Dead Stars by Paz Marquez-Benitez Alfredo Salazar was betrothed to Esperanza, his

girlfriend for four years. The start of their relationship was relatively warm, with Alfredo
wooing Esperanza like a man in dire lovesickness. But as the years went by, the warm
loves fire slowly flickered. And it was because of Julia Salas. She was charming and
gleeful. He shared moments of light but sometimes deep conversations with her when
the lawyer Alfredo visited Julias brother-in-law, who was a judge. He always went there
with his father and since it was his father who needed to talk to the judge, he was
always left to Julias company. He never told her he was engaged. At first he didnt
notice that a change in his heart was taking form. But then he started keeping details of
his activities to his fiance and then the guilty feeling crept in. when he found out that
Julia was about to head back to her distant hometown, he felt blue and frightened. He
met her in church after the Holy Thursday procession, although he knew that Esperanza
was already waiting for him. He approached her and she conversed with him with an
expression that told him she finally knew. She congratulated him and said she will be at
his wedding. Then they parted. When he visited Esperanza in her house, he overheard
her talking to another woman about infidelity and immorality, to which he reasoned in
favor of the condemned. The statement caused an intense fury to Esperanza and she
told him that she knew. She dared Alfredo to abandon her, along with morality and
reason and her dignity as a woman as well as her image before the society all for the
sake of his being fair to himself. Eventually the wedding took place. And after several
years, Alfredo was sent to a distant village due to a legal assignment. It bothered him so
much because it was near Julias hometown. But he still found himself making his way
to her house despite of himself. And he found her there, just as how and where he
expected her to be. She never married. And he wondered how life would be if he ended
up with her. But all was too late and he could never bring things back. He also noticed
that Julia lost something, albeit the fact that he didnt know what that is youth, love,
luster? And when he looked at her he doubted if she ever cared for him, if he has
mistaken the past light in her eyes as manifestations of a possible romance. But now
theyre all gone. And so it was indeed all done.

Summary In the early 1920s, an American man and a girl, probably nineteen or twenty
years old, are waiting at a Spanish railway station for the express train that will take
them to Madrid. They drink beer as well as two licorice-tasting anis drinks, and finally
more beer, sitting in the hot shade and discussing what the American man says will be
"a simple operation" for the girl. The tension between the two is almost as sizzling as
the heat of the Spanish sun. The man, while urging the girl to have the operation, says
again and again that he really doesn't want her to do it if she really doesn't want to.
However, he clearly is insisting that she do so. The girl is trying to be brave and
nonchalant but is clearly frightened of committing herself to having the operation. She
tosses out a conversational, fanciful figure of speech noting that the hills beyond the
train station "look like white elephants" hoping that the figure of speech will please
the man, but he resents her ploy. He insists on talking even more about the operation
and the fact that, according to what he's heard, it's "natural" and "not really an operation
at all." Finally, the express train arrives and the two prepare to board. The girl tells the
man that she's "fine." She's lying, acquiescing to what he wants, hoping to quiet him.
Nothing has been solved. The tension remains, coiled and tight, as they prepare to
leave for Madrid. The girl is hurt by the man's fraudulent, patronizing empathy, and she
is also deeply apprehensive about the operation that she will undergo in Madrid.
Analysis This story was rejected by early editors and was ignored by anthologists until
recently. The early editors returned it because they thought that it was a "sketch" or an
"anecdote," not a short story. At the time, editors tried to second-guess what the reading
public wanted, and, first, they felt as though they had to buy stories that told stories, that
had plots. "Hills Like White Elephants" does not tell a story in a traditional manner, and it
has no plot. In part, some of the early rejection of this story lies in the fact that none of
the editors who read it had any idea what was going on in the story. Even today, most
readers are still puzzled by the story. In other words, it will take an exceptionally
perceptive reader to realize immediately that the couple is arguing about the girl's
having an abortion at a time when abortions were absolutely illegal, considered
immoral, and usually dangerous. Early objections to this story also cited the fact that
there are no traditional characterizations. The female is referred to simply as "the girl,"
and the male is simply called "the man." There are no physical descriptions of either
person or even of their clothing. Unlike traditional stories, wherein the author usually
gives us some clues about what the main characters look like, sound like, or dress like,
here we know nothing about "the man" or "the girl." We know nothing about their
backgrounds. Can we, however, assume something about them for example, is "the
man" somewhat older and "the girl" perhaps younger, maybe eighteen or nineteen? One
reason for assuming this bare-bones guesswork lies in tone of "the girl." Her questions
are not those of a mature, worldly-wise woman, but, instead, they are those of a young
person who is eager and anxious to please the man she is with. It is a wonder that this
story was published at all. When it was written, authors were expected to guide readers
through a story. In "Hills Like White Elephants," though, Hemingway completely
removes himself from the story. Readers are never aware of an author's voice behind
the story. Compare this narrative technique to the traditional nineteenth-century method
of telling a story. Then, such authors as Dickens or Trollope would often address their
readers directly. In contrast, we have no idea how to react to Hemingway's characters.
Had Hemingway said that the girl, for example, spoke "sarcastically," or "bitterly," or
"angrily," or that she was "puzzled" or "indifferent," or if we were told that the man spoke
with "an air of superiority," we could more easily come to terms with these characters.
Instead, Hemingway so removes himself from them and their actions that it seems as
though he himself knows little about them. Only by sheer accident, it seems, is the girl
nicknamed "Jig." That said, during the latter part of the 1990s, this story became one of
the most anthologized of Hemingway's short stories. In part, this new appreciation for
the story lies in Hemingway's use of dialogue to convey the "meaning" of the story
that is, there is no description, no narration, no identification of character or intent. We
have no clear ideas about the nature of the discussion (abortion), and yet the dialogue
does convey everything that we conclude about the characters. In addition, the
popularity of this story can be found in the change in readers' expectations. Readers in
the 1990s had become accustomed to reading between the lines of fictional narrative
and didn't like to be told, in minute detail, everything about the characters. They liked
the fact that Hemingway doesn't even say whether or not the two characters are
married. He presents only the conversation between them and allows his readers to
draw their own conclusions. Thus readers probably assume that these two people are
not married; however, if we are interested enough to speculate about them, we must
ask ourselves how marriage would affect their lives. And to answer this question, we
must make note of one of the few details in the story: their luggage. Their luggage has
"labels on them from all the hotels where they had spent nights." Were these two
people, the man and the girl, to have this child, their incessant wanderings might have
to cease and they would probably have to begin a new lifestyle for themselves;
additionally, they might have to make a decision whether or not they should marry and
legitimize the child. Given their seemingly free style of living and their relish for freedom,
a baby and a marriage would impose great changes in their lives. Everything in the
story indicates that the man definitely wants the girl to have an abortion. Even when the
man maintains that he wants the girl to have an abortion only if she wants to have one,
we question his sincerity and his honesty. When he says, "If you don't want to you don't
have to. I wouldn't have you do it if you didn't want to," he is not convincing. From his
earlier statements, it is obvious that he does not want the responsibility that a child
would entail; seemingly, he strongly wants her to have this abortion and definitely
seems to be very unresponsive to the girl's feelings. On the other hand, we feel that the
girl is not at all sure that she wants an abortion. She's ambivalent about the choice. We
sense that she is tired of traveling, of letting the man make all the decisions, of allowing
the man to talk incessantly until he convinces her that his way is the right way. He has
become her guide and her guardian. He translates for her, even now: Abortion involves
only a doctor allowing "a little air in." Afterward, they will be off on new travels. However,
for the girl, this life of being ever in flux, living in hotels, traveling, and never settling
down has become wearying. Their life of transience, of instability, is described by the girl
as living on the surface: "[We] look at things and try new drinks." When the man
promises to be with the girl during the "simple" operation, we again realize his
insincerity because what is "simple" to him may very well be emotionally and physically
damaging to her. The man is using his logic in order to be as persuasive as possible.
Without a baby anchoring them down, they can continue to travel; they can "have
everything." However, the girl contradicts him and, at that moment, seems suddenly
strong and more in control of the situation. With or without the abortion, things will never
be the same. She also realizes that she is not loved, at least not unconditionally. Thus
we come to the title of the story. The girl has looked at the mountains and has said that
they look "like white elephants." Immediately, a tension between the two mounts until
the man says, "Oh, cut it out." She maintains that he started the argument, then she
slips into apology, stating that, of course, the mountains don't really look like white
elephants only "their skin through the trees." From the man's point of view, the hills
don't look like white elephants, and the hills certainly don't have skins. The girl, however,
has moved away from the rational world of the man and into her own world of intuition,
in which she seemingly knows that the things that she desires will never be fulfilled. This
insight is best illustrated when she looks across the river and sees fields of fertile grain
and the river the fertility of the land, contrasted to the barren sterility of the hills like
white elephants. She, of course, desires the beauty, loveliness, and fertility of the fields
of grain, but she knows that she has to be content with the barren sterility of an
imminent abortion and the continued presence of a man who is inadequate. What she
will ultimately do is beyond the scope of the story. During the very short exchanges
between the man and the girl, she changes from someone who is almost completely
dependent upon the man to someone who is more sure of herself and more aware of
what to expect from him. At the end of their conversation, she takes control of herself
and of the situation: She no longer acts in her former childlike way. She tells the man to
please shut up and note that the word "please" is repeated seven times, indicating
that she is overwhelmingly tired of his hypocrisy and his continual harping on the same
subject. Glossary the Ebro a river in northeastern Spain; the second longest river in
Spain. the express a direct, non-stop train. white elephant something of little or no
value. Map "Hills Like White Elephants" is set in Spain. An American man and a girl are
sitting at an outdoor caf in a Spanish train station, waiting for a fast, non-stop train
coming from Barcelona that will take them to Madrid, where the girl will have an
abortion. In the story, Hemingway refers to the Ebro River and to the bare, sterile-
looking mountains on one side of the train station and to the fertile plains on the other
side of the train station. The hills of Spain, to the girl, are like white elephants in their
bareness and round, protruding shape. Also notable is that "white elephant" is a term
used to refer to something that requires much care and yielding little profit; an object no
longer of any value to its owner but of value to others; and something of little or no
value. Throughout this dialogue, the girl's crumbling realization that she is not truly loved
is a strong undercurrent that creates tension and suppressed fear. "A Clean, Well-
Lighted Place" takes place in Spain as well. It centers around two waiters and an elderly
man who patronizes the caf late at night before closing time. He is a drunk who has
just tried to kill himself. One of the waiters is older and understands the elderly man's
loneliness and how important the caf is to the old man's mental health. Hemingway
explores older men's loneliness by using the older waiter as a sounding board for the
elderly man's defense. Although the elderly man is without a companion or anyone
waiting at home for him, he indulges his lapses from reality in a dignified and refined
manner, expressed in his choosing of a clean, well-lighted place in the late hours of the
night. The importance of the clean, well-lighted place where one can sit is integral to
maintaining dignity and formality amidst loneliness, despair and desperation.

sZita is a short story about a girl who fell in love with her tutor. Let's just assume that
this is Zita. Zita is a young girl, who's taught to act like a lady. A young lady that
eventually fell in love with his teacher. In the earlier part of the story, the teacher was
kind of "shocked" that the girl was named Zita, maybe because of the fact that she fell in
love with another girl named Zita--- maybe the cause of his "gloominess." His teacher
kept receiving letters enveloped in a blue envelope, and every time he opens it, he feels
sad or he's acting strange. Maybe the letter came from his lover or a person that broke
his heart. "Maybe"(just a wild guess because it wasn't mentioned in the story) she's also
named as Zita. That's why he feels strange towards Zita. I think he likes Zita but he just
couldn't admit it because he's trapped into a certain sentiment. Maybe that's the reason
why he decided to move for awhile and stay in Zita's place as a teacher. This guy is very
serious especially the way he talks. They have different attitudes--- Zita is the more
optimistic one, and Mr. Reteche is the pessimistic one. Zita, sometimes, day dream
about Mr. Reteche. Then one day, when Mr. Reteche received another envelope, Zita
saw how he tore the papers into pieces and Zita asked him why he did it. He said that
someday, Zita will also experience it or understand it. In the last part of the story, when
Mr. Reteche was already departing(going back to where he came from), she received
torn pieces of paper. Maybe this symbolizes as words unsaid(yeah). I don't exactly know
but somehow I feel it that way. I'm not so into the story because I don't like the way it
ended (honestly and seriously!) It is not a happy ending. ( -_-;;). Anyway, let's move on...
Words left unsaid because you need to still "analyze" what it meant?hmmmm-- there
are are still many hidden words behind it. The torn pieces are words unsaid because if
they are meant to be directly said, of course it comes as a whole---clear and fixed. It
also meant "broken" something is broken--- the feeling or somehow the thought. (Yeah
right. I know you're somekindof, sortof, whatever lost about what I'm saying. It clearly
shows I'm not really into the story. I don't like failed relationships, sad endings about
love stories, and all those stuffs related or about it). The transition is too fast for me. Like
everything was just a snap that's why it "somekindof" DID NOT broke the ice between
me and the story. (yeah, enough Guia. Just shut up!) UPDATES :))))) Arturo B. Rotors
short story Zita focuses on the story of a young (in local terms) probinsyana, and how
she is groomed to be a lady through a series of events in her life. However, this
grooming results into sadness for both her and another person in her life. Zita is
reflective of the alienating nature of society during the time of its writing, especially in
how society wants women to be: how they should dress, their manner, etc., and how
these norms that society is imposing result in new and difficult issues for women of that
period in history. The protagonist of the story (the eponymous Zita) is put into this
period, as a girl whose transition to womanhood is put under various strains due to the
nature of societys demands on women, as well as by a certain man. Throughout the
story, Zitas transition from an innocent province girl (the aforementioned probinsyana)
to a (at least in societys eyes) a refined and matured woman. However, despite this
transition, which was something encouraged by everyone else in the story, she still
encounters sadness (possibly even as a part or result of this transition). In the end,
despite her becoming all that society wants her to be, she ends up losing (or so it
seemed) the man that possibly loved her. The story closes with Zita doing what she
once witnessed Mr. Reteche doing as he was grooming her to be the woman society
wants her to be, and finally understanding its significance. In my opinion, Zita is focused
on etching out how during the time of its writing (the period of American colonization of
the Philippines), and even until the present, province girls often wish to be the same as
the girls from the city, not being aware that even if they become something like the
well-bred women or girls from the city, attaining happiness and getting what they want,
especially in matters of love, is still a toss-up, or an absolute uncertainty; that no matter
what one does, love remains that single most elusive desire of humans. It clearly
visualizes the lengths that families from the province would have their children,
especially daughters, go in order to be of the same social class or breed as that of
the women from the high society in the cities. It also demonstrates how a man who
seemingly has found what he wants in a province girl ends up destroying that which he
has found by forcing it to become something it isnt (namely, by making her become
something same as that of the city girls or women).

The Title
'The Cask of Amontillado' - You might be thinking, 'Great. I don't even understand the
title - how am I supposed to understand this story?' So before we can start exploring
Edgar Allan Poe's famous short story, we first need to define a couple of words in his
title. Amontillado is a very specific kind of Spanish sherry, sherry being a fortified wine.
And a cask is a barrel. So if we put that all together, this story could be called 'The
Barrel of Sherry,' but 'The Cask of Amontillado' has a much better ring, don't you think?

Characters
So, aside from being a story about a barrel of wine, Poe's short story is one
of revenge and secret murder. It's a tale of terror starring two main
characters: Montresor and Fortunato. Montresor is the narrator and the murderer.
Fortunato is a wine connoisseur and the victim.

Plot
The story begins with the narrator Montresor explaining that a man called Fortunato has
wronged him a thousand times over, but his insult is the final blow that has provoked his
vow to revenge. He continues to assure us that he has given Fortunato no insight to the
fact that he is plotting to kill him, and he plans to use Fortunato's knowledge of wine to
lure him to his death.
Montresor continues to narrate his encounter with Fortunato at a carnival. He explains
that Fortunato is dressed as a jester, in a striped outfit and a jester hat with bells.
Fortunato is also very drunk, and he greets Montresor 'with great warmth.'
Very quickly, Montresor entices Fortunato to come to his home to see the pipe of
Amontillado that he has acquired. A pipe is just a word for a barrel. Keep in mind; this is
quite a large amount of Amontillado.
Montresor tells us that his servants are away from the house for the night, so they have
the house to themselves. Montresor's home is large, and according to the details, we
can assume it's been in the family for quite some time. When they arrive, they go into
the catacombs via a winding staircase. Catacombs are underground passages that are
often places where the dead are buried. In this case, these are the catacombs of the
Montresors.
Remember, Fortunato is very drunk, and he begins coughing. Montresor says he is
concerned for the man's health and offers him more drink. At this point, Fortunato is
getting a bit goofy, jingling with all of his movements, and accuses Montresor of not
being a mason. Montresor says he most certainly is a mason and shows him a trowel,
which is like a small, somewhat-flattened shovel.
When they reach the most remote area of the catacombs, they find a smaller crypt that
is lined with human bones. From there, they see a recessed area, about four feet deep,
three feet wide, and seven feet high. Fortunato continues into this crypt with Montresor's
urging him into the smaller space. Poor Fortunato is so drunk that he is confused as
Montresor chains him to the area. Fortunato is still asking for the Amontillado while
Montresor brings in stone and mortar. However, once Montresor starts building a wall at
the entrance of the small area, Fortunato sobers up quickly. Montresor describes the
sounds he hears as he builds, the jingling of Fortunato's bells and the clanking of the
chains.
Once the wall is about half-way up, Fortunato begins screaming, and Montresor mocks
him. Fortunato calms, and says, 'A very good joke indeed,' probably with his last bit of
hope. Montresor humors him for a moment, but soon Fortunato realizes it's not a game.
He screams, 'For the love of God, Montresor,' and Montresor repeats his words. There
is silence.
Montresor, who wants Fortunato to continue to beg, becomes impatient and calls out to
Fortunato, trying to provoke him. The man does not respond. In hopes of getting
Fortunato to respond in some way, Montresor throws a torch into the only open area
left. He hears the tinkling of bells. He says his 'heart grew sick' but only on the 'account
of the dampness of the catacombs,' and he finishes building the wall. Then he says the
events happened fifty years prior. He concludes his reminiscence with 'rest in peace.'

Analysis: Plot
So, nothing like a story about burying someone alive, right? This particular short story is
known as Poe's perfect piece, with each piece of information, each step of the plot,
being intentionally prepared and executed (no pun intended). Poe called this the unity
of effect. Everything is relevant, especially each part of the plot.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" tells the story of the aging Walter Mitty on a trip into
town with his overbearing wife, Mrs. Mitty. Walter is inept at many things; he is an
absent-minded driver, he can't handle simple mechanical tasks, and he forgets things
easily. What makes Walter exceptional is his imagination.

While Walter goes through a day of ordinary tasks and errands, he escapes into a
series of romantic fantasies, each spurred on by some mundane reality. As he drives his
car, he imagines he is commanding "a Navy hydroplane" through a terrible storm (1).
When he rides past a hospital, he imagines he is a world-famous surgeon saving a
VIP's life. When he hears a newsboy shouting about a trial, he imagines he is a crack
shot being interrogated in the courtroom. As he waits for his wife to finish at the
hairdresser's, Walter sees pictures of German plane and imagines he is a British pilot
willing to sacrifice his life for his country. Lastly, as Mitty waits outside against a wall for
his wife to buy something in a drugstore, he fantasizes that he is a bold and brave man
about to be shot by a firing squad. The story ends with the inscrutable Walter Mitty
awaiting this romantic death.

The story begins with a Commander trying to get an "eight-engined Navy

hydroplane" through a storm (1). He is a brave and unstoppable man and clearly
has the admiration of his crew.
 Of course, this scenario turns out to be little more than a fantasy in the mind of
Walter Mitty, who isn't so much piloting anything as he is driving his wife into
town. Mrs. Mitty complains that he's going too fast.

Walter drops his wife off to get her hair done and gets ready to do the list of
errands she's prepared for him. Mrs. Mitty reminds him not to forget to buy his
overshoes (rubber rain boots) and insists that he wear his gloves while driving.

Mitty drives away and is chastised by a cop for dawdling while putting on his
gloves. He drives past a hospital and launches into another fantasy. This time,
he's a famous doctor trying to save a millionaire and friend of the president's
named Wellington McMillan.

In this fantasy, Mitty is introduced to the other doctors performing a surgery on

the millionaire. They both express their admiration for Mitty as a doctor. When
one of the machines breaks during the operation, Mitty deftly uses a fountain pen
to fix it, buying the surgeons ten minutes to continue. When the other doctors get
stuck, Mitty steps in to save the day.

Walter's fantasy is interrupted by a boy shouting at him to back up. It seems he

entered the parking lot through the exit lane. The parking attendant just tells him
to leave the car there, and he'll park it properly.

Mitty leaves the car and muses that people like that parking attendant are always
so arrogant. He remembers once trying to take the chains off his tires himself
and getting them tangled. The mechanic grinned at him the same way the
parking attendant did. Now Mrs. Mitty makes him drive the car to the garage
every time he wants to remove the chains.

Next time, thinks Walter, he'll wear his arm in a sling so that the men at the
garage won't laugh at him.

Walter remembers that his wife wants him to buy overshoes and makes the
purchase at a shoe store. Then he can't remember the second thing his wife told
him twice not to forget to buy. As he runs through a list of possible items,
Mitty decides that he hates these weekly trips to town that they make.

While he's thinking, a newsboy goes by shouting about the Waterbury trial. This
leads Mitty into another fantasy. This time, he's a great pistol shot being
interrogated in a courtroom. His defense lawyer argues that Mitty could not have
killed the victim, since his right arm was in a sling on the day the murder took
place. But Mitty interrupts his lawyer and shouts that he could have killed the
man with any gun of any make with his left hand from three hundred feet away.
 "Puppy biscuit," says Walter Mitty. He suddenly remembers the thing he's
supposed to buy puppy biscuits. A woman going by laughs at him and thinks
he's a crazy guy who just said "puppy biscuit" to himself for no reason.

Mitty goes into a store to buy puppy biscuits, but can't remember what the right
brand name is. He has to describe what the box looks like to the clerk.

After his purchase, Walter goes to the hotel lobby to wait for his wife. He notices
a copy of Liberty magazine with pictures of German bombers on it.

Mitty fantasizes that he is an Air Captain, willing to sacrifice his own life for the
good of his country.

Walter is interrupted by his wife's arrival. She scolds him for not putting on the
overshoes he bought. "I was thinking," responds Mitty. "Does it ever occur to you
that I am sometimes thinking?" (14).

Mrs. Mitty responds that she is going to take his temperature when they get
home.

The two of them leave the hotel lobby together. Mrs. Mitty runs into a drugstore to
grab something, and Walter is left standing against the wall outside. He imagines
he is about to be shot by a firing squad, but faces it boldly and bravely.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Thurbers best-known story, is, like most of his
fiction, short, requiring only five or six pages. As Mitty and his wife are on their
way to do some errands, he indulges in a daydream in which he is a brave
military commander piloting a hydroplane, but his wife interrupts by exclaiming
that he is driving too fast. This pattern is repeated several times. When she urges
him to make an appointment with his physician, he becomes an eminent surgeon
at work, until a parking-lot attendants contemptuous commands call him back
temporarily to reality. In reality, Mitty does not do anything very well.
Very little actually happens in Thurbers story. Mrs. Mitty has an appointment at a
hairdressers; Mitty himself buys a pair of overshoes. While trying to remember
what his wife has asked him to buy, he becomes a cocky defendant in a murder
case. He manages to buy some dog food and sinks into a chair in a convenient
hotel lobby and imagines himself a bomber pilot under fierce attack. His returning
wife wakes him with the admonition that she is going to take his temperature
when they get home. At the end of the story, Mrs. Mitty goes into a drugstore,
and he becomes a proud and disdainful man facing a firing squad.
Part of Thurbers technique is to present Mitty as a man who fails even as a
dreamer. His daydreams are cluttered with clichs. Whether he is a murder
defendant or an Army officer, he bears the same Webley-Vickers automatic. In
both of his military dreams he is an officer who can lead his men through hell. In
reality, he is a man trying to deal with the fears and difficulties of a drab and
 disappointing life. As such, he is only an exaggerated version of a person whom
everyone will recognize.

The story is divided into five sections. In section I, the narrator recalls the time of Emily
Griersons death and how the entire town attended her funeral in her home, which no
stranger had entered for more than ten years. In a once-elegant, upscale neighborhood,
Emilys house is the last vestige of the grandeur of a lost era. Colonel Sartoris, the
towns previous mayor, had suspended Emilys tax responsibilities to the town after her
fathers death, justifying the action by claiming that Mr. Grierson had once lent the
community a significant sum. As new town leaders take over, they make unsuccessful
attempts to get Emily to resume payments. When members of the Board of Aldermen
pay her a visit, in the dusty and antiquated parlor, Emily reasserts the fact that she is not
required to pay taxes in Jefferson and that the officials should talk to Colonel Sartoris
about the matter. However, at that point he has been dead for almost a decade. She
asks her servant, Tobe, to show the men out.

In section II, the narrator describes a time thirty years earlier when Emily resists another
official inquiry on behalf of the town leaders, when the townspeople detect a powerful
odor emanating from her property. Her father has just died, and Emily has been
abandoned by the man whom the townsfolk believed Emily was to marry. As complaints
mount, Judge Stevens, the mayor at the time, decides to have lime sprinkled along the
foundation of the Grierson home in the middle of the night. Within a couple of weeks,
the odor subsides, but the townspeople begin to pity the increasingly reclusive Emily,
remembering how her great aunt had succumbed to insanity. The townspeople have
always believed that the Griersons thought too highly of themselves, with Emilys father
driving off the many suitors deemed not good enough to marry his daughter. With no
offer of marriage in sight, Emily is still single by the time she turns thirty.

The day after Mr. Griersons death, the women of the town call on Emily to offer their
condolences. Meeting them at the door, Emily states that her father is not dead, a
charade that she keeps up for three days. She finally turns her fathers body over for
burial.

In section III, the narrator describes a long illness that Emily suffers after this incident.
The summer after her fathers death, the town contracts workers to pave the sidewalks,
and a construction company, under the direction of northerner Homer Barron, is
awarded the job. Homer soon becomes a popular figure in town and is seen taking
Emily on buggy rides on Sunday afternoons, which scandalizes the town and increases
the condescension and pity they have for Emily. They feel that she is forgetting her
family pride and becoming involved with a man beneath her station.

As the affair continues and Emilys reputation is further compromised, she goes to the
drug store to purchase arsenic, a powerful poison. She is required by law to reveal how
she will use the arsenic. She offers no explanation, and the package arrives at her
house labeled For rats.

In section IV, the narrator describes the fear that some of the townspeople have that
Emily will use the poison to kill herself. Her potential marriage to Homer seems
increasingly unlikely, despite their continued Sunday ritual. The more outraged women
of the town insist that the Baptist minister talk with Emily. After his visit, he never speaks
of what happened and swears that hell never go back. So the ministers wife writes to
Emilys two cousins in Alabama, who arrive for an extended stay. Because Emily orders
a silver toilet set monogrammed with Homers initials, talk of the couples marriage
resumes. Homer, absent from town, is believed to be preparing for Emilys move to the
North or avoiding Emilys intrusive relatives.

After the cousins departure, Homer enters the Grierson home one evening and then is
never seen again. Holed up in the house, Emily grows plump and gray. Despite the
occasional lesson she gives in china painting, her door remains closed to outsiders. In
what becomes an annual ritual, Emily refuses to acknowledge the tax bill. She
eventually closes up the top floor of the house. Except for the occasional glimpse of her
in the window, nothing is heard from her until her death at age seventy-four. Only the
servant is seen going in and out of the house.

In section V, the narrator describes what happens after Emily dies. Emilys body is laid
out in the parlor, and the women, town elders, and two cousins attend the service. After
some time has passed, the door to a sealed upstairs room that had not been opened in
forty years is broken down by the townspeople. The room is frozen in time, with the
items for an upcoming wedding and a mans suit laid out. Homer Barrons body is
stretched on the bed as well, in an advanced state of decay. The onlookers then notice
the indentation of a head in the pillow beside Homers body and a long strand of Emilys
gray hair on the pillow.