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Faulkner’s Old South

Faulkner’s Old South. The nuts don’t fall far from the tree. Biography 1897-1962. Born in Albany, Miss.; moved to Oxford, Miss at 5 Aristocratic Southern Family Rowan Oak (right above)

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Faulkner’s Old South

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  1. Faulkner’s Old South The nuts don’t fall far from the tree.

  2. Biography 1897-1962 • Born in Albany, Miss.; moved to Oxford, Miss at 5 • Aristocratic Southern Family • Rowan Oak (right above) • Great-Grandfather (right below) twice acquitted of murder, severe disciplinarian, dashing soldier, owner of RR, member of state legislature (model for Col.Bayard Sartoris)

  3. Bio cont. • Grandfather = lawyer, banker, U.S. attorney; explosive temper • Faulkner’s immediate family = Compson family • Faulkner’s father top right • Faulkner and his brother bottom right

  4. Faulkner’s beginnings • Poor student • Rejected by U.S. Army for WWI • Served in Canadian RAF (in uniform at right) • War ended before he could serve

  5. A Dubious Educational Career • Flunks out of Ole Miss • Fails English • Begins writing • Encouragement from Sherwood Anderson in New Orleans • He drew the picture lower right at Ole Miss for the Red and Blue Club

  6. Code of Honor of the Old South • Old families try to maintain pre-civil war way of life in spite of outcome of civil war • Deserve to fail, die because of the sins of the South • Whites must bear the burden of guilt of slavery

  7. On His Writing • From William Faulkner on the Web • “ . . . What is more intriguing, and at times frustrating, about this body of work is that he rewrote so much of it” • “One reason for such interrelatedness in Faulkner’s work is his conception of Yoknapatawpha County” • “You have to have somewhere to start from: then you begin to learn . . . . It don’t matter where it was, just so you remember it and ain’t ashamed of it” Sherwood Anderson

  8. Faulkner on his writing • “Beginning with Sartoris I discovered that my own little postage stamp of native soil was worth writing about and that I would never live long enough to exhaust it . . . . It opened up a gold mine of other peoples, so I created a cosmos of my own. I can move these people around like God, not only in space but in time too.”

  9. Yoknapatawpha County: Yes, you have to spell it correctly! • Mythical/actual, self-contained • Fictional world with all social, cultural levels • 24,000 sq. miles • 15,611 population of Indians, slaves, plantation owners, Civil War, WWI, WWII soldiers and vets, genteel old ladies, aristocracy, white trash, northern carpetbaggers

  10. Works • 1926 Soldier’s Pay: 1st novel about Lost Generation • 1929 Sartoris: Begins saga of Old South; uncritical account of Faulkner’s own family legend up to his own generation; source book for later novels; great grandfather • The Sound and The Fury: manipulates points of view (5); uses stream of consciousness of a 33-year old “idiot” named Benjy; decline of Old South; failure of love; absence of self-respect; generational conflict

  11. Works cont. • 1930 As I Lay Dying: stream-of-conscious; 15 speakers; Bundren family takes their dead mother on a burial journey; grieving, community, family issues threatened by flood and fire • 1932 Light in August; orphan Joe Christmas searches for his racial origins; Lena Grove searches for the father of her child; many circular journeys take place here

  12. Works cont. • 1936 Absalom, Absalom!: Race, gender, and past burdens; tells the story of the Suptens coming to Yoknapatawpha County and the “grand design” of their ancestor, Thomas • 1942: Go Down, Moses: the story of both black and white descendents of Lucius McCaslin; miscengenation; vanishing wilderness • 1954 A Fable: Wins the Pulitzer and National Book Award; allegory of WWI in France; Faulkner wrote it over 10 years; considered it his masterpiece

  13. Themes • Elementary Christian virtues of self-respect, mutual respect, forgiveness of self and others, courage and fortitude, proper balance between humility, pride and charity

  14. Themes cont. • Accepts Christian moral code but not admiring of practicing Christians • Despise literal-minded, righteousness; virtues and vices presented in black and white context of Old South • Evokes past and relates it to present through language and fictional world • Involved in long history of torment, suffering and anguish with endurance, dedication and love • “The problem with the human heart in conflict with itself.”

  15. Style • Stream of Consciousness • Scrambled chronology • Multiple pov • Began to be studied in 1946 • Won Nobel in 1950 (right) • Died 1962

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