8/9/2019 Literary Influences on Faulkner

1/2

  Literary influences on Faulkner's style included Sherwood Anderson, Charles Baudelaire,Algernon Charles Swinburne, A.E. Housman, and Francois Villon. ut of a strong traditional a!!roach to !oetry and storytelling, Faul"ner created his own uni#ue literary style which utili$ed stream%of%

consciousness, multi!le &iew!oints &ery often e'!ressed by a character(s shift from conscious to

unconscious thought, and time shifts that aren(t always !resented se#uentially. Faul"ner used thisseemingly%chaotic style to wea&e a web of ideas together as it had ne&er been done before. )t allowed him

the ability to im!ress u!on readers his &iews on the themes of time, land, loyalty, and the human

condition.

  Absalom, Absalom! is considered to be one of Faul"ner(s most difficult no&els because of its com!le'narrati&e structure.

)n a sense, the story becomes !art of an oral tradition among the residents of *efferson and, as Shre&e

 becomes in&ol&ed, !eo!le li&ing beyond *efferson. +any of Faul"ner(s characteristic structuralinno&ations are em!loyed in Absalom, Absalom, such as long sentences, flashbac"s, and multi!le !oints%

of&iew describing the same e&ents. Because the narrati&e structure is so unusual, the reader is "e!t off 

 balance from the o!ening !ages to the end of the no&el and must learn how to read it as the boo" unfolds.

-here are four characters narrating the story, and a fifth omniscient narrator also occasionally s!ea"s to

the reader. -he challenge is often determining who is s!ea"ing at any gi&en time because Faul"ner switches from narrator to narrator without always signifying the change. .....

  Faulkner's writing is often critici$ed as being dense, meandering and difficult to understand due to his

hea&y use of such literary techni#ues as symbolism, allegory, multi!le narrators and !oints of &iew, non%linear narrati&e, and es!ecially stream of consciousness. Faul"ner was "nown for an e'!erimental style

with meticulous attention to diction and cadence, in contrast to the minimalist understatement of his !eer 

Ernest Hemingway.

  Along with +ar" -wain and !ossibly -ennessee illiams, Faul"ner is considered to be one of the most

im!ortant /Southern writers/. He was relati&ely un"nown before recei&ing the 0obel  Absalom, Absalom details the rise and fall of -homas Sut!en, a white man born into !o&erty in the

Virginias who comes to +ississi!!i with the twin aims of becoming rich and becoming a !owerful family

 !atriarch. -he story is told entirely in flashbac"s narrated mostly by 1uentin Com!son and by 2osaColdfield, with e&ents told in non%chronological order and often retold by different !eo!le with differing

details, resulting in a !eeling%bac"%the%onion way of re&ealing the true story of the Sut!ens to the reader.

2osa initially narrates the story, with long digressions and an a!!arently ha$y memory, to 1uentin

Com!son, whose grandfather was a friend of Sut!en3s. 1uentin(s father then fills in some of the details to1uentin, as well. Finally, 1uentin relates the story to his roommate at Har&ard 4ni&ersity, Shre&e, and in

each retelling, the reader recei&es more details as the !arties flesh out the story by adding layers.

  Li"e other Faul"ner no&els, Absalom, Absalom allegori$es Southern history5 the title itself is anallusion to a wayward son fighting the em!ire his father built. -he history of -homas Sut!en mirrors the

rise and fall of Southern !lantation culture. Sut!en(s failures necessarily reflect the wea"nesses of an

idealistic South. 2igidly committed to his /design,/ Sut!en !ro&es unwilling to honor his marriage to a

/blac"/ woman, setting in motion his own destruction.  A"in to the modern detecti&e story, Absalom, Absalom also 6u'ta!oses ostensible fact, informed

guesswor", and outright s!eculation, with the im!lication that any and all narrati&es%%any and all

reconstructions of the !ast%%remain irretrie&able and therefore imaginati&e.  By using &arious storytellers7narrators e'!ressing their inter!retations of the facts, it alludes to the

historical cultural $eitgeist of the old South, where the !ast is always !resent and constantly in states of 

re&ision by the !eo!le who tell and retell the story o&er time, which gi&e the story a strong magical%realistelement.

8/9/2019 Literary Influences on Faulkner

2/2