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Miss Emily - Coggle Diagram
Miss Emily
Setting
1866
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Women could work but not vote, have bank accounts or directly have control of a business. Many women had to operate a store or business as men were off at war. 
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Civil War broke out in 1861. War has as way of rewriting the rules of engagement. In a divided country, many women found themselves driven, and inspired, to become more than they were told they were supposed to be.
Amherst
Bustling American city, busy
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Em finds solace in her garden. She clearly has an affinity with nature - she listens to "the sounds of the earth, the turn of the beetle and the bone-song of the crickets."
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More poetry, less drudgery.
Tigoora
Irish green landscape and backdrop to Ada's values and beliefs but haunted by memories of the Great Famine
I'll do something that will shock the lot of them and though I have no idea yet what it might be, it will be big
Imagination
The mind of Em where the poet likes to spend the most of her time - She reflects 'I am content to invent parallel worlds. Places of the imagination that I alone can inhabit
Relationships
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Ada / Emily
Ada has a superior, petulant face but, when she smiles, she glows like a window opening on a bright day. I want to make her smile - first encounter
I like Ada; she brings spirit with her. She enlivens me. And the entire house - Em says this after Sue suggests hiring a Pocumtuc girl instead of the Irish who "everything is low and sad for.
Narrative voices and reflect the best in each other - draw attention and accentuate the qualities of another - While Ada is bold, sociable, hardworking, adventurous she is also paranoid, superstitious
Em is 36 years old, a well educated spinster, not sociable or adventurous - she prefers the solitary comfort of her own room to the outside. She escapes the real world through her words and her writing world
Their chatty narratives and romantic spurts that allow them to see poetry in the mundane (ordinary) help create a bond between them and they become first friends. While others condemn Ada's chatty nature, Em loves her ease. She loves the way Ada 'enlivens her and the entire house.'
This unusual bond between the two following enormous description of their different backgrounds before bonds them together in the Amherest household - O' Connor's style of writing allows us to see the events from both perspectives - lets the readers know the heroines in their own voices
Austin with Ada / Emily
He frightens me a little, truth to be told
'Potatoes?' Mr Austin says. 'Didn't the Irish all but extinguish themselves over the potato? I am surprised you can look at the things.' - quite insensitive
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Austin thinks me wild, in my ideas, in my notions - Em says this. reflects society expectations of women
Mr. Austin glanced around the kitchen, as if trying to find something at fault
Ada and Daniel Byrne
He left a part of himself behind in the kitchen, a sort of warm space that I found I welcomed very much - beginning of their friendship - she finds comfort in his presence and almost absence. We see the contradiction between how Ada feels with Austin and Daniel
Strong women
Ada
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I'll do something that will shock the lot of them and though I have no idea yet what it might be, it will be big - She fulfills this through her move to America and her discovery of her independence
Emily
Em is melancholic - retreats to her room where she finds comfort - the world of her imagination - When my heart or my head hurts, when my body betrays me in sickness, I have words to play with. / Words- all words - chill and scorch me.
Austin thinks me wild, in my ideas, in my notions - reflects society expectations of women
But convention never has been, and never will be, my first choice / I have not chosen to live as a woman is supposed to live.