William Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy
The mere name Faulkner often strikes fear into the hearts of readers of American literature. His constant variation in his prose style and sentences has baffled minds for nearly eight decades. Long sentences, which sometimes run for pages without punctuation of any sort, are his trademarks; he tried to express each idea to the fullest in his sentences. Oftentimes, the sheer difficulty encountered when reading his literature has turned many a reader away. Somehow, despite this, William Faulkner has been recognized as one of the greatest American writers of the Twentieth Century. He won the Pulitzer Prize for two of his novels, A Fable (1924), and The Reivers (1962), and he also received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1949. So why is his writing considered to be so good if so many people can't stand to read it? The answer lies in the thought behind and the background of his literature. Faulkner's writing strikes a chord in readers because of his attention to detail; his novels are not merely stories, but instead they are volumes of art.
Faulkner's deeply thought-out and well-described setting and characters allow readers to escape into the world of the Snopes family. Faulkner incorporated much of himself and even more of his surroundings into his novels. His home, Lafayette County, Mississippi, was the basis for his "fictional" setting of Yoknapatawpha County - the setting of the Snopes trilogy and several other novels.
Frenchman's Bend was the setting of much of The Hamlet. Lying along a bend in the river where an apparently successful plantation had once been, Frenchman's Bend became a small town in the post civil-war era. Faulkner's description of the area immediately ...
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...bursting point, embodies his goal to capture all aspects of experience, not to let anything escape." Faulkner certainly reached his goal; no other author has expressed his ideas more thoroughly than William Faulkner. Every sentence is a complete thought that carries the reader on an intellectual journey because the sentences take you through Faulkner's own mind - an achievement unequaled in literature.
Works Cited and Consulted
Kinney, A. Critical essays on William Faulkner: The Compson family. Boston: G.K. Hall. 1978.
Minter, D. William Faulkner: His life and work. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1980.
Volpe, E. A reader's guide to William Faulkner. New York: Nonday. 1964.
Faulkner, William. The Hamlet. New York: Random House, 1956.
-------- The Mansion. New York: Vintage, 1965.
-------- The Town. New York: Random House, 1974.
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.
In many of Faulkner’s stories, he tells about an imaginary county in Mississippi named Yoknapatawpha. He uses this county as the setting for his story “Barn Burning” and it is also thought that the town of Jefferson from “A Rose for Emily” is located in Yoknapatawpha County. The story of a boy’s struggle between being loyal to his family or to his community makes “Barn Burning” exciting and dramatic, but a sense of awkwardness and unpleasantness arrives from the story of how the fictional town of Jefferson discovers that its long time resident, Emily Grierson, has been sleeping with the corpse of her long-dead friend with whom she has had a relationship with.
By reading closely and paying attention to details, I was able to get so much more out of this story than I did from the first reading. In short, this assignment has greatly deepened my understanding and appreciation of the more complex and subtle techniques Faulkner used to communicated his ideas in the story.
Porter, Carolyn. "William Faulkner: Innocence Historicized." Seeing and Being: The Plight of the Participant Observer in Emerson, James, Adams, and Faulkner. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1981. Cited as rpt. in Bloom.
I believe that the authors of these texts are putting forward the message that true power is something that is innate in people, not something that can be achieved in the ways that the General, and Lucas Carle did. Where the power lies in a certain situation is not always where it first seems most obvious.
...s story he writes about how earlier in Emily’s life she refuses to let the town’s people in her house even though there is a strong odor that is coming from her property. In this section her father has just passed away and was abandoned by a man who she wanted to marry. This section she becomes very depressed. In section three it talks about how Emily is starting to come down with an illness after all of the depressing events she had to endure. In sections four and five Faulkner describes how there is fear throughout the towns people is that of which Emily is going to possibly poison herself. A while later she then she passes away. In section five is when the truth is revealed to the public about her sickness. Faulkner uses the view point of an unnamed town member while he uses a third person perspective to show the general corrosion of the southern town’s people.
Faulkner portrays the townspeople and Emily in the southern town of Jefferson during the late 1800's to early 1900's. The town is more than just the setting in the story; it takes on its own characterization alongside Emily the main character. It is the main reasoning behind Emily's attitude and actions. It gives the reader an easier understanding into why Emily makes the decisions she does as the story unwinds.
I will argue that the revised notion of power as a positive influence that is produced in communicative space, runs c...
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.
Any one who’s ever visited the south has a true appreciation for the writings of William Faulkner. Everything ever written by William Faulkner has a trace of the South that can be felt by just reading his words. Growing up in Mississippi, Faulkner was exposed to the Deep South and everything it had to offer, both good and bad. Through his writings, William tackles some of the most difficult issues of his time period and sheds light to the every day issues going on in the South. William Faulkner set the precedent for future generations, and he will arguably never be contested in his southern style. Without William Faulkner, American literature would be blind to the truth of the South and all its glory.
Brooks, Cleanth. "William Faulkner: Visions of Good and Evil." Faulkner, New Perspectives. Ed. Richard H. Brodhead. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey : Prentice-Hall, 1983.
In conclusion, the concept of power is something that has been around for as long as there have been people. And it will continue to be a part of society for as long as people
Kinney, Jean; Leaton, Gwen. Loosening The Grip. Mosby-Year Book, Inc., St. Louis, 1995. (Page 268).
Power is the ability to control or influence others, especially socially or politically. We often hear of the horror stories, in which corrupt dictators with too much power kill innocent citizens, eliminate all competition, and hurt others for personal gain. Power itself is not necessarily the bad thing here; it comes as an instinctive need to humans, rooted in the primal purpose of survival (Anchor text). The abuse of power leads to corruption. Power is an unstable force that can have positive or negative outcomes, depending on why it was sought and the attitude of those on the receiving end of the control.
power, in a struggle between man and beast. This purpose of this paper is not