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The influence of William Cuthbert Faulkner
William faulkner research essays the mississipi writers page
William faulkner research essays the mississipi writers page
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Biography of William Faulkner
William Faulkner was an enormous man in literature despite the fact that he stood less than five foot six. He reshaped the way in which the world views literature today. Faulkner was one of the greatest influences to American culture of his time. In fact, his influence spread throughout many years to come. Faulkner started out as a child with a dream, and with this dream he redefined the literary society of America.
William Cuthbert Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi. Faulkner was the son of Maud and Murry Faulkner. He was the eldest of four sons, and was named after his great grandfather, who was a bestselling writer of “The White Rose of Memphis.” When Faulkner was young, he showed an artistic talent for drawing and writing poetry. Estelle Oldham and Phil Stone were acquaintances of him while in his youth who would become important figures in Faulkner’s future. Stone found great interest in Faulkner’s poetry, which soon caused him to recognize William’s unmistakable talent. He set out to advise Faulkner and give him models for his study of literature. He said that “Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” (William Faulkner). It was in this way that he conducted his literature, for the rest of his life was sloppy and indulgent. He worked as a postmaster and a scoutmaster for Boy Scouts, and in both he was asked to resign for drinking, and poor work. He dropped out of both high school and college in favor of partying, but during his stay in college, Faulkner was able to create many short stories and poems which were featured in the school newspaper and the yearbook. Faulkner may have been irresponsible and incompetent, but his writings proved to be extravagant works of art that redefined American literature for centuries to come.
The 1920's had many influential writers in literature. While reaching this time period it is almost certain that the names William Faulkner, Earnest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald will be found. Each of the writers has their own personal style of writing and each one of the lives has influenced what they write about to even the way they each portray their literature.
"William Faulkner: The Faded Rose of Emily." Mr. Renaissance. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2011 .
William Faulkner is widely considered to be one of the great American authors of the twentieth century. Although his greatest works are identified with a particular region and time (Mississippi in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries), the themes he explores are universal. He was also an extremely accomplished writer in a technical sense. Novels such as The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! Feature bold experimentation with shifts in time and narrative. Several of his short stories are favorites of anthologists, including "A Rose for Emily." This strange story of love, obsession, and death is a favorite among both readers and critics. The narrator, speaking for the town of Jefferson in Faulkner 's fictional Yoknapatawpha
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." Literature and Its Writers. 6th ed. Boston, New York:
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.
Growing up in Mississippi in the late Nineteenth Century and the early part of the Twentieth Century, young William Faulkner witnessed first hand the struggles his beloved South endured through their slow progression of rebuilding. These experiences helped to develop Faulkner’s writing style. “Faulkner deals almost exclusively with the Southern scene (with) the Civil War … always behind his work” (Warren 1310. His works however are not so much historical in nature but more like folk lore. This way Faulkner is not constrained to keep details accurate, instead he manipulate the story to share his on views leading the reader to conclude morals or lessons from his experience. Faulkner writes often and “sympathetically of the older order of the antebellum society. It was a society that valued honor, (and) was capable of heroic action” (Brooks 145) both traits Faulkner admired. These sympathetic views are revealed in the story “A Rose for Emily” with Miss Emily becoming a monument for the Antebellum South.
Growing up in the South, Faulkner gives a good perspective on what it was like for
In this book, and others of this series, it was commonplace to find sentences that stretched on for a page in order to create mood, multiple narrators, or short stories complicated with a stream-of-consciousness blather that was hard to understand. Therefore, readers had difficulty following these novels, and Faulkner’s popularity soon dwindled, that is until Malcolm Cowley wrote The Portable Faulkner, which contained excerpts from the Yoknapatawpha series, and made Faulkner’s genius evident to his readers. Shortly thereafter, many of Faulkner’s works were reissued and he became a literary giant, and was even awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949. Until death, Faulkner continued to create works of literature, including both short stories and novels.
William Faulkner was a well-esteemed author of the 20th century who used many literary techniques to display messages in his writings. In his short story, A Rose for Emily, he used literary tools such as point of view, physical plot structure, and symbolism to develop his theme that the past is always wound into the present.
Though it was not certain that William could support a family, he did have a child with his wife and supported the daughter from his wife’s first marriage. It was not a happy family, as most southern families have been portrayed. Faulkner drank and continued to internalize himself from the rest of the family, as he had always internalized himself from society. The drinking was not and everyday thing, but his family said that it would happen for long periods at a time. He would drink for a few weeks until he wanted to sober himself up. A southern gentleman is to be the father figure in his family, to teach his children right from wrong, but William seemed to be concerned with only himself. When he drank, he was not there for his family. When his daughter asked him not to start drinking because her birthday was coming up, Faulkner said to her “no one remembers Shakespeare’s daughter.” Tradition in the southern family did encompass “tough love”, but a southern gentleman is to be an example to his children, with characteristics embodying responsibility and honor. William Faulkner was neither responsible nor honorable.
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.
Brooks, Cleanth. "William Faulkner: Visions of Good and Evil." Faulkner, New Perspectives. Ed. Richard H. Brodhead. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey : Prentice-Hall, 1983.
At the conclusion of his short story “Barn Burning,” William Faulkner strongly implies that Abner Snopes burns yet another barn, although whether he does or not is never made absolutely clear. In any case, his young son, Sarty, has run to warn the owner of the barn, Major De Spain, about his father’s intentions:
Padgett, John B. "MWP: William Faulkner (1897-1962)." The University of Mississippi. 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 1 Apr. 2011. .
Overall, Faulkner masterfully blends several elements of literature with his own personal flair, producing a novel simmering with the life and story of the characters. His round-about narration technique, paired with his stream of consciousness writing, produce a twisted, difficult plot line, complete with complex and eccentric characters, all within the bounds of a single novel.