The Artist's Home Town Isolation and Worldwide Acceptance in The Sclulptor's Funeral.
             "Black, uneasy, stoop-shouldered group."36
             The story starts with an image of the untimely arrival of the sculptor's corpse "already twenty minutes overdue." This is interesting in that it immediately puts the sculptor out of sync with his hometown. The image seems to operate on two basic premises, that is, the artist died before his time while at the same time he never quite belonged to the rhythm of the town in which he was born.
             The next discernible image (that is, from the rhetoric of the small town norm) is that of Jim. He too seems isolated, that is, even in the midst of the crowd he is alone. His posture, movements, and even "astonishing...red beard" set him apart from the rest of the group gathered in waiting. He is a character that is drawn very close to the sculptor later in the story when he makes his passionate defense. The character of Jim is introduced early to keep the idea of isolation close to reader's mind while also strongly associating a special spark of individuality with the character of the sculptor.
             The portraits of differentiation are conspicuously juxtaposed with numerous illustrations of conformity. One instance that cannot go unmentioned is when the GRA man approaches Jim; this is the first time that the two worlds collide. One notices that Jim seems to put the death into a proper reverential scope, while the GAR man simply wishes that the sculptor had belonged to his group. After being ignored by Jim, the man returns to the group to report, making sure that the mass had gelled into a new mind set together with this new little bit of data. Jim turns his back on the group, agitated and waiting.
             The only time that the sculptor is brought into a close association with the whole of his home town is in the resp
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