William Faulkner

William Faulkner was an American writer of novels, short stories, and screenplays. He is regarded as one of the most important writers of the twentieth century, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949.

Early Life

Faulkner was born in 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi, and grew up in Oxford, Mississippi. His family had a history in the region and provided material for his fiction.

He served in the Canadian air force during the First World War, although he did not see combat. He studied at the University of Mississippi and worked as a postmaster.

He travelled to New Orleans and to Europe and began to write poetry and fiction. He was encouraged by Sherwood Anderson.

Yoknapatawpha County

Faulkner set most of his fiction in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, modelled on the region around Oxford. The county has its own history, geography, and families.

The saga includes the Compson, Sartoris, Snopes, and Sutpen families. The novels are interconnected and form a chronicle of the South.

The Sound and the Fury, published in 1929, is his first major novel. It describes the decline of the Compson family through four different narrators.

The Major Novels

As I Lay Dying, published in 1930, describes the journey of a family to bury its matriarch. The novel is told through the monologues of fifteen characters.

Light in August, published in 1932, treats the themes of race and of identity. Absalom, Absalom!, published in 1936, explores the history of the Sutpen family and the legacy of the Civil War.

The Snopes trilogy, comprising The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion, chronicles the rise of a poor white family. Go Down, Moses treats the relations between the races.

Style and Technique

Faulkner's style is characterised by long and complex sentences, by multiple narrators, and by the disruption of chronology. He was influenced by the modernist experiments of Joyce and of Woolf.

He used the stream of consciousness and the interior monologue to present the inner lives of his characters. The narrators are often unreliable and limited in their understanding.

His themes include the legacy of slavery, the decline of the old order, and the endurance of the human spirit. He wrote about the South with a mixture of love and of criticism.

Hollywood and Later Life

Faulkner worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood for many years. He contributed to films such as To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep.

He received the Nobel Prize in 1949 and the Pulitzer Prize for A Fable and for The Reivers. He was a writer in residence at the University of Virginia.

He married Estelle Oldham and had a daughter, Jill. He died in 1962 in Byhalia, Mississippi, and was buried in Oxford.

Legacy

Faulkner is regarded as one of the greatest American novelists. His influence on later writers, including García Márquez and Morrison, has been profound.

His work is studied for its formal innovation and for its treatment of race and of history. The Yoknapatawpha saga is one of the most ambitious projects in American literature.

He is remembered for his literary experimentation and for his moral seriousness. His novels continue to be read and to be interpreted.

The Poetry and the Early Work

Faulkner began as a poet and published The Marble Faun in 1924. The poetry was influenced by the symbolists and by the English poets.

He wrote Soldiers' Pay and Mosquitoes, novels that were influenced by his reading of Anderson and of the modernists. The works were not successful.

He wrote Flags in the Dust, which was published in an edited form as Sartoris. The novel introduced the Sartoris family and the themes of the Yoknapatawpha saga.

The Snopes Trilogy

The Hamlet, published in 1940, describes the arrival of the Snopes family in Frenchman's Bend. The Town, published in 1957, and The Mansion, published in 1959, continue the chronicle.

The trilogy traces the rise of Flem Snopes and the destruction of the old families. The works treat the themes of greed, of ambition, and of social change.

The trilogy is a comic and a satirical work. It is one of the most ambitious of his projects.

The Short Stories

Faulkner wrote more than a hundred short stories. The collections include These Thirteen and Go Down, Moses.

A Rose for Emily and Barn Burning are among the most anthologised of American stories. They treat the themes of the Southern past and of the conflict between the generations.

The stories are set in the Yoknapatawpha County and in the South. They provide a picture of the region and of its people.

The Nobel Prize and the Later Years

Faulkner received the Nobel Prize in 1949 and delivered an address that called on the writer to help man endure by lifting his heart. The address is one of the most famous of the ceremonies.

He was appointed to the State Department's cultural exchange programme and travelled abroad. He was a writer in residence at the University of Virginia.

He was awarded the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The Legacy

Faulkner's influence on the later novelists of the South and of Latin America has been profound. He is regarded as one of the greatest of American writers.

His work is studied for its formal experimentation and for its treatment of race, of history, and of memory. The Yoknapatawpha saga is a landmark of American literature.

The Faulkner Society and the University of Mississippi preserve his legacy. His home, Rowan Oak, is a museum.

See also

• Southern literature
• Stream of consciousness