A Rose for the Short Story
From the ‘Genre Study’ prompt: In his famous review of Hawthorne’s Twice-told Tales, Edgar Allan Poe classifies the short story based on its “unity of effect and impression.” Building on this idea, literary critic Brander Matthews (1901) adds that this “essential unity of impression” “shows one action, in one place, on one day. A Short-story deals with a single character, a single event, a single emotion, or the series of emotions called forth by a single situation.” While “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner doesn’t show “one action, in one place, on one day,” it does fit into Edgar Allan Poe and Brander Matthews’s idea of “unity of effect and impression,” which is increased by its dealing with both the town and Emily. “A Rose for Emily” jumps around across a long period of time, from when Miss Emily was young to her death of old age. “A Rose for Emily” also doesn’t deal with “a single emotion” or “the series of emotions called forth by a single situation.” And though the stor...