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A Rose for Emily "A Rose for Emily" is a short story by American author William Faulkner first published

in the April 30, 1930 issue of Forum. This story takes place in Faulkner's fictional city, Jefferson, Mississippi, in the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha County. It was Faulkner's first short story published in a national magazine. Plot The story is told in nonlinear narrative and begins at the huge funeral for Miss Emily Grierson. Nobody has been to her house in ten years, except for her black servant. Her house is old, but was once the best house around. The town had a special relationship with Miss Emily ever since it decided to stop billing her for taxes in 1894. But, the "newer generation" wasn't happy with this arrangement, and so they paid a visit to Miss Emily and tried to get her to pay the debt. She refused to acknowledge that the old arrangement might not work any more, and flatly refused to pay. Thirty years before, the tax collecting townspeople had a strange encounter with Miss Emily about a bad smell at her place. This was about two years after her father died, and a short time after her lover disappeared from her life. The stench got stronger and complaints were made, but the authorities didn't want to confront Emily about the problem. So, they sprinkled lime around the house and the smell was eventually gone. Everybody felt sorry for Emily when her father died. He left her with the house, but no money. When he died, Emily refused to admit it for three whole days. The town didn't think she was "crazy then," but assumed that she did not want to let go of her dad. Next, the story doubles back and tells us that not too long after her father died Emily begins dating Homer Barron, who is in town on a sidewalk-building project. The town heavily disapproves of the affair and brings Emily's cousins to town to stop the relationship. One day, Emily is seen buying arsenic at the drugstore, and the town thinks that Homer is giving her "The Shaft," and that she plans to kill herself. When she buys a bunch of men's items, they think that she and Homer are going to get married. Homer leaves town, then the cousins leave town, and then Homer comes back. He is last seen entering Miss Emily's house. Emily herself rarely leaves the home after that, except for a period of half a dozen years when she gives painting lessons. Her hair turns gray, she gains weight, and she eventually dies in a downstairs bedroom that hasn't seen light in many years. The story cycles back to where it began, at her funeral. Tobe, Ms. Emily's servant, lets in the town women and then leaves by the backdoor forever. After the funeral, and after Emily is buried, the townspeople go upstairs to break into the room that they know has been closed for forty years. Inside, they find the corpse of Homer Barron, rotting in the bed. On the dust of the pillow next to Homer they find an indentation of a head, and there, in the indentation, a long, gray hair.

Character List Emily Grierson - An eccentric recluse, Emily is a mysterious figure who changes from a vibrant and hopeful young girl to a cloistered and secretive old woman. Devastated and alone after her fathers death, she is an object of pity for the townspeople. After a life of having potential suitors rejected by her father, she spends time after his death with a newcomer, Homer Barron, although the chances of his marrying her decrease as the years pass. Bloated and pallid in her later years, her hair turns steel gray. She ultimately poisons Homer and seals his corpse into an upstairs room. Homer Barron - A foreman from the North. Homer is a large man with a dark complexion, a booming voice, and light-colored eyes. A gruff and demanding boss, he wins many admirers in Jefferson because of his gregarious nature and good sense of humor. He develops an interest in Emily and takes her for Sunday drives in a yellow-wheeled buggy. Despite his attributes, the townspeople view him as a poor, if not scandalous, choice for a mate. He disappears in Emily's house and decomposes in an attic bedroom after she poisons him. She sleeps with the corpse of Homer. Judge Stevens - A mayor of Jefferson. Eighty years old, Judge Stevens attempts to delicately handle the complaints about the smell emanating from the Grierson property. To be respectful of Emilys pride and former position in the community, he and the aldermen decide to sprinkle lime on the property in the middle of the night. Mr. Grierson - Emily's father. Mr. Grierson is a controlling, looming presence even in death, and the community clearly sees his lasting influence over Emily. He deliberately thwarts Emily's attempts to find a husband in order to keep her under his control. We get glimpses of him in the story: in the crayon portrait kept on the gilt-edged easel in the parlor, and silhouetted in the doorway, horsewhip in hand, having chased off another of his daughter's suitors. Tobe - An African American. Emily's servant. Tobe, his voice supposedly rusty from lack of use, is the only lifeline Emily has to the outside world and he cares for her and tends to her needs. After her death, he walks out the back door and never returns. Colonel Sartoris - A former mayor of Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris absolve Emily of any tax burden after the death of her father, which later causes consternation to succeeding generations of town leaders. Narrator - The first-person narrative voice of the story is one of the new generation of citizen's in Jefferson who is involved with dealing with Emily. He begins his story after attending Emily's funeral. Themes Resistance to change - Perhaps the most recurrent theme in the story. Despite the family's fallen fortunes, Emily's father resists allowing any suitors to propose to Emily. This gradually erodes

her chances of ever being married. She eventually settles for Homer, but the townspeople see this as an affront to her noble heritage, and she eventually murders Homer and dies a recluse. Emily's inability to realize her father's death and refusal to adapt to a changing world intensify her seclusion. Billy Budd is a novella begun in November 1888 by American author Herman Melville, left unfinished at his death in 1891 and not published until 1924. The work has been central to Melville scholarship since it was discovered in manuscript form among Melville's papers in 1919 by Raymond Weaver, his first biographer.[1] It has an ignominious editorial history, as poor transcription and misinterpretation of Melville's notes on the manuscript marred the first published editions of the text. For example, early versions gave the book's title as Billy Budd, Foretopman, while it now seems clear Melville intended Billy Budd, Sailor: (An Inside Narrative); some versions wrongly included a chapter that Melville had excised as a preface (the correct text has no preface); some versions do not change the name of the ship to Bellipotent (from the Latin bellum war and potens powerful), from Indomitable, as Melville called her in an earlier draft. It is unclear of his full intentions in changing the name of the ship since he only included the name Bellipotent six times. The plot follows Billy Budd, a seaman impressed into service aboard HMS Bellipotent in the year 1797, when the Royal Navy was reeling from two major mutinies and was threatened by the Revolutionary French Republic's military ambitions. He is impressed from another ship, The Rights of Man (named after the very topical book by Thomas Paine of that period, leading Budd to shout as it leaves "good-by to you too, old Rights-of-Man" clearly intended to have a double meaning, and considered so by the crew who hear it). Billy, an orphaned illegitimate child suffused with innocence, openness and natural charisma, is adored by the crew, but for unexplained reasons arouses the antagonism of the ship's Master-atarms, John Claggart, who falsely accuses Billy of conspiracy to mutiny. When Claggart brings his charges to the Captain, the Hon. Edward Fairfax "Starry" Vere, Vere summons both Claggart and Billy to his cabin for a private confrontation. When, in Billy's and Vere's presence, Claggart makes his false charges, Billy is unable to find the words to respond owing to a speech impediment. Unable to express himself verbally, he strikes and accidentally kills Claggart.

The last known image of the author, taken in 1885. Vere, an eminently thoughtful man whose name recalls the Latin words "veritas" (truth) and "vir" (man) as well as the English word "veer," then convenes a drumhead court-martial. He acts as convening authority, prosecutor, defense counsel and sole witness (except for Billy himself). He then intervenes in the deliberations of the court-martial panel to argue them into convicting Billy, despite their and his belief in Billy's innocence before God. (As Vere says in the moments following Claggart's death, "Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!") Vere claims to be following the letter of the Mutiny Act and the Articles of War.

Having started the process, Vere and the other officers find that their own opinion matters little. "We are not talking about justice, we are talking about the law", that is, the law dictates what must ensue, whether or not it is just. The law states that an enlisted man killing an officer during wartime (accidentally or not) must hang. Vere spells out the awful truth and explains their inability to mete out leniency. At his insistence, the court-martial convicts Billy; Vere argues that any appearance of weakness in the officers and failure to enforce discipline could stir the already turbulent waters of mutiny throughout the British fleet. Condemned to be hanged from the ship's yardarm at dawn the morning after the killing, Billy's final words are, "God bless Captain Vere!", which is then repeated by the gathered crew in a "resonant and sympathetic echo." The story may have been based on events onboard USS Somers, an American naval vessel; one of the defendants in the later investigation was a first cousin of Melville, Lt. Guert Gansevoort. The novel closes with three chapters that cloak the story with further ambiguity:

Chapter 28 describes the death of Captain Vere. In a naval action with a French vessel named the Athe (the Atheist), Captain Vere is mortally wounded and carried below. His last words are "Billy Budd, Billy Budd." Chapter 29 presents an extract from an official naval gazette purporting to give the facts of the fates of John Claggart and Billy Budd aboard HMS Bellipotent but the "facts" offered turn the facts that the reader learned from the story upside down. In the gazette article, William Budd is a seaman but a conspiring mutineer probably of foreign birth and mysterious antecedents who, when confronted by the honest John Claggart, the master-atarms loyally enforcing the law on board one of His Majesty's ships, stabs Claggart to the heart, killing him. The gazette concludes that the manner of the crime, and the weapon used, both point to Budd's foreign birth and subversive character; it then reports that the mutineer has paid the price of his crime and nothing more is amiss aboard HMS Bellipotent. Chapter 30 reprints a cheaply printed ballad written by one of Billy's shipmates as a kind of elegy for the Handsome Sailor. And yet the adult, experienced man depicted by the poem is not at all the young innocent whom the reader has met in the preceding chapters.

"The Luck of Roaring Camp" is a short story by American author Bret Harte. It was first published in the August 1868 issue of the Overland Monthly and helped push Harte to international prominence.[1] The story is about the birth of a baby boy in a 19th century gold prospecting camp. The boy's mother, Cherokee Sal, dies in childbirth, so the men of Roaring Camp must raise it themselves. Believing the child to be a good luck charm, the miners christen the boy Thomas Luck. Afterwards, they decide to refine their behavior and refrain from gambling and fighting. At the end of the story, however, Luck and a villager, Kentuck, perish in a flash flood that strikes the camp. The flood theme may have come from the Great Flood of California, witnessed by Harte in 1862, which resulted from weeks of torrential rains throughout the entire state, combined with warming temperatures in mid January that melted the snowpack. In addition to the melt-waters,

according to the Sacramento Union newspapers of the day, six to ten feet of rain fell in some mining areas near Grass Valley. Plot summary Bret Hartes The Luck of Roaring Camp is a short story of a small struggling mining town located in the foothills of the California mountains at the time of the gold rush. The camp is suffering from a long string of bad luck. With only one woman in their midst, it seems as though the miners have no future. However, the tide turns when a small boy is born. Thomas Luck is the first newborn the camp has seen in ages; things are looking up. The miners become cheerful, foliage begins to grow, there's talk of building a hotel to attract outsiders. Unfortunately, the hope is wiped out by the sudden death of Luck in a flood. Water brought gold to the gulches, giving miners their first glimmer of hope. And water takes away what seems their last glimmer-Luck. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a short story by American author Ambrose Bierce. Originally published by the The San Francisco Examiner in 1890, it was first collected in Bierce's 1891 book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians. The story, which is set during the Civil War, is famous for its irregular time sequence and twist ending. It is Bierce's most anthologized story.
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Plot summary Set during the American Civil War, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is the story of Peyton Farquhar, a Confederate sympathizer condemned to death by hanging from Owl Creek Bridge. At the beginning of the story, the protagonist stands bound at the bridge's edge. It is later revealed that after a disguised Union scout enlisted him to attempt to demolish the bridge, he was caught in the act. In the first part of the story, a gentlemanly planter in his mid-30s is standing on a railroad bridge in Alabama. Six military men and a company of infantry men are present. The man is to be hanged. As he is waiting, he thinks of his wife and children. Then he is distracted by a tremendous noise. He can not identify this noise, other than that it sounds like the clanging of a blacksmith's hammer on the anvil. He cannot tell if it was far away or nearby. He finds himself apprehensively awaiting each strike, which seem to grow further and further apart. It is revealed that this noise is the ticking of his watch. Then, an escape plan flashes through his mind: "throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, take to the woods and get away home." His thoughts stray back to his wife and children. The soldiers drop him down. The story flashes back in time: Peyton Farquhar lives in the South and is a major Confederate supporter. He goes out of his way to perform services to support and help the Confederate side. One day, a gray-clad soldier appears at his house and tells Farquhar that Union soldiers in the area have been repairing the railroads, including the one over Owl Creek Bridge. Interested, Farquhar asks if it is possible to sabotage the bridge, to which the soldier replies that he could

burn it down. When the soldier leaves, it is revealed that he is a Union scout who has lured Farquhar into a trap, as anyone caught interfering with the railroads would face the noose. When he is hanged, the rope breaks. Farquhar falls into the water. While underwater, he seems to take little interest in the fact that his hands, which now have a life of their own, are freeing themselves and untying the rope from around his neck. Once he finally reaches the surface, he realizes his senses are superhuman. He can see the individual blades of grass and the colors of bugs on the leaves of trees, despite the fact that he is whirling around in a river. Realizing that the men are shooting at him, he escapes and makes it to dry land. He travels through an uninhabited and seemingly-unending forest, attempting to reach his home 30 miles away. During his journey through the day and night, he is fatigued, footsore, and famished, urged on by the thought of his wife and children. He begins experiencing strange physiological events, hearing unusual noises from the wood, and believes he has fallen asleep while walking. He wakes to see his perfectly preserved home, with his beautiful and youthful wife outside. As he runs forward to reach her, he suddenly feels a searing pain in his neck; a white light flashes, and everything goes black. It is revealed that Farquhar never escaped at all; he imagined the entire third part of the story during the time between falling through the bridge and the noose finally breaking his neck. The Magic Barrel is a collection of thirteen short stories written by Bernard Malamud and published in 1958 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. It won the 1959 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.[1] The stories included are :

"The First Seven Years" "The Mourners" "The Girl of My Dreams" "Angel Levine" "Behold the Key" "Take Pity" "The Prison" "The Lady of the Lake" "A Summer's Reading" "The Bill" "The Last Mohican" "The Loan"

"The Magic Barrel"

"The Magic Barrel" starts as the about-to-be rabbi Leo Finkle has been urged by his teachers to find a wife before he actually becomes a rabbi; he gets a bigger congregation that way, they say. Because he is quite incapable (he recognizes this later on in the story and presumes his study stole his social life) and has almost finished his study (and thus has to hurry), he answers an ad of a marriage counselor. Unhappy and terribly sorry about a meeting with one of the proposed women, he retreats back again to his study. The marriage counselor suddenly turns up delivering him photographs of women, which he initially ignores. However, something draws him to them and after viewing several of them he discovers another one in the envelope. He instantly falls in love with that picture and yearns to meet her. After he's found the marriage counselor (who left him immediately after delivering the photographs) the girl turns out to be the counselor's daughter (though at first the counselor states it's one of the photographs that should have been in the barrel; hence Finkle thinks of the barrel as magic). He gets to meet her anyway; the marriage counselor (her father) hiding around the corner, "chanting prayers for the dead."[2] The short story Angel Levine was made into a 1970 film starring Harry Belafonte and Zero Mostel and directed by Jn Kadr. "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" (1869) is a short story written by renowned author of the American West, Bret Harte. This story is a good example of regionalism and local color during the Gilded Generation. His combination of realism and sentimentality offers readers real and known characters, yet without the dullness that might sometimes accompany them. Charles A. Fleming, a critic, had this to say about Harte's work: "As a writer, Harte was a talented humorist who could take fairly routine story formulas and give them new vigor and settings. His background as a journalist gave him a brisk style and a special skill for describing people, their mannerisms, and dialogue."[1] Harte, although he was born in Albany, New York, wrote passionately and in detail about the American West. While he was a contemporary of Mark Twain, he was often overlooked because of this. His short story, "The Outcasts of Poker Flats" was first published in January 1869 in the magazine Overland Monthly, and was one of two short stories which brought him national attention. Plot summary The story takes place in a Californian community known as Poker Flat, near the town of La Porte. The year is 1850 and Poker Flat is in a downward spiral. The town has lost thousands of dollars and the virtues of the area seem to be going as well. In an effort to save what is left of the town and reestablish it as a virtuous place to be, a secret committee is created and it is decided whom ought to be exiled and whom ought to be killed altogether. On November 23, 1850 our story begins as four "immoral" characters are exiled from Poker Flat. The reader begins the tale following the first of these "immoral" people, a professional gambler by the name of John Oakhurst. (It is a likely assertion that he is among those sent away because of his great success in winning much money from those on the secret committee themselves.) On his way out of town he is joined with "The Duchess" (a saloon girl), "Mother Shipton" (a brothel owner), and Uncle

Billy, (the town drunkard and suspected robber). They set out for a less-respectable camp a hard day's journey away over a mountain range, but despite Oakhurst's protests, the rest of the party decides to stop for a rest at noon, only halfway to their goal. While stopped on their rest, the group is met with a pair of runaway lovers on their way to Poker Flat to get married. Piney Woods is a fifteen-year-old girl and her lover, Tom Simson (also known as "The Innocent"), is a younger man who has met Oakhurst before. Tom has great admiration for Oakhurst because on the occasion which they met before, Oakhurst had won a load of money from Tom. Being a gentleman however, Oakhurst returned the money and pressed upon Tom that he should never play poker again, as he really was a quite terrible player. Tom then is thrilled about coming upon Oakhurst on this day, and decides that he and Piney will stop and stay with the group of travelers for a time. They are unaware however that the group has been exiled and being 'innocent' and 'pure' as they are, think The Duchess is an actual duchess and the such. After the decision is made to stay the night together, Tom leads the group to a halfbutty cabin he discovered and they spend the night there. In the midst of the night, Oakhurst awakens to find a heavy snow storm raging, and looks about, being the only one up. He soon discovers however that somebody had been up before him--Uncle Billy had awaken, stolen their mules and horses, and ditched the party. The group is now forced to wait out the storm with few provisions that would only last them another ten days at best. After a week in the cabin, Mother Shipton dies, having secretly and altruistically starved herself so that she might save her share of the food for Piney. Oakhurst then advises Simson that he will have to go for help and fashions some snowshoes for the man. The gambler tells the others he will accompany the lad part of the way. The "law of Poker Flat" finally arrives at the cabin, only to find the Dutchess and Piney dead, embracing in a peaceful repose. They both seemed so peaceful and innocent that one could not tell which was the virgin and which the lady of the evening. This is an important part of the story, and reminds us that death is really the great equalizer. We next learn that Oakhurst is found dead beneath a tree, with a Derringer pistol lying at his side and a bullet in his heart, having committed suicide. There is a 2 of clubs above his head with a note that reads: BENEATH THIS TREE LIES THE BODY OF JOHN OAKHURST, WHO STRUCK A STREAK OF BAD LUCK ON THE 23rd OF NOVEMBER, 1850, AND HANDED IN HIS CHECKS ON THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1850. It is significant to note that the text reads that what was written on the tree was "written in pencil, in a firm hand". The fact that Oakhurst wrote in a "firm hand" means that he did not kill himself because he was weak, or tired, or hungry. There was something symbolic and morally meaningful in his death, and we must then investigate the question of what that was. Tom Simson's fate is not stated and he is never in fact mentioned after leaving the cabin, but he is presumably the one who tells the "law of Poker Flat" where to find the cabin where Piney and the Dutchess were stranded.

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