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Fourth largest of the worlds continents. It is the southern portion of the landmass generally
referred to as the New World, the Western Hemisphere, or simply the Americas. The continent is
compact and roughly triangular in shape, being broad in the north and tapering to a pointCape
Horn, Chilein the south.
North America
North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the
Western Hemisphere; it is also considered by some to be a northern subcontinent of the
Americas.It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the
west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean
Sea.
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Homer Barron - A foreman from the North. Homer is a large man with a dark complexion, a
booming voice, and light-colored eyes. A gruff and demanding boss, he wins many admirers in
Jefferson because of his gregarious nature and good sense of humor. He develops an interest in
Emily and takes her for Sunday drives in a yellow-wheeled buggy. Despite his attributes, the
townspeople view him as a poor, if not scandalous, choice for a mate. He disappears in Emilys
house and decomposes in an attic bedroom after she kills him.
Judge Stevens - A mayor of Jefferson. Eighty years old, Judge Stevens attempts to delicately
handle the complaints about the smell emanating from the Grierson property. To be respectful of
Emilys pride and former position in the community, he and the aldermen decide to sprinkle lime
on the property in the middle of the night.
Mr. Grierson - Emilys father. Mr. Grierson is a controlling, looming presence even in death,
and the community clearly sees his lasting influence over Emily. He deliberately thwarts Emilys
attempts to find a husband in order to keep her under his control. We get glimpses of him in the
Tobe - Emilys servant. Tobe, his voice supposedly rusty from lack of use, is the only lifeline
that Emily has to the outside world. For years, he dutifully cares for her and tends to her needs.
Eventually the townspeople stop grilling him for information about Emily. After Emilys death,
he walks out the back door and never returns.
Colonel Sartoris - A former mayor of Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris absolves Emily of any tax
burden after the death of her father. His elaborate and benevolent gesture is not heeded by the
succeeding generation of town leaders.
Emily appears to have a mental breakdown following the death of her father. She initially
refuses to acknowledge his death, then retreats into her house with a mysterious illness.
One day, Homer Barron and his crew of laborers come to town to build sidewalks. Emily takes
an interest in Homer in spite of the disapproval of the townspeople, who argue that he is too low
class for Emily.
Emily buys some arsenic, but refuses to explain why. Years later, when Emily dies, the
townspeople find a man's skeleton in her bed. It's strongly implied that this skeleton is Homer
Barron.
Edwards relies heavily on imagery and metaphor in his sermon. He draws on the traditional
image of Hell as a pit of fire, embellishing his description with various words associated with
heat ("furnace," "fire," "glow," and "rage," to name a few). In creating this frightful image, he
hopes to scare sinners away from temptation and steer them toward the path of righteousness.
The Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) relies heavily on the use of repetition in
order to impress upon his audience the urgency of redemption from sin. Two of the most
prominent uses of repetition within the sermon are the words wrath and restrain(s)/restraint.
Edwards uses the word wrath an astonishing fifty-one times. God, he warns, will not be patient
with his errant flock forever. Every day his anger at humanitys sin and indifference towards
their own fate increases. Here are just a few examples of the use of wrath in the text:
On Eternal Damnation: The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not
slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to
receive them; the flames do now rage and glow.
On Gods Waning Patience: The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for
the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is
given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course, when
once it is let loose.
Another word employed time and again is restrain. Gods mercy, Edwards cautions, is almost
at its end. Over and over, the audience hears that divine restraint is the sole reason why sinners
do not yet burn:
By the mere pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained
by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty, any more than if nothing else but
God's mere will had in the least degree, or in any respect whatsoever, any hand in the
preservation of wicked men one moment.
In this instance of restraint, Edwards speaks to the authority of God over demons. God alone
restrains them from devouring sinners:
God restrains their wickedness by his mighty power, as he does the raging waves of the
troubled sea, saying, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further;" but if God should
withdraw that restraining power, it would soon carry all before it.
The other literary device that makes Edwards's sermon unforgettable is his use of colorful
imagery to illuminate the horrors that await the sinner who dies without redemption:
On the Reality of Hell: "O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great
furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held
over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you,
as against many of the damned in hell."
There is a unity of effect Edwards creates through his use of repetition and terrifying
images: to impress upon his audience the gravity of their sin, the growing impatience of
God, and the urgency of repentance.
Before training his frog, Smiley perpetrated a number of betting schemes, including one
involving a bull-pup named Andrew Jackson, who won dog fights by latching onto one of his
opponent's hind legs.
A stranger bets Jim $40 that Jim's frog can't jump any better than any average frog. While Jim's
back is turned, the stranger fills Jim's frog with buckshot. Jim doesn't noticed this until after he
loses the bet, however, and has no way of winning back the money.
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Poem Summary
The speaker in the poem is traveling at night through the snow
and pauses with his horse near the woods by a neighbor's house
to watch the snow falling around him. His horse shakes his
harness bells, questioning the pause; perhaps this place isn't on
their usual route, or he is curious that there doesn't appear to be
a farmhouse nearby.
Setting
'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' is one of Robert Frost's most famous poems, filled
with the theme of nature and vivid imagery that readers of his work have come to love. In this
lesson, we'll summarize the poem, discuss its major theme and several interpretations, and finish
with a quiz to test your knowledge.
Form
The poem consists of four (almost) identically constructed stanzas. Each line is iambic, with four
stressed syllables:
Within the four lines of each stanza, the first, second, and fourth lines rhyme. The third line does
not, but it sets up the rhymes for the next stanza. For example, in the third
stanza, queer, near, and year all rhyme, but lake rhymes with shake, mistake,and flake in the
following stanza.
The notable exception to this pattern comes in the final stanza, where the third line rhymes with
the previous two and is repeated as the fourth line.
Do not be fooled by the simple words and the easiness of the rhymes; this is a very difficult form
to achieve in English without debilitating a poems content with forced rhymes.