strenuous:Ā Requiring or using great exertion
Synonyms:Ā strong – hard – vigorous – active – energetic – toilsome
Found in “The Metamorphosis,” paragraph 4, line 1, page 2. “oh, god”, he thought,” whats a strenuous career it is that I’veĀ chosen! traveling day in and day out.
(adjective) having no stain, spotlessly clean
“Metamorphosis”. And despite the condition, he was not too shy to move forward a little onto the immaculate floor of the living room.”
Jalousie; noun; a blind with adjustable horizontal slats for admitting light and air while excluding direct sun and rain.
From “A Rose for Emily”, William Faulkner- “And as soon as the old people said, “Poor Emily,” the whispering began. “Do you suppose it’s really so?” they said to one another. “Of course it is. What else could..” This behind their hands; rustling of craned silk and satin behind jalousies closed upon the sun of Sunday afternoon as the thin, swift clop-clop-clop of the matched team passed: “Poor Emily.”
After searching this word, whatĀ I came to understand is that it is used to imply that the people of the town talked behind Emily’s back. They said “poor emily” behind closed blinds, not to talk about her in public.
Atrocious: Adjective:Ā extremely wicked, brutal, or cruel;:Ā appallingĀ , horrifying.
From “The Yellow Wallpaper”, ” I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as i please, save lack of strength.”(Page 2, paragraph 8)
Now i understand that the narrator believed that the nursery was a scary place Ā to be in.
Haughty: adjective:Ā having or showing the insulting attitude of people who think that they are better, smarter, or more important than other people
From the story ” A Rose for Emily”, ” ‘I want some poison’. she said to the druggist. She was over thirty then, still a slight woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eyesockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper’s face ought to look.”
Now I understand that when Emily asked for the poison, she had a very dominating look in her eyes so that she won’t be questioned about buying the poison.
Impervious; adjective; incapable of being influenced, persuaded, or affected.
From ” A Rose for Emily” pg 5, “Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows– she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house– like the carven torso of an idol in a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which. Thus she passed from generation to generation– dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.
After searching the word, I now understand that as the years passed, Miss Emily grew unaffected from any news or events that occurred in her life. She was in a sense, unsensible to any feelings or thoughts.
absurd; adjective –Ā Ā 1) ridiculously unreasonable, unsound, or incongruous; 2) having no rational or orderly relationship to human life : meaningless
From the story “Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka. “Then there was a ring at the door of the apartment. āThatās someone from the office,ā he told himself, and he almost froze, while his small limbs only danced around all the faster. For one moment everything remained still. āThey arenāt opening,ā Gregor said to himself, caught up in some absurd hope. But of course then, as usual, the servant girl with her firm tread went to the door and opened it.” (Section I – paragraph 15)
Now I understand that Gregor wish the servant not going to open the door for this guest, but he knows this is a radicious hope because it’s not going to happen, and as the result the servent did open the door.
Glower: verb: to look or stare with sullen annoyance or anger
From: “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka: “Gregor!” shouted his sister, glowering at him and shaking her fist. That was the first word she had spoken to him directly since his transformation.”
Now I understand that Gregor’s sister was enraged and gave him a stare out of anger.
Divulge: transitive verb : to make public; to make known( as a confidence or secret ).
From ” A Rose For Emily” by William Faulkner, ” He would never divulge what happened during that interview but he refused to go back again”.(Page 4, paragraph 13).
Now i understand that the talk between the Ā Baptist minister and Miss Emily Grierson he doesn’t want speak about with anyone else. He’s being respectful and keeping it confidential.
monument; noun; a written legal document or record; a burial vault
In “A Rose for Emily”, when Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the woman mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house…
Now I understand that when Miss Emily died, the monument itself represents Emily and people are being respectful.
Temerity: (noun):Ā the quality of being confident and unafraid of danger or punishment especially in a way that seems rude or foolish
From the story “A Rose for Emily”; “A few of the ladies had the temerity to call, but were not received, and the only sign of life about the palace was the Negro man-a young man then–going in and out with a market basket.”
Now the sentence is clear to me that after Emily’s father death she also departed from her love due to which she kept herself in isolation. So only few ladies attempted to call her inorderĀ to show sympathy, or give the company, but Emily didn’t responded them.
coquettish: adj – a woman who endeavors without sincere affection to gain the attention and admiration of men [ coquette: noun ]
FromĀ “A RoseĀ for Emily” by William Faulkner. “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.” (Section I – paragraph 2)
Now I understand that Miss Emily’s house is very individual, unique which marked by majestic dignity.
Inexorably:adv: not to be persuaded, moved, or stopped.
From: “Women and Economics”: “Under all the influence of his later and wider life, all the reactive effect of social institutions, the individual is still inexorably modified by his means of livelihood: “the hand of the dyer is subdued to what he works in.” (paragraph 5)
I understand that even after all the reactive effect of social institutions the individual is not persuaded by his means of securing the necessities of life.
At the end of theĀ paragraph, it really looks scary, “what was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust”.
Miss Emily was aggressive in nature andĀ possessiveĀ too. She want him by her side forever. she fulfilled her wishes and stayedĀ stickĀ to her principle. She seems worst than an animal. when we see kittens dieĀ in-frontĀ of their mother, they abandon the kitten after become maudlin for few days.
“See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson.” (para 12) Miss Emily think that she is still in the days of Mayor Colonel Sartoris. It shows either she is mentallyĀ retardedĀ or still in Ā eccentric state.
She wanted no one to interfere so she didn’t allow the mailing box to be attache at the door. And her behavior was alienating that all the town gave up on her. The town could not bear the smell and Judge Stevens could not accuse Miss Emily for smelling bad. Who would have thought that someone was poisoned inside her house.
In this story, it is third-person limited narrator.Ā Ā Miss Emily is a flat character, it reached the climax when town members sprinkled lime in the building. it has visual imagery and olfactory imagery.
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