William Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!" When asked by his Canadian roommate, Shreve, to "[t]ell about the South. What's it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all", Quentin Compson chose to tell the story of Colonel Thomas Sutpen (142).The previous summer, Quentin had been summoned by Miss Rosa Coldfield, the sister of Sutpen's wife, to hear the story of how Sutpen destroyed her family and his own. In Miss Rosa's home, he sat "listening, having to listen, to one of the ghosts which had refused to lie still even longer than most had, telling him about old ghost-times"(4). Over the course of that summer, before his arrival at Harvard, Quentin was drawn deep into the story of this "fiend blackguard and devil"(10). In Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner, using Thomas Sutpen as a microcosm for the Old South, wrote of the decline of Sutpen's dynasty in order to comment on the collapse and future of the South. Faulkner's character, Thomas Sutpen, was a man who embodied the essence of the Old South. In the eyes of Miss Rosa, Sutpen,like most Southern men, had valor and strength but neither pity nor compassion. He built his cotton plantation, named Sutpen's Hundred, in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi alongside his slaves and fathered two mulatto children. Later, he married Ellen Coldfield, Rosa's sister, for her respectable name. According to Miss Rosa, he was "a man with a big frame, a short reddish beard which resembled a disguise and above which his pale eyes had a quality at once visionary and alert, ruthless and reposed"(24). Most importantly, Thomas Sutpen was a deeply prideful patriarch who sought to establish a dynasty and cared more about producing an heir than bei... ... middle of paper ... ...Absalom!, William Faulkner wrote of the decline of Sutpen's dynasty in order to comment on the collapse of the Old South and the future of the New South. After the war, Colonel Thomas Sutpen, like the South, was unable to restore his previous greatness and his dynasty succumbed to racial impurity that, Faulkner prophesized, would lead to a further decline. After hearing the story of Thomas Sutpen, Shreve asked, "Now I want you to tell me just one more thing. Why do you hate the south" (303). The young Canadian assumed that Quentin hated the South because Quentin offered this story of tragedy, injustice, and destruction as an explanation for his homeland. Although Quentin responded that he did not hate the South, he appeared to be less certain than he insisted. Quentin loved his home but, like Faulkner, feared for its future and was burdened by its haunting past.
The book begins with an in-depth explanation of what happened in the latter stages of the Civil War. Major battles like Sayler’s Creek, High Bridge and Richmond are described through detailed language. For instance, at High Bridge, “Each man wages his own individual battle with a ferocity only a life-and-death situation can bring. Bullets pierce eyes. Screams and curses fill the air. The grassy plain runs blood red.” (page 61). All of these iconic Civil War battles led up to the Confederate surrender at the Appomattox Courthouse and the inescapable rebuilding of a new nation Abraham Lincoln had to deal with. Next, John Wilkes Booth is introduced and his pro-Confederate motives are made clear. His conspiracy to kill the president is described and his co-conspirators like Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt who also attempted to kill Secretary of State Seward a...
William Faulkner tells his novel The Unvanquished through the eyes and ears of Bayard, the son of Confederate Colonel John Sartoris. The author’s use of a young boy during such a turbulent time in American history allows him to relate events from a unique perspective. Bayard holds dual functions within the novel, as both a character and a narrator. The character of Bayard matures into a young adult within the work, while narrator Bayard relays the events of the story many years later.
In spite of its deterioration, the aftermath of the revolt had extensive consequences. Robertson particularized them with references to John Calhoun fortifying South Carolina before the civil war occurred. It also left a scare in the people’s minds, and was another small step towards the abolishment of slavery. Robertson analyzed the aftermath in a variety of aspects, including the effects on the public, and the government.
16. James Hinkle and Robert McCoy, Reading Faulkner: The Unvanquished. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995), 141.
Emerging from and dwelling within an all-consuming lamentation, the characters of William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! enwrap themselves in a world of hurt wherein they cannot or will not release the past. Each comes to know the tragic ends of lingering among an ever-present past while the here and now fades under fretful shadows of days gone by. As the narrative progresses. the major players in this installment of Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County grow ever more obsessed by what alternative actions different circumstances might have afforded. Trapped in his/her own notions of "what might have been" (115), Miss Rosa Coldfield's wistful, yet indignant exhortation, the historicized characters of Thomas Sutpen and Miss Rosa remain fixated by Antebellum illusions--he in a desperate effort to gain what he could not, she in bitter remembrance of what had never, but might have been.
Thomas Supten symbolizes the fundamental characteristics of the Southern society. Donald M. Kartiganer suggests that Faulkner uses Supten to describe the brutality of the Southern system of slavery. He concurs that Faulkner criticizes the values of the South and judgment of man’s fate because of their blood line and not their deeds. Kartiganer analyzes Absalom! Absalom! to prove the methods and values of the South and how they contribute to the theme of miscegenation.
Growing up in the South, Faulkner gives a good perspective on what it was like for
The South is tradition, in every aspect of the word: family, profession, and lifestyle. The staple to each tradition in the south, and ultimately masculinity, is to be a southern gentleman. William Faulkner, a man with the most southern of blood running through his veins, was everything but a southern gentleman.
William Faulkner’s short story "An Odor of Verbena" is the tale of a young, Southern man, Baynard Sartoris, who must come to terms with his father’s sudden (but not entirely unexpected) murder. Because this murder takes place in the decade following the Civil War, young Baynard is faced with the South’s ancient honorary code. This code dictates that, as the only son of his father, he must avenge this death. Should Baynard fail to retaliate on his father’s behalf by confronting the murderer, Redmond, who once was his father’s business partner, both Baynard and his family would lose face within their community.
In the tale Barn Burning, the author William Faulkner formally known for his short stories with a constant theme of Southern Renaissance, racism and modernism uses these themes as a constant reference throughout the story. Faulkner focuses in depth on the antagonist, Abner Snopes and his actions and how they impact other characters throughout the story. I believe Abner was continuously portrayed as a negative character throughout the short story by Abner’s aggressiveness towards everyone he comes in contact with, Faulkner’s depiction of Abner’s selfishness, and his jealousy for those around him and what he did not have.
In life people often think that the life they live in is either a good one and do not think that a change would do their life any good. In reality change is good, but Emily in the short story "A Rose for Emily'; thinks that the life she has lived through is the one to keep and does not want to change it even though to us we might think of her life as a tragic and deprived one.
On September 25, 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi, a son was born to Murry Cuthbert and Maud Butler Faulkner. This baby, born into a proud, genteel Southern family, would become a mischievous boy, an indifferent student, and drop out of school; yet “his mother’s faith in him was absolutely unshakable. When so many others easily and confidently pronounced her son a failure, she insisted that he was a genius and that the world would come to recognize that fact” (Zane). And she was right. Her son would become one of the most exalted American writers of the 20th century, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature and two Pulitzers during his lifetime. Her son was William Faulkner.
The rise and industrialization of the South began with the end of the Civil War. This aided in the transition from Old to New South, from a time of poverty and slave labor to a more progressive time. The decline of the Old South was often unaccepted and ignored by southerners as they tried to cling to their past ways. Faulkner highlights the cultural shift from Old to New South through character relationships and personalities in his short stories “A Rose for Emily,” “That Evening Sun,” and “Red Leaves.”
In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," we see how past events affect the life of the main character Miss Emily, especially her inability to accept change. Throughout the story Miss Emily goes to extreme measures to protect her social status. Miss Emily lives in the past to shield herself from a future that holds no promises and no guarantees. William Faulkner illustrates Miss Emily's inability to accept change through the physical, social and historical settings, all of which are intimately related to the Grierson house.
The author emphasizes on one slave’s life Uncle Tom, and through Uncle Tom’s life, we can see the true immorality and hardship behind slavery. Uncle Tom is a hardworking, loyal slave that originally belonged to the Shelby family plantation along with his wife, Chloe, three children and several other slaves. The story starts with Uncle Tom being taken away by Mr. Haley, a slave auctioneer, due to Mr. Shelby not being able to pay debts to Mr. Haley. Through this journey, Uncle Tom is sold