William Faulkner

William Faulkner (1897—1962), ranks among the leading au­thors in American literature. He gained fame for his novels about the fictional «Yoknapatawpha County» and its county scat of Jefferson. Faulkner patterned the county after the area around his hometown, Oxford, Miss. He explored the county's geography, his­tory, economy, and social and moral life. Faulkner received the 1949 Nobel Prize for literature. He won Pulitzer Prizes in 1955 for «А Fable» and in 1963 for «The Reivers».

Faulkner's work is characterized by a remarkable range of tech­nique, theme, and tone. In «The Sound and the Fury» (1929) and «As I Lay Dying» (1930), he used stream-of-consciousness, in which the story is told through the seemingly chaotic thoughts of a char­acter. In «Requiem for a Nun» (1951), Faulkner alternated sections of prose fiction with sections of a play. In «А Fable» (1954), he created a World War I soldier whose experiences parallel the Pas­sion of Jesus Christ. Faulkner was skillful in creating complicated situations that involve a variety of characters, each with a different reaction to the situation. He used this technique to dramatize the complexity of life and the difficulty of arriving at truth.

The traditions and history of the South were a favorite Faulkner theme. «Sartoris» (1929) and «TheUnvanquished» (1938) tell the story of several generations of the Sartoris family. «The Reivers» (1962) is a humorous story of a young boy's adventures during a trip from Mis­sissippi to Memphis. Faulkner examined the relationship between blacks and whites in several works, including «Light in August» (1932); «Absalom, Absalom!» (1936); and «Go Down, Moses» (1942). Here, he was especially concerned with people of mixed racial background and their problems in establishing an identity.

Most of Faulkner's novels have a serious, even tragic, tone. But in nearly all of them, tragedy is profoundly mixed with comedy. Faulkner's comic sense was the legacy of Mark Twain and other earlier writers. Twain was a direct influence on him. «The Hamlet»

(1940), «The Town» (1957), and «The Mansion» (1959) make up the Snopes Trilogy. These novels form a tragicomic chronicle of the Snopes family and their impact on Yoknapatawpha County. Fauikner's short stories have the same range of technique, theme, and tone as his novels. His stories appear in «The Collected Stories of William Faulkner» (1950) and «The Uncollected Stories of Wil­liam Faulkner» (published in 1979, after his death).

Faulkner was born in New Albany, Miss., and spent most of his life in Oxford. He worked occasionally in Hollywood as a film scriptwriter from 1932 to 1954.

Many early critics ol Faulkner denounced his books for their emphasis on violence and abnormality. «Sanctuary» (1931), astory involving rape and murder, was most severely criticized. Later, many critics recognized that Faulkner had been criticizing the faults in society by showing them in contrast to what he called the «eternal verities». These verities are universal values such as love, honor, pity, pride, compassion, and sacrifice. Faulkner said it is the writer's duty to remind readers of these values.