Student Companion to William Faulkner (Student Companions to Classic Writers)

157 Pages·2007·0.83 MB·English

by  John Dennis Anderson

Student Companion to
William
Faulkner

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Student Companion to
William
Faulkner

John Dennis Anderson

Student Companions to Classic Writers

GREENWOOD PRESS
Westport, Connectcut • London

v

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Anderson, John D. (John Denns), 1954–
Student companon to Wllam Faulkner / John Denns Anderson.
p. cm.—(Student companons to classc wrters, ISSN 1522–7979)
Includes bblographcal references and ndex.
ISBN 978–0–313–33439–9 (alk. paper)
1. Faulkner, Wllam, 1897–1962—Crtcsm and nterpretaton—Handbooks,
manuals, etc. 2. Faulkner, Wllam, 1897–1962—Examnatons—Study gudes.
I. Ttle.
PS3511.A86Z577 2007
813'.52—dc22 2007025664

Brtsh Lbrary Catalogung n Publcaton Data s avalable.

Copyrght © 2007 by John Denns Anderson

All rghts reserved. No porton of ths book may be
reproduced, by any process or technque, wthout the
express wrtten consent of the publsher.

Lbrary of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007025664
ISBN-13: 978–0–313–33439–9
ISSN: 1522–7979

Frst publshed n 2007

Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An mprnt of Greenwood Publshng Group, Inc.
www.greenwood.com

Prnted n the Unted States of Amerca

The paper used n ths book comples wth the
Permanent Paper Standard ssued by the Natonal
Informaton Standards Organzaton (Z39.48–1984).

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

v

For Peter and Lochinvar

“So faithful in love”

v

v

Contents

Seres Foreword
x

Acknowledgments
x

1
Wllam Faulkner: A Southern Heart n Conflct wth Itself
1

2
Faulkner’s Lterary Hertage
9

3
The Unvanquished (1938) and Sartoris (1929)
19

4
The Sound and the Fury (1929)
31

5
As I Lay Dying (1930)
45

6
Light in August (1932)
61

7
Absalom, Absalom! (1936)
81

8
Short Fcton
99

Selected Bblography
115

Index
137

v

x

Series Foreword

Ths seres has been desgned to meet the needs of students and general
readers for accessble lterary crtcsm on the Amercan and world wrters
most frequently studed and read n the secondary school, communty col-
lege, and four-year college classrooms. Unlke other works of lterary crt-
csm that are wrtten for the specalst and graduate student, or that feature
a varety of reprnted scholarly essays on sometmes obscure aspects of the
wrter’s work, the Student Companons to Classc Wrters seres s care-
fully crafted to examne each wrter’s major works fully and n a systematc
way, at the level of the nonspecalst and general reader. The objectve s
to enable the reader to gan a deeper understandng of the work and to
apply crtcal thnkng sklls to the act of readng. The proven format for
the volumes n ths seres was developed by an advsory board of teachers
and lbrarans for a successful seres publshed by Greenwood Press, Crt-
cal Companons to Popular Contemporary Wrters. Respondng to ther
request for easy-to-use and yet challengng lterary crtcsm for students
and adult lbrary patrons, Greenwood Press developed a systematc format
that s not ntmdatng but helps the reader to develop the ablty to ana-
lyze lterature.
How does ths work? Each volume n the Student Companons to Clas-
sc Wrters seres s wrtten by a subject specalst, an academc who un-
derstands students’ needs for basc and yet challengng examnaton of the
wrter’s canon. Each volume begns wth a bographcal chapter, drawn

x

SerieS Foreword

from publshed sources, bographes, and autobographes, that relates the
wrter’s lfe to hs or her work. The next chapter examnes the wrter’s
lterary hertage, tracng the lterary nfluences of other wrters on that
wrter and explanng and dscussng the lterary genres nto whch the
wrter’s work falls. Each of the followng chapters examnes a major work
by the wrter, those works most frequently read and studed by hgh school
and college students. Dependng on the wrter’s canon, generally between
four and eght major works are examned, each n an ndvdual chapter.
The dscusson of each work s organzed nto separate sectons on plot
development, character development, and major themes. Lterary devces
and style, narratve pont of vew, and hstorcal settng are also dscussed
n turn f pertnent to the work. Each chapter concludes wth an alternate
crtcal perspectve from whch to read the work, such as a psychologcal
or femnst crtcsm. The crtcal theory s defined brefly n easy, compre-
hensble language for the student. Lookng at the lterature from the pont
of vew of a partcular crtcal approach wll help the reader to understand
and apply crtcal theory to the act of readng and analyzng lterature.
Of partcular value n each volume s the bblography, whch ncludes
a complete bblography of the wrter’s works, a selected bblography of
bographcal and crtcal works sutable for students, and lsts of revews of
each work examned n the companon, both from the tme the lterature
was orgnally publshed and from contemporary sources, all of whch wll
be helpful to readers, teachers, and lbrarans who would lke to consult
addtonal sources.
As a source of lterary crtcsm for the student or for the general reader,
ths seres wll help the reader to gan understandng of the wrter’s work
and skll n crtcal readng.

x

Acknowledgments

Ths book was made possble by the support of the Arts and Human-
tes Councl of Tulsa, Oklahoma, for a Chautauqua grant n 1995, and of
Emerson College for a sabbatcal leave n 2005–2006. Debra Adams of
Greenwood Press provded patent and encouragng edtoral gudance.
My sster Cheryl Clark’s reslance has been an nspraton. I am grate-
ful to Donne Crenshaw for sharng wth me hs enthusasm for Wllam
Faulkner’s work, to Carolyn and Frank Kosewsk for ther lovng support
of ther son-n-law, and, most of all, to Peter Kosewsk for sharng the
journey.

x

1

William Faulkner: A

Southern Heart in Conflict

with Itself

William Faulkner stated in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for
Literature that all that can make good writing is “the human heart in
conflict with itself.” Faulkner experienced major conflicts in his own life,
including the competing demands of art and the marketplace and those
of private and public life. He struggled much of his life for recognition as
a writer, and he did eventually achieve fame as one of America’s greatest
authors when he won the 949 Nobel Prize for Literature in 950. Six years
before, only one of his 7 books was still in print. Malcolm Cowley, a key
figure in the revival of interest in Faulkner in the late 940s, claimed that
“Faulkner performed a labor of imagination that has not been equaled in
our time,” making “his story of Yoknapatawpha County stand as a parable
or legend of all the Deep South” (Cowley, Portable Faulkner 2).

Faulkner lived his life deeply rooted in Lafayette County, Mississippi. In

his body of work, he transformed his native land through masterful verbal art
into the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. This “postage stamp” of land, of
which he declared himself the “sole proprietor,” is both a richly particularized
emblem of the American South and a universal microcosm of humanity.

William Cuthbert Falkner (he added the u later) was born September
25, 897, in New Albany, Mississippi, where his father Murry Falkner was
a passenger agent for the family railroad. Faulkner shared his given name
with his great-grandfather, William Clark Falkner (825–889), known as
the Old Colonel, a colorful figure: soldier, author, banker, and railroad

2

Student Companion to William Faulkner

developer. In the Civil War, this illustrious forebear was elected Colonel of
the 2nd Mississippi Infantry and fought conspicuously at the Battle of First
Manassas. In 889, he was killed in a duel immediately after being elected
to the Mississippi legislature. The Old Colonel served as the prototype
of Colonel John Sartoris in his great-grandson’s Yoknapatawpha saga. An
author as well, the Old Colonel also served as an inspiration for Faulkner’s
literary aspirations.

Faulkner was the oldest of four sons, and he remained close to his strong-

willed and artistic mother, Maud Butler Falkner, throughout his life, only
outliving her by two years. The family moved to Oxford, Mississippi, in
Lafayette County in 902 when Faulkner’s grandfather (known as the
Young Colonel) sold the family railroad. Thus losing a job he had loved,
Faulkner’s father turned to running a series of unsuccessful businesses (a
livery stable, a coal-oil agency, and a hardware store) before finding em-
ployment in the business office of the University of Mississippi, his last job.
Murry Falkner instilled in his son a love of horses and hunting, but his
relationship with his oldest son was not as close as Maud’s was with Billy
(as Faulkner was called in his youth).

A second, important maternal influence on Faulkner was Caroline

Barr, his black nanny whom the family called Mammy Callie. She came to
work for the Falkners in 902 and remained with William Faulkner until
her death in 940. Born a slave in the 840s, Mammy Callie nurtured in
him an understanding of the legacy of slavery and of the rich oral tradition
that linked the past with the present. Faulkner would model his characters
Dilsey Gibson in The Sound and the Fury and Molly Beauchamp in Go
Down, Moses upon Mammy Callie; he delivered her eulogy in 940.

Young Billy Faulkner dropped out of high school in Oxford (his lifelong
home) in 95, preferring to explore literature with his friend and mentor
Phil Stone, who was four years older and a 94 graduate of Yale. Stone in-
troduced Faulkner to the Romantic poetry of Keats and Swinburne and the
prose of such modernists as Conrad Aiken and Sherwood Anderson. When
Stone returned to Yale to study law, Faulkner visited him there in 98.

The trip north offered an escape for Faulkner from a disappointment

in love. His childhood sweetheart, Estelle Oldham, had succumbed to
family pressure and married Cornell Franklin in April of 98. Distraught,
Faulkner sought to enlist as a pilot in World War I. Rejected by the Amer-
ican military for being too short, he conspired with Phil Stone to pass
himself off as English (with an assumed accent and the addition of u to
his name) and to join the Royal Air Force in Canada. However, the war
ended before he completed training. On his return to Oxford, he affected
a limp that he claimed was the result of a plane crash (of which there is

William Faulkner

no evidence). As a special student, he took classes at the University of
Mississippi, where his affectations of dress and manners earned him the
nickname “Count No ‘Count.” He was acting out fictional personae, a tal-
ent he soon channeled into writing.

Faulkner’s first publication was a poem in The New Republic in 99. In
this period he wrote poetry in the styles of T. S. Eliot and of the decadent
French poets, as well as an experimental verse play, The Marionettes, that
he also illustrated in imitation of Aubrey Beardsley. While writing this
imitative apprentice work, he was content to support himself with odd
jobs, such as selling books, painting houses, and working as a postmas-
ter at the University of Mississippi who so neglected his job that he was
asked to resign in 924. He left for New Orleans and wrote sketches for the
Times-Picayune and The Double Dealer to earn passage for a six-month trip
to Europe in 925, spent mostly in Paris, where modernist and cubist art
fascinated him.

Faulkner’s friends helped him get his early work published. With Phil

Stone’s help, Faulkner published a book of pastoral poems called The
Marble Faun in 924. Through Stone, Faulkner had met the writer Stark
Young (also from Oxford), who had introduced him to Elizabeth Prall, the
future wife of Sherwood Anderson, in New York in 92. While visiting
Prall in New Orleans in 924, Faulkner became friends with Anderson,
who encouraged the publishing house of Boni and Liveright to publish
Soldiers’ Pay (926) and Mosquitoes (927), satirical treatments of wounded
veterans and bohemian artists, respectively. After the modest success of
these books, Faulkner was dismayed when, in 927, Horace Liveright flatly
rejected his third novel, Flags in the Dust, about an aristocratic Southern
family named Sartoris, saying it was too loosely plotted. Faulkner was so
discouraged that he was close to abandoning his writing career: “I think
now that I’ll sell my typewriter and go to work—though God knows, it’s
sacrilege to waste that talent for idleness which I possess” (Blotner, Selected
Letters 9).

Instead, he decided to write to suit only himself. “One day I seemed

to shut a door,” he later wrote, “between me and all publishers’ addresses
and book lists. I said to myself, Now I can write” (“Introduction for The
Sound and the Fury” 227). The result was his favorite among his works, his
“splendid failure,” the novel that he wrote his “guts out” to produce, The
Sound and the Fury (929). Never again was the experience of writing to
feel as ecstatic as it did to him with this tale of a beautiful doomed girl
named Caddy, told from four points of view.

With his next novel, As I Lay Dying (90), Faulkner was fully confi-

dent of his craft: “Sometimes technique charges in and takes command of