William Faulkner 's Literary Accomplishments

In “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner each author gives their own views and opinions of the south, but each story has different perspective of the southern conduct shown by literary elements. The point of view of each story is the same and they have similar attributes which aides in the main character’s development, but each story has a deeper connection to it. The setting of both stories is set in the deep southern region in between the 1930’s and 1940’s while slavery was still very popular, but it aides in the development of each character’s background and trials. Symbolism is used in each story to demonstrate how each protagonist is deeply connected to the south. Ellison and Faulkner both used each of these literary elements to tie the south to the protagonists.

In the short story A Rose for Emily written by William Faulkner, readers are immersed in the narrative of a supposed town member who describes the impact that the recent death of an old woman has had upon their small community. In the narrative, readers are taken on a journey through the life of Miss Emily, an old, lonely woman who is seemingly frozen in her own timeframe. As the story unfolds, readers learn about the various tragedies Emily encountered in her lifetime such as the sudden death of her controlling father as well as her alienation from other family members that leaves her utterly alone following his death. Audiences also learn about events that happened throughout Emily’s life that both molded her as a person and aided in shaping her reputation around the town. From her controversial relationship with a construction worker named Homer Barron to her suspicious purchase of arsenic at the local drug store, there is no question that Emily lived under the constant scrutiny of her fellow townspeople. After reading the initial sentences, it can be concurred that this story doesn’t simply describe the life of an old, questionably insane woman, but also the story of the age-old battle between old and new. Through symbolism and an artful arrangement of the events described, Faulkner is able to meticulously weave a tale of the clash between newer and older generations’ views and standards.

William Faulkner was Born in New Albany, Mississippi on September 25, 1897 to Murry and Maud Butler Falkner. Throughout his young life he was taken care of from birth until he moved out by his caretaker, an African American woman named Caroline Barr. William called her “Mammy”. Barr was one of the most influential people in his life. She was fundamental to his development in his early years. He said later on that it was a privilege to have known her and that she was the one who taught him right from wrong and sparked his interest in the politics of sexuality and race. Faulkner’s grandfather was also a writer. William Clark Falkner, often called “Old Colonel”, was an adventurous man who was a railroad financier, politician, soldier, farmer,

William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” and Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” are two famous short stories written in the early 1900’s. These stories are commonly studied together because of how much they embody southern gothic writing and other striking similarities. “Barn Burning” and “A Good Man is Hard to find” are largely similar in their themes about morals, their southern gothic aesthetics, and their widespread violence with only minor differences.

William Faulkner some would say was one of the great writers of American literature during the twentieth century. His stories many times had a gothic plot and contained odd or supernatural ideas and characters. He had many notable works, two of which were “A Rose for Emily” and “Barn Burning”. “A Rose for Emily” and “Barn Burning” are similar in the way that William Faulkner portrays the characters and the tone he uses in both.

If we compare William Faulkner's two short stories, 'A Rose for Emily' and 'Barn Burning', he structures the plots of these two stories differently. However, both of the stories note the effect of a father¡¦s teaching, and in both the protagonists Miss Emily and Sarty make their own decisions about their lives. The stories present major idea through symbolism that includes strong metaphorical meaning. Both stories affect my thinking of life.

Although some have and still may argue that this is an unnecessary confusion created by Faulkner, we must ask ourselves whether or not we would have given this symbolism much importance without Faulkner’s particular way of presenting it. Faulkner effectively draws attention to the differences of the South’s old and new generations and to their particular flaws in “A Rose of Emily” using the switching point of view tactic, which is depicted not only in this short story, but also in “Barn

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

Once the Civil War ended in the United States, the south was deeply affected by the change in labor and economic standings. Some white farmers had to resort to becoming tenant farmers and performing the same work that black slaves did prior to the abolition of slavery. The shift in social standing that many whites experienced caused animosity and resentment towards richer whites and black men who were now the white tenant farmers’ equals. This time period sets the stage for William Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning” and allows Faulkner to explore the psychological effects of the sudden social and economic changes. By describing Abner Snopes’s insane actions in his fight against social class and privileged white men, Faulkner explores how

Faulkner’s works consisted of many dark touchy topics such as war, racism, mental illness and suicide in all of books, short stories, William Faulkner wrote about almost every part of life, from something that could be absurd at his time, to something real like racism in the American South. Throughout his life, Faulkner was kind of a rebel, notorious for his confidence, drinking, and he would often make up stories about himself. Faulkner wrote from experience and as a person who lived in the south during times of racism, he wrote about a lot of things in the south. To be exact his specific genre or style in which he wrote in is what some call “southern gothic”. Southern gothic is a unique style of writing and only expressed by very few authors. These stories usually take place only in the south and have darkness to them. His stories would use irony to examine the values of the American south. Instead of solely trying to add suspense with the style it is also used to explore social issues and cultural character of the south. Which leads me to one of Faulkner’s first important novels “Sartoris”. In Sartoris Faulkner focuses on a family during the world war era in the south. In the book the Sartoris family is one of the more important families in Yoknapatawpha County where the book is set. The Old Colonel, John Sartoris, represents an old and dying out order dating back to the mid 1900’s. His world revolves around his plantation home, his slaves and his

In 1930 William Faulkner published his very first story, “A Rose for Emily.” The story emerges with the funeral of Emily Grierson and discloses the story out of sequence; Faulkner brings into play an anonymous first-person narrator thought to be the representation of Grierson’s municipality. Miss Emily Grierson’s life was read to be controlled by her father and all his restrictions. Grierson was raised through her life with the thought that no man was adequate for her. Stuck in her old ways, Grierson continued with the Old South’s traditions once her father had passed. Awhile following her father’s death, Emily aims to put the longing for love to a stop and allows Homer Barron to enter her life. Faulkner portrays the literary movement of Modernism utilizing allegory through the post-bellum South after the American Civil War. In the short story “A Rose Emily,” William Faulkner uses a series of symbols to illustrate the prominent theme of the resistance of the refinement of life around Miss Emily.

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.

Understanding Faulkner’s upbringing is a key component in discovering how his stories had such a realistic feel to them. On September 25, 1897, Faulkner was born in the small rural town of New Albany, Mississippi. He held various occupations, including a railroad financier, businessman, lawyer, farmer, and writer in his later years. His affinity with writing and reading began at the age of 12. His mother and grandmother helped birth this interest in Faulkner because they were both very heavy readers. Faulkner’s natural intelligence caused school to bore him and he dropped out of high school without earning a diploma. He then began working after at his

William Faulkner is one of the best American authors of the early Twentieth Century. Born on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi, Faulkner enjoys his younger years painting, reading and writing. Faulkner does not graduate from high school because school is not appealing to him. Instead, Faulkner invests his time as a carpenter, soldier, farmer, politician, businessman, lawyer, and an author. Out of his job accomplishments, Faulkner gravitates to writing. When Faulkner attended the University of Mississippi, he wrote short poetry for the Times-Picayune and The Double Dealer. It is during this time that Faulkner enhances his writing ability. Once Faulkner began to write novels, it became his passion. Faulkner publishes his first collection of poetry, The Marble Faun in 1924 (Faulkner). Faulkner’s novels are challenging to read, but not exempt from

In Faulkner’s works, both the land and the people of the South struggle under the monumental weight of myth and history. In fact, certain calamity looms over his fictional region of Yoknahpatwah, a microcosm of the postbellum South. Themes of the Southern consciousness, such as inescapable past and present, inherited guilt, and emotional and psychological stagnation pervade this fictional region. In The Sound and the Fury (1929) and Absalom, Absalom! (1936), Faulkner’s portrayal of two Southern aristocratic families, the Compsons and the Sutpens, reveal Southerners’ paradoxical attitudes towards the myths of the South: the refusal to forget the past and the inability to live in the present. Both The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom!