Independent Memoir Assignment: Metacognitive

Tzivia Halperin
AP Lit
Mr. Gallagher
October 14, 2008

Metacognitive

When the option was given to go to the Mass Poetry Festival and write a review in place of two more suggested projects, I knew I would go this route. In a busy high school schedule, this was certainly more appealing and since also I enjoy poetry, this option was win-win for me. However, it was still required that we pass in a project on Friday and for that aspect I chose to do a book cover. The book cover coalesced writing and drawing and thus I opted to do that, especially since I already had an idea. The cover I chose to do had two images that are more than anything symbolic. In the right hand corner is a crown while on the left side is a skeleton. Much of Sedaris’ book discusses image and his perception of his own image. The crown represents Sedaris’ delusions about himself especially in terms of his high opinion, while the skeleton represents a stripping down of his airs. Like Sedaris’ own attempts to understand himself, the crown and the skeleton represent the two distinct polarities of his image- the delusions and the reality.

The greatest difficulty of this project actually lay in gaining the information for and then writing the Mass Poetry review. In taking notes during the readers, it detracted a great deal from my enjoyment and understanding of the actual poetry. Thus, I could write about the way the poets spoke, quote them a few times, but I failed to truly capture the meaning of their poetry. It was lost to me as I sat furiously scribbling notes. Further, the names of the local poets were only mentioned orally and not actually written down therefore hindering my reviewing process. If I missed the name, I lacked that detail- and if I didn’t miss the name, I surely could have misspelled them. The factual information, rather than the objective was what most hurt the review.

In terms of the book cover, I feared that it may have been too plain, as I created it on white paper. Personally, I liked the aesthetics of the piece but in seeing some of the other projects, mine certainly looks less colorful than others. After I had already drawn the cover, penned it, and colored it, I realized regrettably that perhaps I should have considered putting the crown on the skeleton. The covers wouldn’t necessarily convey the same message of transition, but it would show the dichotomy between his delusions and his true self-image. Of course, I didn’t consider this until after I had finished and by that point, it was moot.

The resulting book cover met all the guidelines and resembled a book cover in that I added a bar code and a mock review. The strength lay in the time I put into constructing it to resemble a real book cover. In terms of the review, the detail of my notes allowed me to become very specific in the actual review. I could quote, note some names, names of poems, in addition to a number of other prevalent details. The specificity of the review was what made it especially successful.

Independent Memoir Project: Mass Poetry Review

Tzivia Halperin
AP Lit
Mr. Gallagher
October 14, 2008

Mass Poetry Festival Review, Friday

The Massachusetts Poetry Festival began its three-day celebration in Lowell, MA, fittingly in the birthplace of local author Jack Kerouac, on October 10. The night began with local poets reading some of their favorite works by more renowned authors- which coincidentally was Robert Frost a great deal of the time. The night was plagued by a few minor mishaps including an initial microphone problem that thwarted the audience from properly hearing the first reader. The room was also much too hot, which was distracting at times. However, the former issue was quickly resolved, while the latter could be ignored and thus the night continued on uneventfully.

The local poets read with grace although they failed to garner much attention. Mark Shore, a local poet who read some selections of Robert Frost hoped his reading would express a new outlook on Frost’s works. He wanted to “read it in a way you’ve never read it before,” and there was much intensity behind his quivering voice. The following local poet, Patrick Shaunessey, however failed to captivate the audience as much as the prior poets. Although emphatic to be sure, his reading from a passage of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road did not deviate from the expected and thus the audience was left jaded. The poet left the stage in a hurry, although some could say not soon enough.

With his departure, the night continued with the readings of the featured poets and the air within the auditorium seemed to grow more excited with the anticipation. Rhina Espaillat was the first to read for the featured poets. She was both humorous and sprightly and thus her personality may have overshadowed her poetry. While her poetry featured vivid, personal accounts of her experiences as an immigrant in the United States, the poems never deviated from this topic. She noted multiple times that she wrote of the “immigrant experience” and thus very little was left to the imagination of the audience. However, her dual reading in both Spanish and English was extremely captivating and attested to the idea of cultural plurality.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of the night came with the performance of Regie Gibson. He had an expression of honesty and humor, without any hint of pretension. One of the poems he read included the amusing “How to Become an Ex-Jehovah’s Witness, Without Losing Your Mind.” All were captivating and irreverent, especially the satirical poem concerning the United States, written in the form of the Declaration of Independence. His tone and cadence, along with the plot of the poems were all appealing to the reader which garnered him a partial standing ovation by the conclusion of his set.

The final featured reader of the night was Nick Flynn, writer of the memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, along with multiple books of poetry including Some Ether and Blind Huber. The concluding act of any show is always expected to be the most engaging, however, Flynn did not meet these expectations. Especially following such a strong reading from Gibson, Flynn paled in comparison. He appeared nervous- monotone, and quiet, even losing his place from time to time. This in no way detracts from the poetry itself which had very strong messages masked within simplistic language. His powerful writing was not fully conveyed through his stage presence however.

The evening of poetry began slowly, but built momentum during the readings of the featured poets. Although not all poets were as engaging as others, the audience left Lowell High School in a flurry, excitedly whispering about the readings, feeling satisfied by the night.

Metacognitive: Faulkner Imitation

Tzivia Halperin
AP Lit
Mr. Gallagher
October 9, 2008

Metacognition for Emulating Faulkner’s Style

When first assigned the piece it became glaringly clear to me that I was going to write my paper emulating the style of Faulkner. My 10th grade English teacher and I once engaged in a very similar discussion about Faulkner vs. Hemingway, in which we established that I should strive to write a little less elaborately (Faulkner) and a little more simplistically (Hemingway). As a result, even before I determined whether or not I would write a myth, rewrite a short story in general, rewrite a short story of Hemingway, or merely create a conversation, I knew that I would use Faulkner’s style. In this case, I was going to use my verbose nature to my advantage. Having determined that, my difficulty lay in choosing to rewrite a short story or simply choosing a myth, eventually settling on a myth, desirous of fresh material to work with.

Faulkner’s style is so nuanced that I felt it most difficult to imitate. He employs very specific punctuation including semi-colons, colons, numerous commas in addition to italics, long sentence structure, high level diction, and periodic pacing. All the semantics of his style made it an especially arduous process to emulate. I grappled with the fact that his style doesn’t merely consist of long sentences but rather syntactically rich, extremely complex sentences. In an entirely different sense, I had great trouble with the setting of my story- ancient Greece. Since I had no prior background knowledge about the setting of ancient Crete, my descriptions of it, especially in the first draft, were sparse indeed.

The two members of my group independently came to the same conclusion about how to improve my paper, which helped my greatly in the second draft. While noting that I spent a great deal of time with the intricacies of his style, I failed to delve very deeply into the setting of the story. Faulkner writes lengthy paragraphs simply relaying the setting and the surroundings and it would aid my paper significantly to include more to catering to it. Their suggestions induced me to do research on Crete and Greece so I had a larger wealth of knowledge about the environment and natural setting. At that point, I added more details about the cliffs and the labyrinth. This accession of details especially of surroundings improved the piece significantly from the first to second draft.

The myth that I rewrote has a great deal of background knowledge. I could not simply write of Icarus without mentioning Daedalus and without also mentioning why the men were exiled to Crete. This created a weakness in the paper in which I breezed over the details concerning the exile: Daedalus’ murdering his nephew Talus, while I similarly glossed over details about their move into the labyrinth. I was gripped by the belief that such extraneous background information was not vital to my exploring Faulkner’s style and therefore I didn’t go into great depth in neither background nor setting. My lack of familiarity with the background and setting caused me to lob a lot of information at the reader very quickly and I am concerned if they fully understood it especially in terms of the initial exile.

In terms of strengths, I would note my imitation of Faulkner’s style. I spent a great deal of time reviewing the intricacies and attempting to present them in my own writing. This resulted in a myth that had syncretism with Faulkner’s writing in terms of pacing, diction, punctuation, sentence length, etc. The plot may have suffered at the expense of the style but nevertheless, the style was accomplished with the paper and that was the apex goal.

Icarus Myth: Style of Faulkner

Tzivia Halperin

AP Lit

Mr. Gallagher

October 5, 2008

Story of Icarus, as told in the style of Faulkner

Daedalus, long since exiled to Crete, sat stewing by the sea awaiting an opportunity to return to his native Athens and what more: each time a zephyr rippled over the water, disrupting the calm of his present thoughts, Daedalus’ old regrets again mounted. His nephew Talus was a young boy, obstinate certainly, but no more than any other young, fresh boy brimming with ideals, (He’s deceased! I’ve killed him; my envy was too great). Daedalus’ regret waned momentarily, distracted by the barren terrain of Crete, feeling alien in a foreign country. He peered out at the Aegean cliffs in the distance- ragged, and gray in the diminishing light. Rather than appearing welcoming, the cliffs ever threatening seemed to concentrate less sun on them than their surroundings- their darkness and formidable shape only recalled his Daedalus his present concerns.  His anxieties were compounded by the news he must deliver to his young son, Icarus, detailing their imminent move into the labyrinth- into captivity. Upon closer consideration, Daedalus concluded that he again was at fault, irking the king of the country- King Minos. Daedalus, seeing his son Icarus bounding near the lonesome hilltop he now sits, seized the opportunity to call upon his son but not before emitting a powerful wail.

“My son,” Daedalus lamented, “tonight we are to move from our modest but comfortable home by the river to forever be constricted to the labyrinth.”

“But is there not something we could do?”

Daedalus looked at his son blankly: his broad square shoulders, pronounced cheekbones, and a mass of curly brown hair; he seemed to gleam in the sun. He could no more imagine Icarus in captivity than the golden pheonix. Nevertheless, Icarus exemplified his inability to accept authority, what would soon prove to be his downfall.

They moved that evening. Their new home, the labyrinth, was an obscure jumble of twists and turns, each one dishearteningly leading nowhere but a wall- a dead-end, and the very air they breathed was viscid, leaving a rusty, metallic aftertaste in their mouths, that took the men weeks to acquaint themselves with. Their days in the labyrinth soon melted into weeks, into months, into years, yet neither man could discern the difference. Time was simply time, beating them down into the dankness of captivity. Daedalus, squinting out of darkened eyelids, noted a profound difference in his son; no longer expressing an innate joy of life, he seemed to sag. While Daedalus’ own blaze was stymied, it could not be extinguished, forever glowing with the naive hope of leaving the labyrinth and leaving Crete to return to Athens and it was then, looking at the mass that previously was his son, that Daedalus determined they escape immediately. Rousing his son from his light sleep, Icarus glowered at his father.

“Gather yourself, we are leaving tonight.”

“But how, father? You know as well as I it’s impossible.”

“Minos may thwart our escape through land and sea but not even he can prevent our leaving through the air.”

The two men sat silently, side by side, neither feeling inclined towards conversation, innately understanding the task at hand, and rather expelling their energy vigorously gathering feathers that had fallen through the open roof of the labyrinth, squinting in the inky darkness of their prison. The feathers were ordered with great stringency- beginning with the smallest and becoming increasingly long; the white of the feathers gleamed in the pulsating night. The feathers were fastened with wax and a sheer rope at the middle and bottom, so when bent, they resembled the real wings of birds. Icarus on his part, seemed to regain his pinkish glow, a sight so familiar to his father, that he could have wept aloud with joy but instead allowed his old heart to regain some of its childlike vitality, and the two worked with increased stamina. The two sets of wings were completed just as the sun began to peek through the dawn morning splashing interesting patterns of light on the dirt floor of the labyrinth and a light fog proliferated about the labyrinth that dissipated soon after. 

Prior to their intended flight, Daedalus, looking at Icarus adjusting the wings, pulled his son close to him: “I must caution you son not to fly too low as the water will weigh on your wings and you will drown, but so too do not fly very high where the sun’s strong beats will burn your wings. You must fly in the middle and closely follow my course.” Icarus, giving his father a familiar grin of both humor, confidence, and skepticism, noticed his father’s hands begin to tremble and eyes grow moist and kissed his father on the cheek for what would be the last time.

Daedalus was the first to take off, flapping his manmade wings, and gaining more and more altitude. It was refreshing among the clouds, which formed in heavy, cotton-like masses. He turned to note the trajectory of his son and, with a deep relief, realized he was following him closely and heeding his advice. After several minutes of uninterrupted flight, however, Icarus, with increased confidence, began to fly higher and higher, despite his father’s warning, emboldened by the gathering of people- an audience that had formed below to watch what they perceived to be gods taking flight. At such a close proximity to the sun’s sweltering rays, the wax, which bonded the feathers of the wings together, began to soften and eventually was ineffectual. Flapping his arms with great force, Icarus attempted to retain his height but, without the wings, failed to do so. He called out to his father: “Father! Father! My wings can no longer support me!” But it was too late, he already began to fall, gathering speed, splashing into the cobalt blue ocean that swallowed him whole. Daedalus looked about the empty expanse of sky for his son, his only son, and called: “Icarus, my son!” spotting the broken wings floating on the ocean far below. He cursed his son for his foolishness and himself for equally indulging him over the years. Daedalus buried his son and traveled onward to Sicily, with a deep, unshakeable melancholy in his breast.

Setting Paper: Ind Aff

Tzivia Halperin
September 24, 2008
AP Lit
Mr. Gallagher

Setting in Ind Aff

Ind Aff, a short story written by Fay Weldon, addresses the thoughts and eventual self-realization of a young woman in the midst of an affair with a married history professor, Peter. Set in Saravejo, Bosnia, the location of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination, the unnamed narrator eventually has an epiphany concerning her relationship with the professor. Using parallels to the Archduke’s murderer, young Princip, the narrator realizes the folly of pursuing anything with questionable motives, in her case, a relationship. Weldon especially develops this idea of coming to one’s senses through setting- atmosphere, locale, and historical contexts, as both the narrator and her historical counterpart struggle with self-realization (Weldon 207).

Atmosphere is developed early in the story creating a degree of gloominess that is prevalent throughout. Weldon writes, "This is a sad story. It has to be. It rained in Sarajevo, and we had expected fine weather," (Weldon 201). In the very first sentence, Weldon establishes the pattern of weather- rain, that is prevalent throughout the story and addresses the fact that rain is representative of meloncholy. Beyond the physical gloominess of her surroundings, including the "black clouds," the "shiver[ing]" and the fact that "it was too wet to do what [they] loved to do" the couple themselves experienced a an unhappy tension between them that mirrored the poor weather. Throughout the short reading, the narrator was constantly being relegated and disdained. She specifically noted the fact that the professor said that she "had a good mind but not a first-class mind" (Weldon 202). Nor was Peter "in a good mood" throughout the course of the story (Weldon 203). Weldon developed the atmosphere- gloomy, damp, cold initially in order to mirror the gloominess of the couple’s relationship. In another sense, Thomas C. Foster, author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor believes that rain symbolizes cleansing and rebirth. One could argue that such themes are prevalent within the short story as the narrator cleanses herself of an unhealthy relationship. In either sense, the rain helped to motivate the narrator’s epiphany to leave her lover.

The physical location of the story, however, has a greater role in developing the idea of coming to one’s senses. Set in Saravejo, Bosnia, this is revealed to be the location of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s murder, which has been considered in many spheres the catalyst of WWI. The reader is given a broad description of both the area and simultaneously Princip’s affect on it, thus the historical contexts of the area become central to the progression of the story. Weldon writes, "The rain filled up Sarajevo’s pride, two footprints set into a pavement which mark the spot where the young assassin Princip stood to shoot the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife," (Weldon 201). The physical locale of the story- Sarajevo, allows the narrator to begin a lengthy discussion about the assassin Princip, drawing parallels to herself. Both characters share the sin of "inordinate affection," and allowing it to cloud their judgement (Weldon 204). Simultaneously, both are described as "silly and sad," (Weldon 206). While the narrator had an epiphany concerning her relationship with the professor, realizing that it was folly to continue the relationship if it was simply motivated by competition with her sister, Clare, Princip had no such epiphany. Princip believed unto the moment he killed the Archduke, that his motivations were ethical and moral. "If he’d just hung on a bit, there in Sarajevo, that June day, he might have come to his senses. People do, sometimes quite quickly," Weldon writes of Princip (Weldon 207). Considered a hero in the area, the narrator discusses his motivations skeptically. She speaks of the WWI’s casualties caused in part by his assassination plot, "Forty million dead (or was it thirty?) but who cares? So long as he loved his country," (Weldon 202). The ironic means in which she discusses his motivations, insinuating that love of a country is not reason enough to cause such carnage, helps to shape the idea of coming to one’s senses. Through lengthy descriptions of Princip’s time spent in the café, the narrator suggests that perhaps he should have remained there and not taken advantage of another opportunity to assassinate the Archduke. Had he remained in the café, the outcome of WWI would have been quite different. The physical locale of the story, Sarajevo, allowed Weldon to draw parallels between her narrator and the assassin Princip as both made weighty decisions in that same Bosnian city. The narrator ultimately credits the setting, Sarajevo, with her epiphany as she concedes,"And that was how I fell out of love with my professor, in Sarajevo, a city to which I am grateful to this day…" (Weldon 206). The setting therefore represents a pivotal area in which self-realization is reached.

The setting of Ind Aff, a few rainy days in Sarajevo, presents a broken couple and the actions of an assassin, Princip, occurring in the same location hundreds of years prior. His rash decision to shoot the Archduke out of a misguided love for his country reflected a similar misguided love the narrator shared for the professor. His inability to recognize the folly of "inordinate affection," helped to shape the narrator’s own self-realization and her decision to leave the professor. Rainy Sarajevo therefore represents an area where the idea of "coming to one’s senses" is developed and cultured, given the parallels between the assassin and the narrator, as the narrator continues to compare herself to this "silly and sad" individual.

Characterization Paper: Everyday Use

Tzivia Halperin
AP Lit
Mr. Gallagher

Characterization in Everyday Use

Everyday Use, a short story written by Alice Walker, details the schism that forms between two sisters- Dee (Wangero) and Maggie Johnson. The former is emphasized as more consumeristic and self-seeking, the latter, introverted and submissive. Dee’s return to her childhood home, and her demand for family quilts, ultimately causes her mother to lash out and give the quilts to Maggie. The conflict over the quilt merely aids in Walker’s juxtaposition of the superficial and genuine means of expressing ones heritage by contrasting the two sisters’ personalities and motivations for the quilt, emphasizing that filial history should be actively appreciated not simply analyzed at a distance.

Walker creates the two siblings, Maggie and Dee Johnson, as flat characters, emphasizing one distinct characteristic about each. What she produces is two contrasting caricatures. Maggie Johnson is detailed as being quiet, demure, submissive, and introverted. These traits become especially pronounced following a fire that permanently disfigured her skin. "She will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs," her mother described (Walker 91). Her mother notes that Maggie is also "homely" especially in comparison to her sister, Dee. Unlike Dee, Maggie does not leave home following the fire but remains with her mother learning many of the Ms. Johnson’s skills- "man’s jobs," including milking the cows (Walker 92). Living at home allows Maggie to become more acquainted with the family history and therefore more cognizant of it. Items that Dee hopes to raid from the family home in order to display in her own, holds personal meaning of ancestry for Maggie. "‘Aunt Dee’s first husband whittled the dash, said Maggie so low you almost couldn’t hear her. ‘His name was Henry, but they called him Stash,’" in response to Dee’s husband’s query about its origins (Walker 95). Dee herself can no more answer the question than her husband, in spite of the fact that it involves her own family. From such a rich description of Maggie, one can discern her separation from her sibling Dee.

Dee is described as very much the antithesis of Maggie, while also a flat character. Unlike Maggie, Dee’s most prevalent attributes are her conceit, self-indulgence, yet also refinement. Dee is painted in an entirely different light than Maggie- much more negatively. Following the fire that eradicates the Johnson household, they "raised the money, the church and [Ms. Johnson], to send her Augusta to school" (Walker 92). Having left home, Dee’s path diverges greatly from the rest of the family; she covets both education and material objects. Even before leaving home and creating her comfortable existence, Dee develops an air of condescension to the rest of her family:
She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn’t necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand." (Walker 92)
From an early age, Dee’s selfish habits are indulged, thus her return home is marked by her characteristically raiding the home in search of items to display in her own home. In a superficial expression of "heritage," Dee changes her name to Wangero and ironically greeted her family in Swahili- "wa-su-zo-Tean-o," yet, had to sound it out syllabically (Walker 93). Her heritage becomes another expression of style and sophistication for Dee, emphasized by the fact that she does not even comprehend her own filial history. The quilt became the point of greatest conflict between an individual who appreciates her history and an individual who feigns appreciation. Dee ironically exclaims in her defense, "‘Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!…She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use’" (Walker 96).

The two flat characters of Maggie and Dee Johnson are used to build the two different perspectives one could have in relation to history and heritage. They are caricatures with only one main characteristic highlighted. Their mother however, experiences change throughout the course of the story and it is her role as a dynamic character that allowed Walker to demonstrate the folly of Dee’s expression of heritage. Ms. Johnson herself even concedes that Dee "has held life always in the palm of one hand, that ‘no’ is a word the world never learned to say to her," (Walker 91), even at the expense of her other daughter Maggie. Thus, when the issue of the quilts arose and Dee demands them of their mother, Maggie is resigned to give them up. "‘She can have them Mama,’ she said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her," (Walker 97). Even though Maggie is promised the quilts for use and thus nostalgia for Grandma Dee, while Dee wants them because they were "priceless," everyone including Maggie and Dee expected Ms. Johnson to agree to Dee’s demands (Walker 96). However, Ms. Johnson has an epiphany, realizing that it was Maggie who truly deserved the quilts over Dee- and she "snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero’s hands and dumped them into Maggie’s lap," (Walker 97). Ms. Johnson’s decision to no longer indulge Dee’s selfishness as she would have in the past, affirms the idea that heritage is something to be actively and genuinely involved in not simply observed at a distance.

POV Paper: A Rose for Emily

Tzivia Halperin
AP Lit
Mr. Gallagher
September 14, 2008

A Rose for Emily

A Rose for Emily is a short story constructed by William Faulkner that addresses the presence of isolation within a close-knit southern community. The protagonist, Miss Emily, is considered part of the aristocracy and therefore is constantly scrutinized, thus separating her from the other members of the community. Simultaneously, the old southern community is being usurped by newer, more contemporary ideas, which is viewed with great disdain. Faulkner notes the natural tendency to scrutinize and even reject differences through his use of point of view- participant of a minor character, creating a disparity between both social classes and social structure, ultimately noting the ruinous quality of isolating a minority for differences.

The narrator of A Rose for Emily participates in the story as a minor character. Through the use of the pronouns, “we” and “our,” the narrator succeeds in first establishing his inclusion in the community. The reader can understand the intimacy of the small southern community. First person plural (and first person generally) is employed as a means to provide ethos; in this case, the reader can trust the commentary of the narrator because he established that he was a part of the community. Even in the first sentence, the narrator conveys the closeness of the community as he states that “when Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral,” (Faulkner 26), creating a majority. The sense of community is used to juxtapose the sense of isolation that Miss Emily experiences at not being a part of this community.

The narrator expresses great disdain at the changes in the southern social structure that is established through a shift to third person. He describes “the next generation, with its more modern ideas…” (Faulker 26) and refers to the newer community members as “they,” thus isolating them from the rest of the community. He employs the pronoun “they” rather than “we” to suggest the degeneration from the traditional, old southern society to a more contemporary society. Rather than merely commenting on the changes in the structure of his society, the change in point of view helps the narrator to establish what he considers to be the perversion between old and new southern society and highlights his conservative and judgmental characteristics in terms of differences. The narrator goes to great lengths to establish, with a level of reverence, that Miss Emily is a part of the old aristocracy and therefore is not a constituent in the general community. With insight that only a participating character could offer, the narrator describes Miss Emily’s role within the town, that “alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care” and that upon her death, “the men [went to her funeral] through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house…” (Faulkner 26). He goes on to say that, “people had begun to feel really sorry for her. 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. None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such,” (Faulkner 28). Speaking with the credibility of the whole community, the narrator establishes that Miss Emily is isolated based on her class and therefore is under constant scrutiny from the rest of the community. The point of view of the narrator allows him to be subjective, infusing his judgmental commentary of Miss Emily, further establishing her isolation.

The isolation that Miss Emily experiences motivates her to murder her love- Homer Barron. She concludes that Barron will eventually leave her, like all her other human relationships, and believes the only way to prevent this is to poison him. Her isolation within the community compounded with the loss of her father produced this immense feeling of separation, ultimately leading to her degeneration. Considering the statement of murder, it is apparent that the narrator’s point of view highlights the folly of scrutinizing others for differences, through the examples of both class and structural differences.