William Faulkner's Race

William Faulkner's Race

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William Faulkner, the eldest son to parents Murry and Maud Butler Falkner, was born in New Albany, Mississippi in 1897. Although Faulkner was not a keen student in high school, which eventually lead to his dropping out before graduation, he was very enthusiastic about undirected learning. After years of studying independently, Faulkner allowed a friend of his family, Phil Stone, to assist him with his academic vocation. This relationship inspired Faulkner and after a short period spent with the Royal Air Force in 1918 he decided to go to university where he began writing and publishing poetry. In 1924 Stone’s financial assistance helped Faulkner publish a pastoral verse sequence entitled The Marble Faun and in 1926 he published his first novel called A Soldier’s Pay. Like most of Faulkner’s work that followed, this novel has a southern setting and is strongly evocative as well as stylistically ambitious. Despite the genius displayed in his early works, Faulkner was not widely recognized to the extent which he deserved until 1950 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature and immediately catapulted to the peak of world fame. Residing in the south from birth until his death in 1962, Faulkner found an inexplicable connection to his land and his people. His writing resonates images of the south with brute honest and force which has created unrelenting controversy over Faulkner’s personal racial perspectives. This essay with explore Faulkner’s motivations and inspirations for including such dense southern description in his writing, the portrayal of his black characters, and the opinions held by his contemporaries concerning his works, with the inten...

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...knows, who admits in effect, that he will never understand Blacks or Indians and that it would be hateful and ridiculous to pose as an omniscient narrator or to try to penetrate these minds that are unfathomable to him”(Glissant, pp.68). Basically, Faulkner tried to represent those around him with as much truth and sincerity as possible. What made this difficult for him was that the lives of the black people around him were not always happy ones. He witnessed slavery, abuse and neglect and wanted to depict the world around him realistically. Controversy has sprung from reading Faulkner’s novels because too many people mistake the attitudes of his characters for his own. Although many people have, evidently, disagreed with this fact, it can be argued that Faulkner was trying to convey the ugliness and cruelty of racism by including it in his novels with such force.