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...

“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...

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...

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...

“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...

Although most men and women recognize how traditional gender roles dictate their actions in hopes of being accepted into society, very few can claim that they have been completely exiled from their community because they appear too “masculine” or...

Joe Christmas is a walking contradiction in the Southern society in which he resides. Throughout Light in August, central character Joe Christmas experiences many factors that contribute to his inability to form substantial relationships with...

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...

William Faulkner was born in 1897 in Mississippi to Murry Cuthbert and Maud Butler Faulkner. At a young age, William learned to be self-reliant by fending for himself. This experience in his childhood thus is believed to have significantly...

William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” is a story of a boy coming to terms with the conflicting expectations of a just society and his place in his family. While that may not seem like too hard a balance to keep, his father does not like society the...

In the words of Oscar Wilde, "The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves." Conflict between the "well-bred" people and their "wise" counterparts satiates William Faulkner's short stories "A Rose for Emily" and "Barn...

Us and the Other: Humanity in William Faulkner's The Bear

William Faulkner's short novel The Bear is a rich story of characters going through rites of passage to understand themselves in the context of the Other. The Other is represented by...

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...

The past plays a large role in William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, as well as in Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Both short stories involve women who bring up – and sometimes focus on – the past and how the world used to be....

Being the son of a pyromaniac involves a vast amount of trust and requires protecting the family at all costs. In William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning,” Colonel Sartoris “Sarty” Snopes, son of the pyromaniac Abner Snopes, is a young boy who must make...

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold and William Faulkner’s "Dry September" are very similar to each other structurally and thematically, despite being separated by fifty years and a regional and linguistic barrier. They both use...

Communities normally yield an exclusively physical connection that may not cause any emotional impact. American modernist William Faulkner incisively outlines this situation one of his short stories, in which the protagonist is continuously...

In William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, first person narration is used in order to focus on Emily Grierson, a recluse who has captured the attention of the townspeople, and dictates the conversation, gossip, and action of the city. Faulkner uses a...

In a certain Nobel Prize acceptance speech delivered in Stockholm in 1950, William Faulkner famously declines to accept the end of man. Elaborating, Faulkner goes on to promise that “man will not merely endure: he will prevail.” This faith, he...

When love is apparent in a relationship, individuals are willing to make sacrifices for their loved ones. While no relationship is perfect, some are inherently grounded in an unwillingness to make sacrifices for each other; in this regard,...

Often criticized for its sensationalism, melodramatic qualities, and its play on the supernatural, the Gothic novel dominated English literature from its conception in 1764 with the publication of The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole to its...

Aubrey Binder's “Uncovering the Past: The Role of Dust Imagery in a Rose For Emily'” explains that the motifs of dust and decay are very important and prominent in Faulkner's story. Binder’s arguments for the motifs are strong, especially for the...

In The Bear, William Faulkner uses specific depictions of the wilderness and the main characters of Ben, Ike, and Sam Fathers to represent much more than just a group of guys going on a bear hunt once a year. At first, this book seems like a...

Roald Dahl and William Faulkner explore the curious connection between love and death through their tales of passion-induced murder. Dahl's "The Landlady" and Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" are remarkably similar, but diverge on key elements of the...