Miss Emily Grierson just wants some time alone...thirty years ago





















View Photos of Me (1)
About Me: In my younger years, I taught girls how to paint china. I love going for buggy rides on Sunday afternoons. I am now a very private person and like to spend my days indoors.
Information
Networks: Yoknapatawpha County
Relationship Status: Complicated
Religion: Episcopal
Friends
3 friends:
Homer Barron
Rose Grierson
Evelyn Grierson
Contact Information
This is the only way to contact me as I do not have a mailbox.
Privacy
Friends only
Groups
The Grierson Family


All Posts


Miss Emily Grierson replied to Rose Grierson 30 years ago: Don’t worry about me and please don’t bother coming all the way over here on my account. I am fine I just need some time to myself. In fact, I feel as though he never even left.


Rose Grierson wrote 30 years ago: I heard about Homer. I am sorry for your loss cousin. If I may say so, you are way too good for him anyways. I will visit you soon.


Homer Barron wrote 30 years ago: I’m sorry, please don’t be upset. I will visit again this weekend. I’ve just been busy with the boys lately.



Since Miss Emily obviously did not worry about the upkeep of her house, I made all the dates 30 years in the past to emphasize her lack of maintenance. Her status is a method of warding off anyone who may want to visit her and stumble upon her secret. She would have limited pictures and they would have been posted by other people. For her profile picture I tried to find one that illustrated how the townspeople saw her: just a silhouette in the window. I made her relationship status complicated because she has just killed Homer Barron and has been sleeping with him and if that isn't complicated, I don't know what is. She only has a few friends. I created names for her two cousins. I purposefully did not include her servant as one of her friends because Miss Emily would not have seen him as her equal. Her privacy is set at private because she clearly does not want the town involved in her affairs. She is in the Group The Grierson Family because she is very proud of her family name and the weight that it carries. Her first post is from Homer Barron saying he is sorry that he has been away. This was posted when he went away for awhile right before she killed him. I made it sound as though she was upset about him leaving her. The other one is from her cousin and it shows the high and mighty attitude of the Griersons. The final one is Miss Emily's response, clearly making sure her cousin does not visit. Her reply also indirectly suggests his continued presence in her life even though he has supposedly "left her."

nightingale

In his poem, “Ode to a Nightingale,” Keats conjures an image of a “light-wingéd Dryad” (Nightingale), who “In some melodious plot of beechen green, and shadows numberless, singest of summer in full-throated ease.” The nightingale’s song is a commonly used symbol for poetry as both are expressions of inspiration and powerful emotion. Using a concrete object to refer to a more abstract one allows for greater interpretation and stimulates creativity. It forces the reader to think of something in a new imaginative way; a description of poetry is much less stimulating compared to a comparison of poetry to birdsong through metaphor.

It is also imperative to note the diction in this poem and its effect on the image that the poet wishes to portray. A dryad is a wood nymph, something not of this Earth but rather a creature belonging to an enchanted world. The speaker yearns to join the bird in its blissful weightless state of unconsciousness for he is pained by his awareness of mortality. The speaker decides that poetry will enable him to transcend the material world and join the Nightingale.

The picture shown above illustrates a nightingale singing amidst greenery. The focus is primarily on the bird. The blurry background is reminiscent of the part in the poem where the speaker cannot see his surroundings and instead has to rely upon the nightingale’s song for guidance. The visual representation of the idea, although endearing, oversimplifies and detracts from the purpose of the poem. Relying on an image instead of the poem decreases the imagination required to interpret and derive meaning from the metaphor. The detailed imagery and language of a poem is pivotal in spurring the imagination to great heights, which is one of the aims of Keats’ poem “Ode to a Nightingale.”

Thesis: Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbort know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighhours'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say '.Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me —
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, Good fences make good neighbours.

Thesis:
Frost highlights the human tendency to build barriers in some form whether they are emotional, legal or physical ones. Although the narrator does not see the benefit in repairing the wall, he continues to reappear each spring, which suggests he gains something from this experience. A fence is typically associated with separation and the establishment of boundaries but in this poem, it is a motive for two neighbors to work together to accomplish a common goal, building a relationship in the process.

Love Song

“Till human voices wake us, and we drown.”

Prior to this line, he had been fantasizing about mermaids (women); watching them sing and “riding seaward on the waves combing the white hair of the waves blown back.” He only watched them because he didn’t think they would talk to him; even in his imagination, he couldn’t conceive of connecting with a woman. In the last line of the poem, he is snapped out of his reverie by society’s comments concerning his inadequacies. These criticisms most likely exist only in his head and stem from a severe lack of self-esteem. He magnifies his “flaws” to the point where he is afraid to leave the house, let alone approach women. The “we” he refers to in the last line could be interpreted two ways: it may signify himself and other socially inept people or perhaps he means his two different selves. One of his personalities is the lonely, balding, and middle-aged man that he sees in the mirror. The other, is the suave desirable man he wishes to be, but cannot force himself to become. The “and we drown” ending continues the ocean metaphor; he doesn’t just die, he drowns. This abrupt return to reality results in death, perhaps not death in a literal sense, but death of some kind. The part of him that tried to imagine his entrance into society ultimately died as a result of his inability to block out the human voices. Earlier in the poem, he came to the realization that even if he did dare to attempt a conversation, he would fail because he does not have the slightest idea of how to connect and communicate with people. All he is left with now is the unfulfilled side of him that yearns to enter society but has no hope whatsoever of accomplishing this feat.

Sonnet 73

“In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.”

Translation:

In me, you can see a fire’s glowing remains lying upon the ashes produced by the flame of my youth. The embers lie as though on a deathbed, where they are extinguished by the ashes of that which once fed the flames.

In this section, the speaker compares himself to the glowing embers of a fire. He portrays a powerful image of a fire’s smoldering remains being extinguished by its own ashes. When read correctly, iambic pentameter causes the reader to emphasize key words, making it easier to understand the main point. It also enhances the poem’s beauty by arranging words in such a way that it lends a rhythmic flow to the writing. Also, the wording of poems tend to leave them open to interpretation whereas a paragraph is usually more straightforward.

In this poem, the speaker describes old age using a series of metaphors. In the first quatrain, he speaks of boughs shaking in the wind and the absence of birdsong in order to describe the loneliness associated with old age. Next, he uses light fading into darkness to portray the slow progression from youth to old age. In the third quatrain, he uses the fire metaphor to emphasis the finality of death; once a fire is extinguished by its own ashes, there is nothing left to relight. This section also reemphasizes that he is nearing his own death. In the very end of the poem, he tells someone important to him that through the understanding of these truths, his love for the speaker will grow.

In the critical thinking and writing questions at the end of the poem, it asks what would happen if the three quatrains were in a different order. The order in which the speaker addresses them is significant to understanding the entire poem because it shows a natural progression from the loneliness of old age, to the gradual fading of vitality, to an inevitable death. I personally would not have understood the meaning behind the metaphors if it had not been for the order of this poem. This just goes to show that poetry is highly structured even if at times it appears simple.