Faulkner: an American Romantic?

William Faulkner said, "To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi." Faulkner was a native southerner having been born in Mississippi in 1897. Without question he understood Mississippi at the point he began writing. Issues of racial and sexual politics saturate his work. When William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949 he donated a portion of the winnings for what would eventually become the PEN/Faulkner award for Fiction. He won two National Book Awards and two Pulitzer prizes. Since his death in 1962, Faulkner has had such diverse memorials as a "Faux Faulkner" contest (1989-2005) to a 22 cent postage stamp (1987). Faulkner is my favorite short story author second only to Edgar Allan Poe. The period of American Romanticism fascinates me and Faulkner draws upon the strengths of that period while infusing a Southern U.S. style.


A Rose for Emilyis my favorite Faulkner short story. The author himself stated he modeled his writing on the Romanticism period. A Rose for Emily brings Edgar Allan Poe to mind. The macabre suggestion that Miss Emily slept near Homer's corpse for forty years leaves the reader with an indelible impression. A Rose for Emily has several instances of foreshadowing. A notable occurrence is when Emily's father dies and for three days she refuses to give her father's body for burial. Miss Emily's devotion to her father is transferred to Homer and when he refuses her advances she refuses to accept it. Emily poisons Homer with rat poison and this time she is able to keep his body until after her death.

Dry Septemberexplores the claim that a black man named Will Mayes violated a white woman named Minnie Cooper. Dry September is, in my opinion, one of Faulkner's more challenging works as there is no satisfactory conclusion. The story begins in a dry, desolate environment during the month of September. The author is known for having sympathy for the plight of blacks and minorities so with this being set in Jefferson, Mississippi perhaps he is demonstrating racial relationships in the setting. Dry September shows indifference to the plight of blacks by the statement the bloody September twilight, aftermath of sixty-two rainless days, it had gone like a fire in dry grass---the rumor, the story, whatever it was. Some of the townsfolk planned a lynch mob based on "whatever it was."

That Evening Sun is also set in Jefferson, Mississippi. The narrator is named Quentin and he is writing about his memories from fifteen years before. That Evening Sun shows the white characters' indifference of the black Nancy's plight. Nancy is pregnant with a baby not belonging to Jubah and is afraid of being killed. Nancy suffers an apparent nervous breakdown with the then nine year old Quentin, seven year old Caddy, and five year old Jason present. When father arrives to pick the children up Quentin asks, "Who will do our washing?" while Caddy and Jason continue an argument about Jason's fear. The reaction is painfully ambivalent toward Nancy.

William Faulkner demonstrated an awareness of the plight many people faced during a time it was uncommon to do so. He was an American, Southern author with an attraction to Romanticism'"the perfect combination.