Roselily Questions

Question #2: Describe the story’s point of view. How does the point of view affect your understanding of Roselily’s character and her circumstances?


The short story is told from the point of view of Roselily through her memories, actions, and thoughts. In a way this allows us only to see her life, and her side of the story. This gives us more of a connection and greater understanding to who Roselily is as a person and about her situation. However, we are also able to make assumptions about her new husband and situation from how she speaks about him, and their new upcoming life together in Chicago. Roselily mentions that her husband’s religion is much different to hers, and she will have to sit separate to him during prayer time. One could assume this means he is Muslim. So through Roselily we begin to understand her new husband better.

Question #3: How does the first paragraph announce the nature of the story’s conflict?

We can tell by the opening words that the story takes place during a wedding ceremony with the words, “Dearly Beloved.” However, immediately afterwards the reader is taken away from the ceremony, and into Roselily’s life. She envisions a little girl in her mother’s wedding dress drowning in quicksand; very symbolic of her true feelings of her situation. A reader begins to see that she almost dreads getting married, and that Roselily may feel like she is the one drowning and has no way out. She seems to envision her marriage as a sort of bondage, or slavery. Yet, it’s odd because she sees her husband as he actually is which is standing on a porch by the highway waiting to be married. The story is all about her marriage to a new man and the new life she is about to embark on.

Question #4: What do you think Roselily’s reflections about her fourth child reveal about her character?

Several paragraphs down Roselily mentions that she gave away her fourth child to his father as she felt like it was the best thing for him. Any mother feels sadness and wonders about a “lost” child and paragraph by paragraph we see the tragedies and heartaches Roselily went through in her life. She mentions her baby’s father has a good stable job, money, and respect. Respect from others seems to be very important to Roselily as she mentions it several times throughout the story, and how she will have it after she and her new husband move to Chicago. The reader begins to feel sorry for Roselily after all her troubles because we see she is a good mother, and a practical person.

Question #5: Describe the groom. What kind of man is he? What sort of life is Roselily likely to have with him?

Roselily never actually mentions her groom’s name but instead refers to him as he. I’ve inferred that her groom is a Black Muslim from Chicago, and he loves her so much that he is willing to put up with her “condition”. This means all her children from different fathers, and possible pregnancy from another man. In the first paragraph we can see that he has agreed to a country wedding, but later the reader finds out that he looks down upon these simple country people’s ways, and their subservience to the white people. It almost seems as if Roselily is marrying this man because he can finically support her and her children, and will be a stable man in her children’s lives. She isn’t marrying him out of love but rather convenience, and the obvious respect she has for him. After the wedding Roselily and her children will move to Chicago with her new husband, and even though she is excited about a fresh start, Roselily wonders if she has made the right decision. She mentions that she should have asked more questions about their new life as it is entirely unknown to her.

Eloquence and Invisible Man Summary

Christopher Hanlon, an assistant professor of English at Eastern Illinois University, begins his essay with a quote by Emerson himself. Emerson says, “It is the doctrine of the popular music-masters that whoever can speak can sing.” Simply it means that those who can orate; a powerful public speaker, can have “musical talents” as oration comes from a musical expression with metre, pitch, and rhythm. He mentions that an artist is not only a man who can play the keys of a piano, but also someone who can bring in an audience with their words. In other words the orator is “composing” the people as “social organisms.” Emerson believes that everyone in the audience is a potential speaker. From Christopher Hanlon’s point of view the Invisible Man written by Ralph Ellison shows the independence of the protagonist and narrator as he grows in intelligence as a public speaker. This character represents an Emersonian speaker, and halfway through the story he stands before a large crowd known as the Brotherhood, where through his words the audience becomes one and connects to him. To make a memorable performance he draws in the power from the audience’s excited participation.