William Faulkner

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William Faulkners As I Lay Dying
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William Faulkner (1897-1962)My requirements for
writing paper, tobacco, food, and a little
whiskey

• Grew up in Oxford Mississippi in a
  long-established Mississippi family
• Uncle a colonel in the Confederate army
• Familys roots in the Old South furnish him with
  settings, themes, and cultural identity for
  sixteen novels and many short stories
• His work is decidedly southern

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Faulkners Writing

• Began writing after he was in WWI
• Won both Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize
• Created Yoknapatawpha County a fictional place
  in MI
• A microcosm of the American South both
  Ante-bellum and Post-bellum

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Fictional Yoknapatawpha County

• Although Fictional, Faulkner gave it credibility,
  supplying a physical place and a census count
• Location used in several of his novels
• Near the real Yocona River in Mississippi

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Crossing the Yocona River in 1900
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The American South and As I Lay Dying

• The loss of the Civil War shaped the mentality
  and outlook of all southerners
• In Faulkners writing, the history of the south
  is a tragedy which must be addressed
• The novel asks How do people deal with
  devastation and degeneration in their lives?
• Like the death of a loved one, a mother or wife,
  war also causes immense upheaval
• The novel is not about the Civil War rather it
  is about the manner in which people deal with
  adversity in their lives it is about the Human
  Experience

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Faulkners Style in As I Lay Dying

• Written in stream of consciousness form
• Reader hears a characters thoughts
• Faulkner never directly comments, describes, or
  explains
• Novel comprised of 59 monologues by 15 different
  characters
• Dream-like writing often disjointed, distorted,
  and seemingly illogical
• Readers must piece the story together in a
  puzzle-like fashion
• Tale of a journey nothing impedes the
  straightforward movement of plot to its
  destination-Jefferson and the burial of Addie