William Faulkner once said, “It is the writer's privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart." (Quoted from goodreads.com). As a writer, William Faulkner embraced writing as an art form and brought out the true beauty in literature. Denied by many throughout his life, Faulkner was accepted into the world of literature as a literary genius. With his novel The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner presents a unique writing style that leaves the reader engrossed and eager for further reading. (Aiken 1188) His style presents time in a distorted manner which creates a present that is “essentially catastrophic.” (Sartre 1190) Faulkner’s display of words is the epitome of pictorial literature, and it propels the very essence of his writing. William Faulkner’s picturesque prose exploited the boundaries of time and expanded it into a style of writing that would revolutionize the world of American literature. On December 10, 1950 William Faulkner was the first writer to receive the Nobel Peace Prize since World War II. (Fact from nobelprize.org) During his speech Faulkner touched many points but most importantly he said the following: “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.” (Quoted from nobelprize.org) At an early age, it seemed as if William Faulkner would simply “endure”. After dropping out of high school in 1915, Faulkner began working as clerk for his grandfather’s bank. When “The Great War” erupted, Faulkner enlisted in the U.S. Army but was rejected due to his small stature. Eager to join the war, Faulkner forged a few documents and faked a British accent in order to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. Unfortunately, Faulkner never got to experience combat and soon returned to his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi. (Dr... ... middle of paper ... ... from goodreads.com). Faulkner didn’t live to write; he lived through writing. And as his novels and short stories are passed on through generations, so will he. William Faulkner could have “merely endured” and his story would have finished with his life but to endure is to fail. Faulkner chose to prevail. Works Cited Draper, James P. ed. “William Faulkner.” World Literature Criticism. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1992. 1185-1200. Aiken, Conrad. “William Faulkner.” Collected Criticism.(1968): 200-207. Rpt. In World Literature Criticism. Ed. James P. Draper. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1992. 1187. Satre, Jean-Paul. “On ‘The Sound and the Fury’: Time in the Works of Faulkner.” Faulkner: A Collection of Critical Essays.(1966): 87-93. Rpt. In World Literature Criticism. Ed. James P. Draper. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1992. 1190.
In his Novel Prize Address, Faulkner states that an author must leave "no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart...love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice." He accuses his younger contemporaries of ignoring these noble spiritual pillars while pondering the atomic doom of mankind with questions like, "When will I be blown up?" Such physical fears, far from conflicts of the heart, are what plague his bomb-obsessed contemporaries. Yet Faulkner stands, seemingly alone, in opposition to this weakness; he "decline[s] to accept the end of man" and in rebelling, fights for the old universal truths and the glories of the past. In classical style, he brushes away passing fears and fads, settling for nothing less than the "problems of the human heart in conflict with itself." Nothing else is worth writing about and Faulkner's work is living proof.
While I was watching the documentary William Faulkner, a Life on Paper I found it striking how the different people that were interviewed talked about two different sides of the author William Faulkner. His daughters, Jill Faulkner Sommers and his stepdaughter, spoke mainly about his alcohol abuse and his moodiness whereas Faulkner’s contemporaries from Oxford underlined Faulkner’s generosity and kindness. The documentary shows Faulkner not only as father of Jill and his stepdaughter but also as a father figure for many others. He had to take care of several families at once. At one point Faulkner had seventeen dependents to provide for. Many of the people that were interviewed describe Faulkner as being very generous and always willing to help others even when he had almost nothing himself. One special example is his brother Dean who died in an airplane accident and because Faulkner had bought the plane he apparently felt guilty about the death of his brother for the rest of his life as his sister-in-law says in the interview.
The novels of William Faulkner are amongst some of the most important books of the twentieth century. In 1949 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature for all of his great works. Most of his novels were based on his own surroundings and where he grew up (Faulkner, william, 2009). In his novel, As I Lay Dying, Faulkner uses his own southern influence to create the setting, characters, and motifs to develop the narrative behind this poor southern family.
As a child, Faulkner was well aware of his family background, especially the notoriety of his great-grandfather who had moved to the Mississippi Delta from Tennessee in 1841 (Zane). William Clark Faulkner was a Civil War Colonel, a lawyer, a planter, a politician, a railroad entrepreneur, and a best-selling novelist best known for The White Rose of Memphis. He died in the streets of Ripley, Mississippi, where a former business partner he had forced out of his railroad gunned him down (Padgett). While Faulkner had never met his great-grandfather, he was a powerful influence. When his third grade teacher asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, the young William replied “I want to be a writer like my great-granddaddy”(Padgett).
William Faulkner is the author of Absalom, Absalom!, a Southern novel published in 1936. Faulkner dedicates his writing in Absalom, Absalom! to follow the story of ruthless Thomas Sutpen and his life as he struggles against the suspicion and doubt of the small-town folk that were born and raised in Jefferson, Mississippi. Himself a native-born Mississippian, Faulkner entered the world in September of 1897, and left it in July of 1962 at sixty-four years of age. He was the eldest of four brothers, and the son of parents whose prominent families had been destroyed and leveled to poverty with the advent of the Civil War in America during the 1860s. Faulkner was christened William Cuthbert Falkner after his great-grandfather, Colonel William Faulkner, who achieved relative literary success with his publication of The White Rose of Memphis during the 1880s.
William Faulkner was a twentieth century American author who won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Most famous for his novel The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner defines Southern literature. In his mythical county of Yaknapatawpha, Faulkner contrasted the past with the present era. The past was represented in Emily Grierson, Colonel Sartoris, the Board of Alderman, and the Negro servant. Homer Barron, the new Board of Alderman, and the new sheriff represented the present.
William Faulkner was a prolific writer who became very famous during his lifetime but who shied away from the spotlight as much as possible. He is remembered as both a gentlemanly southern eccentric and an arrogant, snobbish alcoholic. But perhaps the best way to describe Faulkner is to describe his heritage, for, like so many of his literary characters, Faulkner was profoundly affected by his family.
William Faulkner pioneered a largely philosophical literary style, which went on to influence for years. Unlike many writers of his time, Faulkner experimented with philosophical and psychological material as it applies to society. Although he created his own imaginary society, it was largely based off of actual people and ideas. Especially due to his uniqueness, Faulkner had his own ideas about writing, which he presented in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. In this speech he specifically stated that a writer’s duty is, “…to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.” (Nobel 829) Faulkner writes about his concern
"In the decade that followed, Faulkner donned a host of other identities, alternately and aristocrat, a bohemian, or a derelict" (Zane 5). Faulkner established himself as a major novelist in 1929 with the book The Sound and the Fury (Larinde). He wrote twenty novels and many short stories (Zane 1). His greatest achievements were the Nobel Prize for literature in 1950, the National Book Award, and Pulitzer Prizes. All of these awards came after he was fifty (7).
Padgett, John B. "MWP: William Faulkner (1897-1962)." The University of Mississippi. 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 1 Apr. 2011. .
Murray C. Falkner, (the u was added to the family name by the printer who set up
...However, this doesn’t deter Faulkner from writing very complex stories that reflect his literary prowess. Most of his characters can hardly speak correct English, and yet, his pieces are filled with words that even I have trouble discerning meaning from. In particular, Rider’s character is very blue collar. Faulkner communicates this to us in many ways, but has no trouble throwing in phrases like “the junctureless backloop of times trepan”. This occurs throughout all of these stories. It is like the characters are very natural, they know the environment, the have the skills to hunt, they work hard, and they love each other. But these ideas are contrasted by his writing style and complexity and really blend nicely to create very good pieces of literature. It was just one thing that caught my eye in reading these pieces and I am very envious of this skill he possesses.
After being rejected from the army because he was too short, Faulkner enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and had basic training in Toronto. He served with the RAF in World War I, but did not see any action. The war was over before he could make his first solo flight. This did not stop him later telling that he was shot down in France. After the war he studied literature at the University of Mississippi for a short time. He also wrote some poems and drew cartoons for the university's humor magazine, The Scream. "I liked the cartoons better than the poetry," recalled later George W. Healy Jr., who edited the magazine. In 1920 Faulkner left the university without taking a degree. Years later he wrote in a letter, "what an amazing gift I had: uneducated in every formal sense, without even very literate, let alone literary, companions, yet to have made the things I made."
Brooks, Cleanth. "William Faulkner: Visions of Good and Evil." Faulkner, New Perspectives. Ed. Richard H. Brodhead. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey : Prentice-Hall, 1983.
William Faulkner accepted his Nobel Peace Prize in December 1950. During his acceptance speech, Faulkner proclaimed that the award was made not to him as a man, but to his life’s work, which was created, “out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before.” (PF ) He felt that the modern writer had lost connection to his spirit and that he must reconnect with the universal truths of the heart—“love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.” (PF ) Through his characters voice and exposure of their spirit, Faulkner solidified man’s immortality by “lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.”(PF ) Although some critics have characterized his work as violet, dealing with immoral themes and the miseries and brutality of life; it can be argued that even his most sad and depraved characters express positive virtues and personal strengths, even if by a negative example. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the portrayal and manifestation of the human spirit in a select few of William Faulkner’s literary characters, showing that they possess both human strength and flaws.