller as it reaches further back. But to those old Southerns, the recent past of ten years or so was like a bottleneck, a narrow passage, or a tunnel. Beyond that narrow passage, the remote past became a huge level meadow where things were pleasantly and fondly mixed up together. Like the green grass on the meadow never touched by the winter, their memories of the remote past remained blurred, sweet, romanticized, and unchanged.

Para. 56

Q71: Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years...

A71: The narrator tells us that there was a mysterious room upstairs which no one had seen in forty years. The author is hinting that something must have happened forty years ago that made Miss Emily shut the room.

Para. 57

Q72: What is paragraph 57 about?

A72: This paragraph describes vividly the details of the mysterious room upstairs. Earlier in the text we have already seen some elements of Gothic fiction. From paragraph 57 to the end of the story we see how perfectly Faulkner is able to create an atmosphere often found in a Gothic novel. Gothic novel is a type of novel characterized by horror, violence, supernatural effects, and a taste for the medieval, usually set against a background of Gothic architecture, especially a gloomy and isolated castle. “A Rose for Emily” contains some characteristics of Gothic fiction. The author’s purpose is to create an atmosphere best suited for portraying the perverse character of Miss Emily and telling an appalling story about her.

Q73: A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man’s toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured.

A73: (1)acrid: sharp, bitter, stinging, or irritating to the taste or smell

(2) pall: an overspreading covering, as of dark clouds or black smoke, that cloaks or obscures in a gloomy, depressing way; also an overspreading, pervasive atmosphere or spirit of gloom and depression

(3) bridal: (archaic) a wedding

(4) decked: covered or clothed with finery or ornaments; adorned

(5) valance curtain: a short drapery or curtain hanging from the edge of bed, shelf, table, etc. often to the floor

(6) monogram: two or more letters, usually the first letters of someone’s names, that are put together to form a design

(7) Note the curtains of rose color and rose-shaped lights. The word “rose” naturally reminds us of the title of the story “A Rose for Emily”. Does the author choose the word merely because it is a common color for a bridal room? Or does he choose it deliberately and expect the reader to make a connection between the rose color of the room and the title?

(8) 一股淡淡的、难闻的、犹如墓穴般的气味笼罩着这个为婚礼布置的房间的各个角落：罩在褪了色的玫瑰色窗帘上，罩在玫瑰色灯罩和梳妆台上，罩在一排精致的水晶制品和镶银的男人盥洗用具上。而那银器的光泽早已失去，刻在上面的姓名字母图案也已经辨认不清了。

Q74: Among them lay a collar and tie, as if they had just been removed, which, lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent in the dust.

A74: (1) collar: a cloth band or folded-over piece attached to the neck of a garment

(2) 物件中有一个衬衫的硬领和一条领带，仿佛刚从身上摘下来似的。当有人把它们拿起来时，可以看到在尘埃覆盖的表面上留下了一个浅浅的月牙痕。

Para. 58

Q75: Why is paragraph 58 so short, only containing one single sentence?

A75: We can imagine that after giving a detailed description of the mysterious bridal room, the story-teller makes a pause here, takes a breath and then comes to the final secret, saying, “The man himself lay in the bed.” This one-sentence paragraph is a very effective way of holding the reader in suspense for the climax of a murder story.

Para. 59

Q76: The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him.

A76: (1)in the attitude of embrace: 呈拥抱的姿势. Attitude means the position or posture assumed by the body in connection with an action, feeling, mood, etc.

e.g.: The old woman knelt in an attitude of prayer.

(2) the long sleep: death

(3) grimace: a twisting or distortion of the face, as in expressing pain, contempt, disgust, etc.

(4) cuckold: A cuckold is a man whose wife has proved unfaithful. To cuckold is to make a man a cuckold.

(5) Just before the man breathed his last, he was lying in a position of an embrace. But death that always lasts longer than love and conquers even the pain and suffering of love had turned him into a man whose wife proved unfaithful.

Q77: What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust.

A77: (1)inextricable: that can not be disentangled or united

(2) coating: a layer over a surface

(3) biding: (old use) waiting and staying somewhere for a long time

(4) 他的遗体在残留的睡衣下面已经腐烂，跟他躺着的床粘在一起，难以剥离。他的身上和旁边的枕头上均匀地覆盖着一层长年积累的灰尘。

Para. 60

Q78: Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head.

A78: indentation: a dent of slight hollow.

Q79: One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.

A79: This last sentence indicates that Miss Emily had lain beside the dead body of Homer Barron.