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An example of this precision is the sentence from "A Rose for Emily" discussed in Alice Hall Petry's article: "Thus she passed from generation to generation - dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse"(280). In this sentence Faulkner summarizes Emily Grierson's character and her relationship with her community in five adjectives. While probably overlooked by the casual reader, Petry explores how closer examination reveals Faulkner's organization and manipulation of language. Placed near the end of the fourth section just before the announcement of Emily's death, the adjectives are both a chronological summation of the previous four chapters and foreshadowing of surprise uncovered in the fifth. The first adjective is double-edged and pertains to opening section of the story. Just before her death, Emily may have indeed seemed "dear" to the people of Jefferson, because she stayed quietly in her decaying piece of antebellum which thankfully no longer smelled, but in Part I of the story Emily was "dear" to the city in that she refused to pay taxes and was a costly citizen. The second adjective, "inescapable," is a reference to the situation surrounding the stench described in Part II, and it is in Part III that Emily buys the rat poison, remaining "impervious" to the law. The tranquility of Emily's in the years before her death is discussed in Part IV and summed up in the fourth adjective. Petry describes the dual interpretation of the fifth adjective in this sentence by saying, "'perverse' might be interpreted in a benign, general sense as meaning 'stubborn' or 'out of step with the community;' but . . . one should fully expect that Part V will illustrate Emily's 'perverse' nature in the most specific sense of the word - moral and\or sexual perversity . . . "(53). Emily' perversity until now has manifested
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Evidence of his grasp of language is apparent, regardless of the genre, and there are mysteries to uncover in all that he wrote. Deborah Clark says of his novel Light in August, "Faulkner's manipulation of sexual dynamics and gender roles . . . illustrates the full complexity of his . . . power and authority"(398). However, it is in the short story that the full force of his authority over language is felt. As Petry reveals at the conclusion of her argument, he "himself remarked in 1957, [that] the short story as a genre demands precision of language: 'In a short story that's next to a poem, almost every word has got to be almost exactly right. In the novel you can be careless but in the short story you can't'"(54). When a writer in so conscious of the power which he possesses, it should surprise us little that he is so successful in creating emotion and mystery with his
Evidence of his grasp of language is apparent, regardless of the genre, and there are mysteries to uncover in all that he wrote. Deborah Clark says of his novel Light in August, "Faulkner's manipulation of sexual dynamics and gender roles . . . illustrates the full complexity of his . . . power and authority"(398). However, it is in the short story that the full force of his authority over language is felt. As Petry reveals at the conclusion of her argument, he "himself remarked in 1957, [that] the short story as a genre demands precision of language: 'In a short story that's next to a poem, almost every word has got to be almost exactly right. In the novel you can be careless but in the short story you can't'"(54). When a writer in so conscious of the power which he possesses, it should surprise us little that he is so successful in creating emotion and mystery with his