William Faulkner Essays

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

The Sound and the Fury

As difficult to read as William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury proves to be, there are still characteristics to the story that are obvious or obviously out of place. Arguably, just such a characteristic or character would be Mrs. Bland, mother...

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

The Sound and the Fury

The suicidal eldest, the special needs middle child, and the youngest, incapable of love: these are the three Compson brothers, each haunted by their own demons and howling for everything they have lost. In his novel The Sound and the Fury,...

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The Sound and the Fury

When the Civil War ended, the Southern countryside and its people were crippled nearly beyond all hope. Of the most dramatic decline, Southern aristocrats took the cake. Before the war, the first half of the nineteenth century saw the rise of a...

The Unvanquished

The appearance of guns in Bayard's story in The Unvanquished personify turning points in his life, and each of these events holds remarkable significance in the journey as a whole. Bayard's encounters with firearms parallel his journey from...

11th Grade

Selected Short Stories

William Faulkner uses his short stories to tell a tale of corruption, especially through the acceptance of white culture, and “A Justice” is no different. He writes his protagonist, Doom, as growing increasingly evil at the same time as his...

College

Selected Short Stories

In William Faulker's short story "Barn Burning", a struggle erupts when Abner Snopes expects his son, Colonel Sartoris, to ignore his personal moral obligations in order to protect the family honor after a crime is committed. In their small town...

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...