Basinger’s Quotations
In her analysis, Basinger actively refers to the original text, emphasizing the lines necessary for her position. At the same time, she mainly uses direct quotations, inserting whole blocks of descriptive quotations into her text. The size of these inserts differs depending on the length of the description but does not exceed a few lines, unlike references to works by other authors (Basinger, 2019). Such an approach is one of the most effective in this context and allows for proving the position taken by a literary analyst. To argue about how the author portrays the characters and their gender roles, it is necessary to conduct a deep analysis of the descriptions. In this case, paraphrasing cannot be used since it is necessary to refer to specific words. However, to facilitate the understanding of the text, she could give larger-scale quotations containing specific descriptions and the context of the situation.
Suggested Quotations
“She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue.” (Faulkner, 2019, p. 852).
This quote is a continuation of one of the descriptions already used by Basinger. This passage refers to the same situation in which the new administration came to Miss Emily to ask her to pay her taxes.
The connection between the position defended by Basinger and the quote lies in the way the author neutrally describes a woman: shapeless, without any prominent male or female features. In addition, she appeared somewhat dead, which makes her gender role even more blurred and inaccurate.
“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” (Faulkner, 2019, p. 854).
This quote reflects the symbolic perception of Miss Emily and her father by the city’s inhabitants. These words demonstrate the townspeople’s attitude and the image that they have of a relatively famous family.
This piece of text can be used as an argument that, despite the lack of any evidence, the townspeople assigned Miss Emily a clear gender role of a woman standing in the shadow of a man.
“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” (Faulkner, 2019, p. 858).
This fragment refers to the description of the last days of Miss Emily’s life and how she looked to the residents from the outside.
This quote can be used to emphasize how detached from the human essence and, accordingly, the gender of Miss Emily is reflected by the author. The more she ages, the less Faulkner distinguishes her gender characteristics, despite all the prejudices of the townspeople.
References
Basinger, B. (2019). Tension, contradiction, and ambiguity: Gender roles in “A rose for Emily.” In R. Bullock & M.D. Goggin (Eds.), The Norton field guide to writings with readings (5th ed., pp. 838-843). W.W. Norton.
Faulkner, W. (2019). A rose for Emily. In R. Bullock & M.D. Goggin (Eds.), The Norton field guide to writings with readings (5th ed., pp. 851-860). W.W. Norton.