On Fetterley

Fetterley's essay on "A Rose for Emily"  really made me cock an eyebrow and made me rethink my perspective on that particular story.  I remember having read it back in an online literature course from my community college and I remember thinking 'wow, this is really messed up' initially.  I had agreed that Emily had clearly poisoned Homer Barron in order to have him forever because she was lonely and repressed by her father, but at that point in my experience of literary analysis I really hadn't thought any deeper.

My review of the story and essay and my hindsight aside, Fetterley is trying to establish that the story is more than just your average gothic piece, and that it had sexual and social politics in mind when writing about a killer who refused to be a victim and manipulated her oppressive station as a woman and a 'lady' to get away with it (freedom within limits, I keep hearing that theme ringing lately in all my classes).

What I like about her approach is that she rarely bloats her pages with anything else but what was in the story and her own analysis of it.  Certainly, she uses "The Birthmark" as a mirror reflection to give a parallel for the reader to orient themselves upon, but there is no mention of what other researchers have noted and so on and so forth.  This give us a clean look at what she wants to say without marring it with the opinions of others.

Simply put, her methodology is wholly to use what is already there, what's already factual and finite, and to put it under a microscope for decoding.   She relies heavily on translating the symbolism in imagery, and cracking the deeper meanings within examples of dialogue and action to prove her point that Emily was successful at such unpleasant acts and was driven to do so because she was oppressed by the people of Jefferson in order to shield her from unpleasant things without ever truly knowing her.

Honestly, I would and most likely have (maybe not as articulated) used this sort of method to write a slew of persuasive essays.  When I read it I felt like I was sitting on a jury and Fetterley was pacing up and down the courtroom like they do at the end of Law and Order, trying to sell me a verdict and that the defendant was only a victim of her environment with some complications attached.  Once again, though, she didn't try to blur my vision by throwing quotes of scholars at me to back her up, shouting "What I'm saying is true because these guys said it too!".  There was only the story as evidence and her common sense on the witness stand.

((edited because I mispelled the author's name.  whoops))