William Faulkner Essays

12th Grade

Light In August

In both novels, All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy and Light in August by William Faulkner, a central theme of heroism and the expectations placed on the two main characters and other’s surrounding them is presented as a pivotal point for...

College

Absalom, Absalom

“Noah’s children had inherited the flood although they had not been there to see the deluge” (Go Down, Moses 276). This sense of doom follows through five of the major novels written by William Faulkner set in his mythic Yoknapatawpha County. Doom...

College

Light In August

Regarded as the most prominent writer from the South, William Faulkner spent his entire writing career building stories that both speak of human nature and of the nature of his homeland. In Faulkner’s large volume of work, he goes about exploring...

12th Grade

Light In August

In William Faulkner's novel Light in August, Joe Christmas is often depicted to be an almost Christ-like figure. There are many thematic similarities between the struggles Christmas goes through during his lifetime, and the struggles braved by...

12th Grade

Light In August

“He looked like a phantom, a spirit, strayed out of its own world, and lost,” (114) can easily be regarded as one of the most impactful lines in William Faulkner’s Light in August. A very prominent theme throughout the novel is identity, which the...

College

Light In August

William Faulkner came from an American South background and in his time, wrote a number of novels that featured themes of patriarchal power and struggles caused by race. Joe Christmas plays an unusual role in Light in August – in him, Faulkner...

College

Light In August

William Cuthbert Falkner started his life on September 25, 1897, in Mississippi. He was born into a prominent family, who owned banks and a railroad. Mammy Callie, his childhood nurse, was a major contributor to his works. The stories she would...