ESSAY CEMETERY

Themes ·        Things that whites don't understand are significant to blacks ·        Rider's super strength ·        White men are in charge, despite Black resourcefulness ·        Rider's resourcefulness ·        Rider's love of his wife ·        The struggle to live ·        Seeing the dead ·        Denial of death ·        Whites regard blacks as unhuman ·        Whites misinterpret black actions Style and devices ·        Run on sentences ·        Third person narrator ·        Rider is the focalizer Keywords ·        Saw mill ·        log ·        Breathe ·        Dog ·        Jug People and places ·        Mannie ·        Rider ·        Carothers Edmonds ·        Spoot ·        Birdsong ·        Maydew ·        Ketcham William Faulkner

I Rider is black and twenty-four. He is the head of a saw mill gang. He is at his wife, Mannie's, funeral, helping to fill the grave. He refuses an offer by a friend to fill it in his stead. When the grave is full he starts to go home. His aunt, who has raised him (he never knew his parents), suggests he come over to her home so he is not alone. Rider refuses. It is hinted that it was not his wife's natural time to go yet. He crosses the woods into the lane, remembering his wife there. He goes to the house that he rents from Carothers Edmonds, the white landlord. He had fixed it up a lot, with his wife's help. His sawmill gang, which he has been heading since the age of 15, has always been the most productive. He has always had money, even before he needed it, when he lived with his aunt. Six months before, he saw Mannie for the first time, gave up his minor gambling and drinking habits, and marries her. He bought the house. He would work five days a week, brin