Essay about William Faulkner and History

     William Faulkner is one of America's most talked about writers and his work should be included in any literary canon for several reasons. After reading a few of his short stories, it becomes clear that Faulkner's works have uniqueness to them. One of the qualities that make William Faulkner's writings different is his close connection with the South. Gwendolyn Charbnier states, 'Besides the sociological factors that influence Faulkner's work, biographical factors are of great importance…'; (20). Faulkner's magnificent imagination led him to create a fictional Mississippi county named Yoknapatawpha, which includes every detail from square mileage of the county to the break down of

Compared to many writers, Faulkner’s sentence structure is long and drawn out, making the story appear more complicated. The novel’s themes and storylines are relatively simple, but the intricate writing makes the narrative difficult to understand. A wise, old

    Analyzing character in a Faulkner novel is like trying to reach the bottom of a bottomless pit because Faulkner's characters often lack ration, speak in telegraphed stream-of-consciousness, and rarely if ever lend themselves to ready analysis.  This is particularly true in As I Lay Dying, a novel of a fragmented and dysfunctional family told through fragmented chapters.  Each character reveals their perspective in different chapters, but the perspectives are true to life in that though they all reveal information

William Faulkner was a 20th Century American poet, screenwriter, and novelist who won a Nobel Peace prize in Literature in 1949 and was an author of two Pulitzer prizes. He was part of a prominent family in Mississippi that lost its prosperity and power during the Civil War. “In his works William Faulkner used the American South as a microcosm for the universal theme of time…whose reappearing characters grow older and cannot cope with the social change” (Larinde 1). “A Rose for Emily” has an accurate portrayal of the historical period it was written describing the social attitudes, moral implications, and racism of the Old South during the post-Civil War time period.

The manner that Faulkner applies point of view in "A Rose for Emily" provides the readers with the idea of the dying values, traditions, and customs of the “Old South”.

Faulkner continues his southern gothic writing style when the story goes back to an earlier time in Miss Emily’s life. Faulkner

The birth of the modernist movement in American literature was the result of the post-World War I social breakdown. Writers adopted a disjointed fragmented style of writing that rebelled against traditional literature. One such writer is William Faulkner, whose individual style is characterized by his use of “stream of consciousness” and writing from multiple points of view.

The women of William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! embrace fundamental characteristics of the nature of the South and its relation to the women who inhabit the area. The women particularly challenge the reader to an examination of the time of the Civil War, the relation of the war to the South, and the relation of the people to their surroundings. There is a call for recognition of the intrinsic complexities of the South that stem from the mythological base of the gentlemen class and the qualities of hierarchy that so ensue. The women are very much caught in the web that is the South, the intricacies of their lives linked to the inherent social structures.

In William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, the image of honeysuckle is used repeatedly to reflect Quentin’s preoccupation with Caddy’s sexuality. Throughout the Quentin section of Faulkner’s work, the image of honeysuckle arises in conjunction with the loss of Caddy’s virginity and Quentin’s anxiety over this loss. The particular construction of this image is unique and important to the work in that Quentin himself understands that the honeysuckle is a symbol for Caddy’s sexuality. The stream of consciousness technique, with its attempt at rendering the complex flow of human consciousness, is used by Faulkner to realistically show how symbols are imposed upon the mind when experiences

Loyalty to family is considered a noble and traditional southern value for a child to learn. William Faulkner examines this tradition in “Barn Burning” and reveals its often overlooked, darker side. Children living in dysfunction and abuse today are exposed to the same misplaced family loyalties that often cause identity and moral crisis within themselves forcing them to make choices that often have lifelong consequences. Sardy’s father used his family loyalty to instill fear and a false sense of obligation within him from an early age.

“A Tale Intended to be After the Fact…” is how Stephan Crane introduced his harrowing story, “The Open Boat,” but this statement also shows that history influences American Literature. Throughout history, there has been a connection among literary works from different periods. The connection is that History, current events, and social events have influenced American Literature. Authors, their literary works, and the specific writing styles; are affected and influenced by the world around them. Authors have long used experiences they have lived through and/or taken out of history to help shape and express in their works. Writing styles are also affected by the current trends and opinions of the period they represent. By reading American

There are several ways in which William Faulkner's short story "Barn Burning" is indicative of literary modernism. It depicts a relevant historical period and is part of the frontiersman literary tradition (Gleeson-White, 2009, p. 389). The author utilizes a number of purely literary approaches that were innovative for the time period in which the tale was originally published (in 1932), such as employing a young child as a narrator complete with misspelled words and broken, puerile thoughts. However, the most eminent way in which this story embraces the tradition of literary modernism is in the author's rendition of dynamic social conventions that were in a state of flux at the time of the writing. Specifically, his treatment of race is the inverse of how race is generally portrayed in American literature prior to the early part of the 20th century. An analysis of this integral component of "Barn Burning" reveals that Faulkner's unconventional rendering of African American characters in a desirable social status particularly as compared to that of the Snopes clan is crucial to this tale's inclusion as part of the tradition of literary modernism.

Oxford provided Faulkner with intimate access to the rich character of the rural south which was conscious of its past and separated from the urban-industrial mainstream that Faulkner found very distracting. He wanted to accurately portray life in the south and he “could not have done otherwise than to include Blacks among the people who inhabit the lands of his novels”(Glissant, pp. 56). Faulkner did not pretend to understand the suffering and complexity of the lives of the black community but, because he grew up witnessing their struggle he was able to represent them in an honest and sometimes brutal fashion. He spent his whole life in the south and, “Blacks lived there … They were servants in the Falkner family or perhaps workers for the railroad company founded by his great grand-father. They were surely mule drivers or farm laborers …”(Urgo and Abadie, pp. 137). It is difficult to say whether or not Faulkner felt sympathy for these people but it is clear through Faulkner’s writing that he believed their story needed to be told.

The writer and Nobel Prize winner, William Cuthbert Faulkner, was born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897. Faulkner was the first of four sons to Murry Cuthbert Falkner and Maud Butler. His family settled in Oxford when he was about five years old, and Faulkner spends most of his life there. Faulkner was successful early in his life, but during the fifth grade he lost interest in school and started missing classes. He did not graduate from high school, and later on he was able to go to the University of Mississippi in Oxford, but dropped out after three semesters. He is known as one of the most famous Southern literature writers, mostly for his novels and poetry. William Faulkner's literary career was influenced by

One of the main realities of human existence is the constant, unceasing passage of time. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner explores this reality of time in many new and unexpected ways as he tells the tragic tail of the Compson family. The Compsons are an old Southern aristocratic family to whom time has not been kind. Years of degeneration mainly stemming from slavery have brought them to the brink of destruction. Most of the story focuses on the Compson children who are undergoing the worst of the social and moral decay. Each of the four children perceives time in a much different way but by far the strangest and most bizarre attitude toward time that is given in the text is held by