William Faulkner
William Faulkner (1897-1962)
Selected Stories
American
Modernism
Considered by many scholars to be the most distinguished writer of the 20th century, Faulkner was born in Oxford, Mississippi in 1897. He is mostly known for his novels and short stories, set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County in Mississippi. Both his novels and short stories confront the complexities of Southern culture, shaped by its heritage of slavery, the loss of the American Civil War, and continued struggles with racism through Jim Crow laws and the atrocities committed by the Ku Klux Klan. He is also keenly aware of the close ties of Southerners to the land and the ways that the old agrarian values continued to shape ideas about class in the South well into the 20th century. Faulkner draws on family histories as well as aspects of Southern gothic ghost stories in his novels, and most of his works explore the complex and troubled mix of race and sexuality in the South.
Most of his works were published in the 1920s and 30s, among which “A Rose for Emily” (1930) and “Barn Burning” (1939) are included here, but he was primarily known in America as a Southern writer until he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1942. His Nobel Prize acceptance speech is often reprinted for his optimistic declaration of the importance of art. After decrying the anxiety and pessimism that he felt characterized the literature of the period, Faulkner declared that humanity would prevail because of the strength of the human spirit: “The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by . . . reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”
Consider while reading:
- In “A Rose for Emily,” the story of Emily’s life and death is told through the voice of the townspeople. How does this technique affect the story and what we know and don’t know about Emily? How does it affect the timeline of the story, which is not told in chronological order?
- What elements in the story can be considered “gothic”?
- What is the significance of the “rose” in the title of the story? What connotations of the word are meaningful in the context of Emily’s life?
- In “Barn Burning,” why is burning a barn such a serious crime?
- How would you characterize Abner? Sarty? What is the primary problem between the two of them?
- Why does Sarty ultimately betray his father at the end of the story?
Written by Anita Turlington