William Faulkner Influence on his Work

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Recommended: Literature of the American South William Faulkner

The writer and Nobel Prize winner, William Cuthbert Faulkner, was born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897. Faulkner was the first of four sons to Murry Cuthbert Falkner and Maud Butler. His family settled in Oxford when he was about five years old, and Faulkner spends most of his life there. Faulkner was successful early in his life, but during the fifth grade he lost interest in school and started missing classes. He did not graduate from high school, and later on he was able to go to the University of Mississippi in Oxford, but dropped out after three semesters. He is known as one of the most famous Southern literature writers, mostly for his novels and poetry. William Faulkner's literary career was influenced by Southern culture and values, beliefs about slavery, the Civil War, and dominant white male culture.
One of William Faulkner's influences to his work was by the Southern culture and values. The south is present in most of his stories. Faulkner uses the same towns, such as Jefferson or Yoknapatawpha County. In the book, Southern Renascence: The Literature of the Modern South, the authors Luis D. Rubin Jr., and Robert D. Jacobs describe Jefferson as, "In Jefferson possession and accomplishment are taken for granted, seen as inevitable outcomes of being. Being, that is a male, a white… being, in terms of attributes which other cultures may regard as mere products of experience ..." (Rubin & Jacobs, 108).
In Faulkner's, A Rose for Emily (also set in Jefferson), Emily Grierson refuses to pay the taxes, and Faulkner states, "Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily's father had loaned money to the town, ..." (Faulkner 79). In return the Colonel Sartoris tried to waive Emily'...

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...ose For Emily'." Studies In Short Fiction 36.3 (1999): 251. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 9 Dec. 2013.
Faulkner, William. Go down, Moses. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Print.
"Great Authors: William Faulkner." William Faulkner: Faulkner's Writing and His Impact. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2013. .
Miller, Douglas T. "Faulkner And The Civil War: Myth And Reality." American Quarterly 15.1 (1963): 200-209. Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1984 (H.W. Wilson). Web. 9 Dec. 2013.
Rubin, Louis Decimus, and Robert D. Jacobs. Southern renascence: the literature of the modern South,. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1953. Print.
"William Faulkner." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Feb. 2013. Web. 9 Dec. 2013. .

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