Strolling in the American Literature Garden [Part 16]

William Cuthbert Faulkner (1897-1962) was a master of modern Western fiction. He wrote short stories and novels, and won the Nobel Prize in 1950.

Writer William Cuthbert Faulkner.

Born into a Southern aristocratic family that fell into decline during the Civil War (1861-1865). He participated in World War I in the Canadian Air Force but did not fight directly.

His early works received little attention. He became famous with Sanctuary (1931). Most of his subjects dealt with the changes in the American South after the Civil War. Sartoris (1929) depicted the decline of the Southern aristocracy and the rise of a mediocre business class. In 1931, he moved to his own farm in Rawanoak and wrote August Light (1932), which dealt with the relationship between blacks and whites, denouncing extreme acts of racism. On the other hand, he had a somewhat patronizing attitude towards blacks. He lived like a farm aristocrat and did not want to call himself a writer.

Faulkner wrote many horror stories with unique nuances: The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Die (1930), Oh Absalom! Oh Absalom (1936). The Unconquerable (1938) presents many scenes and characters of the civil war. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, he declared against war and affirmed the humanist ideology of the writer. Towards the end of his life, his humanist ideology went further: A Fable (1954), against war; The House (1959), against fascism. Faulkner's ideology is fundamentally pessimistic. His characters are all victims of fate, all have to pay some debt from a previous life.

Faulkner's works feature characters with very American characteristics: Southern colonels, contented black men, and big-headed ruffians. Faulkner's metaphysical philosophy, which comes from the concept of sin and grace, fits well with the guilt complex of the culture after a devastating five-year war. The tragedy of humanity returning to savagery in war has created the sympathy of a community of "guilty people" seeking salvation, each individual repenting in his own way, for that common sin, sometimes he did not participate but was also a victim.

Faulkner weaves the themes of 20th-century human alienation and loneliness with the themes of the American South (the consequences of the burden of slavery, the relationship between white and black, the inability of the aristocracy to meet the demands of modern life). Faulkner also connects the ancient with the modern by bringing Greek tragedy - the role of fate - into detective stories.

Faulkner's writing style is sometimes "odd": complex structure, telling stories that often start at the end, using one name for many characters, avoiding naming and describing important events, throwing readers into confusing situations that they have to untangle themselves to understand, or telling at least two stories at once, specializing in using verbs in the present tense to revive the past, piling up adjectives, prolonging a sentence sometimes for pages, intentionally erasing time to express a "stream of consciousness" that often mixes the present, past, and future.

The Sound and the Fury is considered one of Faulkner's five or six masterpieces. The novel, a radical experiment in form and technique, tells the story of the breakdown of a Southern aristocratic family. Joyce's influence on the work is evident.

Sanctuary is a dark and profound investigation into the spontaneous process of evil. The story follows Temple, a 17-year-old schoolgirl who is possessed by Popeye. It is Temple's sexual advances that cause Popeye to rape her and kill a man who tried to defend her. Popeye is the scum of urban culture, but in some ways a product and victim of his social environment. Temple is both frightened and delighted: Popeye takes her to a brothel, and later at the trial for the rape and murder she witnessed, she stands by Popeye, falsely accusing an innocent man, Goodwin. In court, Benbowe Horace, a bootlegger, tries to defend Goodwin, but is ironically executed by the crowd for a murder he did not commit.

The Light of August, a novel that deals with the problem that Faulkner often concerned: society's classification of people according to race, creed, and origin. The main character, and victim, is Joe Christmas, who appears white but is actually half black. He has an affair with an unmarried woman named Joanna, whom the locals are suspicious of and have little sympathy for because she is from the Northeast. Joe eventually kills her and burns down her house. He is captured, castrated, and killed by the townspeople. Joanna suddenly becomes a white martyr, attacked and killed by a black man.

Oh Absalom! Oh Absalom! is a very unique work, typical of Faulkner's style, causing symbolic metaphysical resonances like Anglo-Saxon symbolic novels (Conrad, for example). The search delves into time, sometimes reminiscent of detective novels, many heavy scenes "materialize" the thoughts, emotions, and feelings in that hesitant search.

This novel can be considered the story of the downfall of the Sutpen family; it evokes many biblical stories, especially the story of Absalom, a prince who plots to kill his father, runs away, gets his hair caught in a tree branch and is killed, his father cries out in pity: “Oh Absalom! Oh Absalom!” This is the story of a personal fate linked to the history of the American South under the slave system.

The central character is Thomas Sutpen, the son of a poor white man who aspires to become a Southern aristocrat and build a wealthy family. During the Civil War, he is elected lieutenant colonel in the Union army. When he returns home, the plantation is deserted. Previously, his daughter Judith had a child with her lover Bon, who was a half-brother and half-black; his son killed Bon and ran away.

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