WilliamFaulknerWilliam

FaulknerThe UnvanquishedThe Unvanquished

William Faulkner• a native of Mississippi

• a product of the Reconstruction and eyewitness to the changing South of the 20th century

• Faulkner’s world is transcendent -- it represents a chronicle of a very particular place and time, yet it speaks to all humanity

• Faulkner is one of few American novelists to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature

• others include Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and, most recently, Toni Morrison

Faulkner’s HomeFaulkner’s Home

Faulknerian Style• Faulkner is best-labeled a MODERNIST -- a writer

who is consciously attempting to do new things

• his writing is characterized by the following elements:• complex sentence structure frequented by

commas, dashes, semicolons, and parentheses

• sophisticated vocabulary

• a fascination with psychology -- often manifested in a stream-of-consciousness narrative

• experimentation with a non-linear narrative -- this means that Faulkner is filled with flashbacks and (seeming) tangents

• stories that end, but don’t necessarily conclude

Faulkner’s WorldFaulkner’s World

Yoknapatawpha County

• all but five of Faulkner’s works are set in his fictional world of Yoknapatawpha County

• County Seat: Jefferson

• originally inhabited by the Chickasaw Tribe; settled by Europeans in 1811

• bounded on the north by the Tallahatchie River and on the south by the Yoknapatawpha River

• Population: Whites, 6298; Negroes, 9313

• Significant families: Sartoris, Compson, Benbow, Bundren, Grierson, and Snopes

“Ole Miss”“Ole Miss”

Faulkner Quotes• “...my mother used to say that the reason for living was to

get ready to stay dead a long time.”

• “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

• “Between grief and nothing, I will take grief.”

• “I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.”

• “The basest of all things is to be afraid.”

• “To live anywhere in the world and be against equality because of race or color is like being in Alaska and being against the snow.”

• “Unless you are ashamed of yourself now and then, you’re not honest.”

• “Words don’t ever fit what they are trying say at.”

• “How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.”