1. Reread the first sentence of the story. Who can we assume is the narrator of the story? What clue in the text indicates that?
2. The story begins with Miss Emily’s death. Again, look closely at the first sentence of the story for the different reasons the people attend her funeral. What sort of relationship is Faulkner establishing that Miss Emily had with the townspeople? 3. Who is Colonel Sartoris and what lie did he tell Miss Emily? 4. How is Miss Emily’s house described on both the outside and the inside? 5. Miss Emily doesn’t know that Colonel Sartoris has been dead for ten years. What does this indicate about her relationship with the present? PART 2: 6. What had the men come to talk to her about thirty years ago? 7. Why do the men wait until midnight to sprinkle lime to stop the smell instead of just discussing the matter with her? 8. Why didn’t her father allow her to date any men? 9. What is strange about the way Emily behaves after her father dies? 10. In the last lines of this section the townspeople tell us, “We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that.” What does this foreshadow?
Beloved concludes with a group of women from the local community converging on 124 to ward off the ghost that has been haunting it. ... By saying that Beloved was her “best thing,” Sethe devalues herself and suggests that her only worth comes through her role as a mother.
