William Faulkner and the Civil War

William Faulkner was able to achieve what no man before him and few men after him were able to do. He not only wrote some of the most important and influential American literature in history; he spun stories that depicted to the world the inner workings of the Southern mentality. Faulkner pioneered many literary as well as psychological fronts in a way that is unmatched even today. William Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 and twice the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, once in 1955 and then again in 1963(Minter). Faulkner’s works, although now uncommonly read by American youths, show not only the socioeconomic aspects of rural life in the South but also a way of life and a collection of mindsets still affecting Southern culture, views, practices, and even everyday life.

Born on September 25, 1897, to Murry Cuthbert Faulkner and Maud Butler Faulkner, in New Albany, near Oxford, Mississippi, where he spent most of his life, William Faulkner became one of the most influential authors in American literature (Minter). Faulkner spent his childhood listening to stories told by family and neighbors. Most of these stories revolved around his prominent great-grandfather, “The Colonel”, who was a Civil War hero and the owner of a plantation. In response to these stories, William Faulkner invented a fictitious county which showed the world the effect that the past was having, and some would say is still having, on the Deep South and the population and social classes thereof. Many residents of Oxford and surrounding towns often stated how they remembered hearing under different pretenses almost every story told within the bindings of Faulkner’s novels.

During Faulkner’s schoolyard years, although athletic, he was often dis...

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...iterature. He is also artfully skillful at giving the world a glimpse of insight into the macabre and taboo that is often ignored when taking an outside viewpoint of a person’s life. Faulkner’s many talents as an author have led to numerous awards and have solidified his place as one of the most influential and noteworthy authors in American literary history.

Works Cited

“Novelist William Faulkner Was Born.” Novelist William Faulkner was Born. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.

“William Faulkner – Biographical.” William Faulkner – Biographical. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2014

Minter, David. “William Faulkner.” American National Biography (from Oxford University Press): Research Starters. Web. 18 Apr. 2014

Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom! New York: Modern Library, 1951. Print.

Faulkner, William. Light in August: The Corrected Text. New York: Vintage, 1990. Print.