William Faulkner The 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 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 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”

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.”