Description
Choose one of the poems by Hughes and write a thesis-driven close reading of the poem. write no longer than 3 pages. use only the resource provideduse simple words and vocabulary
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Response Paper Expectations
As this is not a composition class, I will not be focusing extensively on writing instruction, unless I determine
it is necessary. However, as you prepare to write your first paper, keep these rules in mind:
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Papers should begin with an introduction that start with the bigger cultural issues and move into
introducing the text and finally a thesis.
Thesis statements should be three-part (see additional handout)
Paragraphs should have thesis-driven, analytic topic sentences
Each body paragraph should include at least one quotation from the text.
Quotes should be integrated into your own writing—no dropped quotes
Citation must be correct (parenthetical in-text citations, no works cited for short papers)
Always analyze quotes after you provide them.
End paragraphs by moving out to big ideas.
Write a brief conclusion paragraph
In terms of style, you should follow these rules:
• Do not use contractions
• Do not use clichés or metaphorical language
• Do not write in the first person (I, we)
• Avoid the passive voice (The story is written by Jones)
• Write in the present tense (The character goes to the market)
• Refer to authors by their full names once and then by their last names.
“A Rose for Emily” and the Decline of the Southern Aristocracy
At the turn of the nineteenth century, after the end of the horrors of slavery in United States,
traditions and lifestyles were changing at a phenomenal pace in the American South. No longer
financed by the labor of slaves sweating in the fields, southern aristocrats, once safe in their
plantation homes, were beginning to experience financial hardship, forcing them to allow ordinary
citizens into their prominent families for sources of income. The decline in elite southern culture,
coupled with the rise of modern attitudes of equality, would bring about the end of the iconic
southern belle, a southern lady protected from labor by traditional ideas of chivalry and purity.
Intrigued by these changing cultural patterns in the South, author William Faulkner wrote “A Rose
for Emily”; the story’s focus, Miss Emily Grierson, is emblematic of the southern belle ideal.
Faulkner uses Miss Emily’s status in society as a southern belle to show the changing attitudes of
the townspeople toward the elite and further explore the decline of the southern aristocratic lifestyle
with the rise of modern society in the early 1900s.
Faulkner uses the setting of the story to show the changing cultural patterns in the South
with the merging of modern technology and traditional plantation lifestyles. The narrator describes
Miss Emily’s house as “lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the
gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores”; it remains as the only plantation home still occupied
by the southern aristocracy after “garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the
august names of that neighborhood” (Faulkner 1). To Faulkner, the influence of modern technology
is slowly eliminating the lifestyle of the old South; Miss Emily’s home, with its visible decay, is
emblematic of the decay of the traditions of the past. With the end of slavery, many plantation
owners were unable to adapt to the new conditions in the South, leaving them without incomes to
maintain their estates. This trend, coupled with the rise of industry and ordinary citizens, would
bring changes to neighborhoods like Miss Emily’s throughout the South, as modern worldviews of
the newly rich, who embrace new technologies such as automobiles, relegate the august lifestyles of
the fading aristocracy to obscurity.
Furthermore, Faulkner uses Miss Emily’s precarious tax situation to explore the decline in
tradition and informal arrangements with the rise of modern, law-based society. Throughout her
life, Miss Emily, as a southern belle, receives special privileges due to her status in society; in 1894,
“Colonel Sartosis, the mayor…remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her
father on into perpetuity” (Faulkner 1). Due to her status, the community views Miss Emily as
above demeaning labor; therefore, with the death of her father, and loss of income, Colonel Sartosis
remits her taxes in an informal arrangement, backed by the town’s commitment to the traditions of
the South. However, the narrator notes “when the next generation, with its more modern ideas,
became mayors and aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction” (Faulkner 1).
With the rise of modern society, no longer do citizens feel an obligation to blind obedience of the
traditions of the past. Instead, formal arrangements and obedience to law take precedent; when
authorities confront Miss Emily over her refusal to pay taxes, they note “there is nothing on the
books to show [her tax remittance]” (Faulkner 2). In response, Miss Emily commands the men to
“see Colonel Sartoris” so they can satisfy their inquiry. However, Colonel Sartoris “had been dead
almost ten years,” his death emblematic of the death of the traditions and informality of the old
South (Faulkner 2). With the rise of modern society and the focus on formal legal systems, Miss
Emily and other aristocrats can no longer rely on customs and traditions to maintain their social
positions; they are equals under the law.
However, Miss Emily’s relationship with Homer Barron, a Yankee construction foreman, is
indicative of the changing attitudes of the elite towards ordinary citizens and a reluctant acceptance
of modern ideas. Miss Emily’s interest in Homer Barron comes as a shock to the community; at
first, the ladies of town remark “of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a
day laborer” (Faulkner 5). Yet, as time passes and the two continue to enjoy each other’s company,
the elders of the community begin to lament “poor Emily, do you suppose it’s really so?” (Faulkner
5-6). Miss Emily is not acting in accordance to noblesse oblige; those in high position in society
must behave in a manner in keeping with their status in society. As the last Grierson, Miss Emily,
“left alone, and a pauper,” seems to realize her days of prominence are slowly coming to end
(Faulkner 4). Her fall from the heights of southern society is emblematic of the changing culture of
the South. Throughout the South, the old times of plantations and upper class lifestyles were
coming to an end as southern aristocrats began to marry commoners to stay afloat financially with
the end of slavery, creating a precarious state of affairs within the ranks of the elite who were no
longer held together by a common bloodline. This mixing of elite and common would bring about
the decline of southern aristocracy in favor of more modern attitudes of equality as claims to
privilege based on ancestral history lost their merit.
As Faulkner shows, at the turn of the century, the end of aristocratic southern culture was
fast approaching. The influence of northerners, such as Homer Barron, along with a decline in the
traditions of southern plantation lifestyles, were bringing changes to old South; modern legal
frameworks were replacing informal agreements and shared cultural patterns. For Miss Emily and
other southern belles, changing cultural patterns mark the end of southern chivalry and belief
systems which protect them from labor; however, progressive attitudes stressing equality would
create new opportunities and outlets for their talents. This mixing of modern and traditional would
shape the modern South, where today pride in the heritage of the old South coexists with
progressive attitudes of gender and racial equality.
I, Too – Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed-I, too, am America.
Let America Be America Again – Langston Hughes
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home-For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay-Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again-The land that never has been yet-And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME-Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath-America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain-All, all the stretch of these great green states-And make America again!
Cross – Langston Hughes
My old man’s a white old man
And my old mother’s black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,
I’m sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well
My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder where I’m going to die,
Being neither white nor black?
THEME FOR ENGLISH B -Langston Hughes
The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you–Then, it will be true.
I wonder if it’s that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:
It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York too.) Me—who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me NOT like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white–yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me–although you’re older—and white–and somewhat more free.
This is my page for English B.
1951
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