Kenneth Drapite

The seven standards of textuality of A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

The first standard of textuality is cohesion. It is concerns the way in which the components of
the surface text. One of the cohesion in the text is the dialogue of Miss Emily “I have no taxes
in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me”, . . . “I have no taxes in Jefferson.", "See
Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson." These lines are consider recurrence (one of the
types of cohesion) which means that a direct repetition of elements, since the original
occurrence merely happens again. Another cohesion in the story is the dialogue of people in
town which is, "Poor Emily," when the father of Emily passed away. All of them pity Emily
because there is no one left in her house but only herself.

The second standard of textuality is coherence. It refers to a set of conceptual relations under
the surface text, which is similar to cohesion in the way stretches of language link each other.
As what I’ve observe, the text is divided into five sections. The narrative sequence in this story
is not chronological. As the story opens, Miss Emily’s father apparently has just died, and the
townspeople are discussing her strange and sad life. The author relates various incidents in her
life, but these incidents are related thematically, not chronologically.

The third standard of textuality is intentionality. Intentionality refers to what a text producer
plans to do and what he/ she hopes the target text receiver will accept. The author shows
different culture and traditions. The family of Miss Emily is different from the other people
because they are from Old South. Culturally speaking, "Old South" is used to describe the rural,
agriculturally-based, and slavery-reliant economy and society in the Antebellum South, prior to
the 1861–65 American Civil War, in contrast to the "New South" of the post-Reconstruction Era.
The townspeople in there is now industrialized in which it causes discrimination to Miss Emily
because she is not accepting the idea of an industrialized town. Another thing is when Miss
Emily shows her love toward Homer, even though she is an Old South, she didn’t mind it and
risk herself in Homer but later on, it became an obsession that leads to a wrongful action.
Acceptability concerns the text receiver’s attitude to evaluate whether the text is acceptable or
unacceptable based on the other six attributes of textuality. As a reader, the ending was so
surreal, it is hard to believe that a person can be that obsessed to her loved ones. I cannot
imagine that you can live in a house with a dead body which sooner or later will decomposed
itself. For me, it is not really a love or let’s just say true love. Because in the first place how can
you let your loved ones died and you are the reason why he dies.

The fifth standard of textuality is infomativity. Informativity refers to the author’s intention to
provide information through the text. For me the informativity in the text is the emphasizing of
big letters and these are SHE vanquished them, SHE WAS SICK, THE NEGRO, So THE NEXT day
we all said, "She will kill herself”. Most of the capital letters are emphasizing Miss Emily or what
did she do, what will happen to her. The capital letter THE NEGRO was a discriminating part
maybe because the author wants to convey that during that years negros’ are being see as a
maid or servant.

The sixth standard of textuality is situalionality. Situaltionality makes a text relevant to the
situation of occurrence. I can compare the text in our Filipino culture. Those people who are
born during past years have many beliefs about how to act a woman in front of a guy, our
culture and tradition that we are still relying. Our grandmothers get mad every time they hear
or see a teenager whose easy-going in life. The culture that our grandmothers have faced is
different from us that is why somehow we tend to disagree with their beliefs because we have
our own.

The seven standard of textuality is intertextuality. Intertextuality refers to the connection

between the target text and the background knowledge of the audience of a text that is
inserted into it. I think this story is similar to the killer bride, a teleserye from ABS CBN. The
ending part is similar wherein Lara Quigaman or Alice is in love with Luciano. When Luciano
died, she keeps his body in a house or her secret house.