William Faulkner

844 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The effect of World War 2 on American literature

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.

Show More
Related

  • How Does William Faulkner Use Ethos In Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

    1278 Words  | 3 Pages

    Upon listening and reading William Faulkner's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, it is immediately deduced that he provides his vast audience of the epitome of himself. William Faulkner is not someone, but everyone. His humanistic approach to writing and thought has allowed him to hide complexity within simplicity, and for this, he is memorable: his work is a true testament to the unbreakable nature of the human spirit in the face of enormous hardship and consequence; a look into the human mind that is simultaneously interesting and uninteresting. This, along with so much more, is prevalent in this speech, which perfectly conveys the responsibilities of the writers in 1949.

    Read More

  • The Nature Of Time In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

    1834 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • William Faulkner's Barn Burning

    1247 Words  | 3 Pages

    William Faulkner, recognized as one of the greatest writers of all time, once made a speech as he accepted his Nobel prize for writing in which he stated that a great piece of writing should contain the truths of the heart and the conflicts that arise over these truths. These truths were love, honor, pity, pride, compassion and sacrifice. Truly it would be hard to argue that a story without these truths would be considered even a good story let alone a great one. So the question brought forward is whether Faulkner uses his own truths of the heart to make his story "Barn Burning." Clearly the answer to this question is yes; his use of the truths of the heart are prevalent

    Read More

  • Response to the Film William Faulkner: a Life on Paper

    492 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Old Verities and Truths of the Heart in Writing

    1303 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • As I Lay Dying

    2324 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • William Faulkner's "Uncle Willy"

    1123 Words  | 3 Pages

    "I know what they said. They said I didn't run away from home but that I was tolled away by a crazy man, who, if I hadn't killed him first, would have killed me inside another week. But if they had said that the women, the good women in Jefferson had driven Uncle Willy out of town and I followed him and did what I did because I knew that Uncle Willy was on his last go-round and this time when they got him again it would be for good and forever, they would have been right. Because I wasn't tolled away and Uncle Willy wasn't crazy, not even afterall they had done to him. I didn't have to go; I didn't have to go anymore than Uncle Willy had to invite me instead of just taking it for granted that I wanted to come. I went because Uncle Willy was the finest man I ever knew, because even women couldn't beat him, because in spite of them he wound up his life getting fun out of being alive and he died doing the thing that was most fun of all because I was there to help him. And that's something that most men and even most women don't get to do, not even the women that call meddling with other folks' lives fun."

    Read More

  • Southern Innfluences In "A ROSE For Emily"

    668 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Barn Burning by William Faulkner

    887 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Faulkner The Quintessential Southern Writer

    1185 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Transition from Old to New South

    1288 Words  | 3 Pages

    "William Faulkner (1897-1962)." Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena Krstovic. Vol. 97. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2007. 1-3. Literature Criticism Online. Gale. Hempfield High School. 31 March 2010.

    Read More

  • Interpretations of William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily

    1529 Words  | 4 Pages

    "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).

    Read More

  • William Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury

    1107 Words  | 3 Pages

    Faulkner, William. The Sound and The Fury. Harrison Smith and Jonathan Cape,           1929. Corrected text, Vintage Books, a division of Random House,

    Read More

  • Samuel Clemens

    638 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Life of Samuel Clemens A.K.A. Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens is better known as Mark Twain, the distinguished novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, and literary critic who ranks among the great figures of American Literature. Twain was born in Florida Missouri, in 1835, To John Marshall Clemens and Jane Lampton. As a new born Twain already had moved four times westward. In 1839 the family moved again, this time eastward to Hannibal, Missouri. Hannibal was a frontier town of less than 500 residents. As small as the town was it offered valuable materials and opportunities for a young writer. Most of the residents knew Samuel well, considering they were on the lower half of the social scale, such as poor whites and slaves. The town of Hannibal was mostly used for farmers coming in from the countryside. It was also a river town, swamped with travelers moving up stream and down stream. Some of the travelers were steamboat men, circus performers, minstrel companies, and showboat actors. Since all this action was going on all the time, that opened a big door to the beginning of Samuel’s stories. It provided a huge source of literary material. Shortly after the death of his father in 1847, he ended the brief period of his schooling to become a printer’s apprentice. Like many nineteenth century authors, he was preparing for his writing career later in life. Working as a Printer’s apprentice he got practice as a typesetter and miscellaneous reading. The first thing Samuel wrote as a used piece was a few skits for his brothers Orion’s Hannibal newspaper and a sketch, for The Dandy Frightening The Squatter, published in Boston in 1852. The first real book ever published by Mark Twain was Life on the Mississippi River. Between 1853 and 1857 Clemens worked a journeyman printer in seven different places. During this trip of making sketches and writing stories, he began eastward by boat. Twain started writing letters telling about his visits to New York and the Middle West in 1867. On his trip he seemed to have gotten him self in a lot a trouble such as disorderly conduct. After time passed Mark kept writing short stories here and there and a few sketches also. However, in 1869 he became part owner of the Buffalo Express. In 1870 Mark met the girl of his dreams and Olivia Langdon and

    Read More

  • The Sound and The Fury

    1230 Words  | 3 Pages

    Visser, Irene. "Faulkner's 'The Sound and the Fury.' (William Faulkner)." The Explicator 52.3 (1994): 171+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 3 Feb. 2014.

    Read More

More about William Faulkner

Open Document