WILLIAM FAULKNER

UNIVERSAL TRUTH

You truly can’t interact with a book or story unless you know about the author.

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HOMETOWN:

Oxford, Mississippi

1897-1962

Originally called

Billy Falkner

Dropped out of school in the 11th grade.

He stood 5’5 1/2” tall, but he was a giant in the literary world.

His stature or height may have influenced him and his writing.

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He was taught by his family to be very proud. The townspeople nicknamed him “Count No Count” because they thought he was stuck up.

After dropping out of school, he became the postmaster. He was fired because he read instead of working.

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After losing his job as the postmaster, he took a position as a Boy Scout Leader.

He was fired from this job for “moral” reasons – he was drinking on the job!

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Click icon to add picture World War I began when Faulkner was 17 years old.

Faulkner was rejected by the military because he was too short to fly.

But he really wanted to join the military, so….

Falkner left America and joined the Canadian Royal Air Force (RAF).

Because of the European feel of Canada, Billy Falkner changed his name to William and added the ‘u’ to his last name.

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Because of his military service, he was accepted to Ole Miss. They considered his military background to be sufficient education even without a high school diploma.

He stayed at Ole Miss for three months and dropped out.

Faulkner wanted to be a poet.

Sherwood Anderson, a novelist and short story writer told him that he was failing at writing but was a talented writer. He told him to take his little patch and write about it.

He also encouraged him to abandon poetry for fiction – look for elements of poetry in Faulkner’s writing.

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Click icon to add picture William Faulkner first went to Hollywood in 1932 because his income as a novelist was woefully insufficient to maintain his increasing number of dependents.

As a screenwriter in 1932, William Faulkner earned $6,000 in salary and rights for a story, a substantial amount of money at the time. This would be approximately $120,000 in salary today. He worked as a screenwriter for a decade.

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Click icon to add picture SANCTUARY (1931), dedicated to Sherwood Anderson for services rendered, was according to the author "deliberately conceived to make money." In the story a young woman is raped by a murderer. She finds sanctuary in a brothel. In these and the following works Faulkner experimented with methods of narration, using page-long sentences, and forcing the reader to hold in mind details and phrases that are meaningful only at the end of the story.

This story is very graphic in its depiction of material that many of the time would have considered obscene.

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Faulkner continued to have issues with drinking. He was an alcoholic.

He had the remarkable ability to refrain from drinking while he was writing a book.

He would go on a binge once he finished the project.

Faulkner died of alcoholism in a sanitorium.

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Faulkner took Sherwood Anderson’s advice and wrote about his own little patch – Mississippi.

He was very disliked in his hometown, because his neighbors saw themselves in his writing.

He was also criticized for his portrayal of the black man in his writing. Keep in mind he was writing about Mississippi during the Civil Rights Era.

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W.E.B. du BoisThe first African-American graduate of Harvard University, where he earned his Ph.D. in History, Du Bois later became a professor of history and economics at Atlanta University. He became the head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910, becoming founder and editor of the NAACP's journal The Crisis. Du Bois rose to national attention in his opposition of Booker T. Washington’s ideas of social integration between whites and blacks, campaigning instead for increased political representation for blacks in order to guarantee civil rights, and the formation of a Black elite that would work for the progress of the African American race.

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W.E.B. duBois disagreed with Faulkner’s treatment of the south and his portrayal of what it was like.

He challenged Faulkner to a debate on the steps of the courthouse in the town where Emmett Till died.

Faulkner’s Reply:

“There is not one thing we disagree about. Therefore, there can be no debate.”

Faulkner believed that segregation could not be forced upon the south without destroying the society.

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Click icon to add picture Faulkner is considered a Modernist writer.

Modernism began when writers started breaking all the rules.

Faulkner is known for his characterization.

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CHALLENGE:

How many of these can you spot in “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner?

Characteristics of Modernism: Multiple narrators Not ordered chronologically a reaction against Realism a break with traditional forms rejects society: traditional values and

assumptions a sense of alienation, of loss, and of despair emphasis on the individual and inner being

rather than the social being celebrates passion and will over reason and

morality asserts that individuals create the world in

the act of perceiving it discusses the inadequacy of words and

language a movement toward character complexity experiments with language a distortion of perception a rejection of causality and plot; unordered,

discontinuous narratives

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Noun1. A person's thoughts and conscious reactions to events, perceived as a continuous flow.

2. A literary style in which one's thoughts and feelings are depicted in a continuous and uninterrupted flow.