"The home of a girl friend" where Elly meets Paul for the first time is not described and could be anywhere in Jefferson (209); the location we chose is based on the assumption that (like Elly herself) the friend lives in one of the town's wealthier neighborhoods.
The "biggish house" where Elly lives with her parents and her grandmother seems typical of the older residences in the better neighborhoods in Jefferson (208). It has "a deep veranda" set behind "screening vines" (208), and a yard that is large enough to contain a "clump of shrubbery" in which she and Paul can become more intimate than on the porch - though not, it turns out, large enough to give them privacy from her grandmother (211).
Several major scenes in the story take place on the "curving road" into and away from Mills City (207), as the signs on the road "increase with irrevocable diminishment" (216). The point where the road runs alongside a "sheer drop" down a "precipice" and where the story begins and ends is near the sign that reads "Mills City. 6 mi" (207).
The "clump of trees" (218) where Elly and Paul have sex is located somewhere between Jefferson and Mills City. On the other side of the road is a field that is being plowed as they "come out of the woods" to get back in the car (207).
Mills City, where Elly's aunt and uncle live, is "two hundred miles" and about "ten hours" by car away from Jefferson (208, 216). The city's name is fictional, but it seems likely that Faulkner based it on Birmingham, the largest city in Alabama. Birmingham is the same distance from Oxford, the original of Jefferson, and was founded just after the Civil War as an industrial center. On our map, we have placed Mills City on the real mill city's location. (Under its real name, Birmingham is also mentioned in Sanctuary.)
New Orleans, Louisiana, is used or referred to as a location in 16 Yoknapatawpha fictions, and the city has its own entry in the index. "Elly" is the only fiction that refers to "Louisiana" instead: Elly tells her deaf grandmother that Paul is "From Louisiana!" (211). There's a good chance that means 'New Orleans' here too, but that is not made clear in the story.
"The home of a girl friend" where Elly meets Paul for the first time is not described and could be anywhere in Jefferson ("Elly," 209), but it seems likely that (like Elly herself) the friend lives in one of the town's wealthier neighborhoods.
The "biggish house" where Elly lives with her parents and her grandmother seems typical of the older residences in the better neighborhoods in Jefferson ("Elly," 208). It has "a deep veranda" set behind "screening vines" (208), and a yard that is large enough to contain a "clump of shrubbery" in which she and Paul can become more intimate than on the porch - though not, it turns out, large enough to give them privacy from her grandmother (211).
The "clump of trees" (218) where Elly and Paul have sex in "Elly" is located somewhere between Jefferson and Mills City. On the other side of the road is a field that is being plowed as they "come out of the woods" to get back in the car (207).
Submitted by cornellgoldw@fo... on Sun, 2017-02-12 11:12
Will Starnes is the father of Henry Stribling's (Hawkshaw) first fiancee, Sophie Starnes. He owns a house and land, all mortgaged. Starnes is lazy - some people suggest he may have died because "he was too lazy to keep on breathing" - and unambitious, "satisfied to be a landowner as long as he had enough to eat and a little tobacco" (138). He does not object to Sophie's engagement to Stribling, whom Mrs. Starnes considers to be beneath them.
