It was on September 25, 1897 that one of America’s most innovative writers was born. William Cuthbert Faulkner was born and raised in Mississippi and it is here that he would begin his journey to literary greatness. He was the oldest of four boys born to Murray Charles Falkner and Maud Butler Falkner. His passion for writing blossomed from his grandfather’s love of writing. In the third grade, a young William Faulkner was quoted saying: “I want to be a writer like my great-granddaddy” (Minter, 755).
Remaining in the South, Faulkner began studying literature at the University of Mississippi while writing comic strips for “The Scream” magazine. Later leaving the university without a degree in 1920, he would later write: “What an amazing gift I had: uneducated in every formal sense, without even very literate, let alone literary, companions, yet to have made the things I made” (William (Cuthbert) Faulkner). This would be the identical thought of many Americans that have had the pleasure to read his work. Overall, William Faulkner’s writing was most significantly influenced by his Southern environment and his constructed Southern upbringing.
For the majority of his life, Faulkner lived in Oxford, Mississippi and his parents held many of the constant Southern traditional mindsets. As a child, his father would take him and his siblings to places associated with men such as: the livery stable, the train station, the courthouse square, and they studied wildlife in the big woods and open fields of the countryside (American Writers, 525). Southern values included keeping a definite, masculine attitude for men and these father-son activities would assist in solidifying this concept.
One Southern idea that Faulkner did at times oppose was the stance on equality. It is a common perception that the traditional Southern stance on equality is anything but equal and fair since Southern pride is a stance noted more frequently and prominently. However, Faulkner seemed to be taking a position that stood for equality. Many of his novels include situations in which he can express his negativity toward any discrimination of class, gender, and/or race. Classism, racism, and misogyny were three themes that Faulkner would openly oppose within the context of his literature.
During his childhood, Faulkner would spend a lot of time standing around silently, listening, while other children played (Minter, 756). This silent, observational personality would remain throughout his life. In fact, many people would credit this social wall to be a necessary provider of space for contemplation and creativity. Faulkner’s literature contains sentences that seem to hypnotize the reader and tend to stray the reader from information in a frustratingly brilliant manner. His literature was recurrently maze-like, but this was deliberately. People find that his ideas and beliefs are well-hidden, just as his personality had conveyed. Only during Faulkner’s brief stay in New Orleans, was he active in a literary circle, which, in effect, means that he played no personal role either in the development of the literary movement known as “modernism” or in the emergence of the “Southern Renaissance” (Minter, 759). Just as he had avoided being grouped socially, he again attempted to be void of any general, literary classifications.
In May 1929, William Faulkner finished writing Sanctuary which is highly regarded as his most brutal and angriest novel. The next month, he married a childhood friend that he had always longed to be with, Estelle Oldham. Typically, anger in light of marriage seems like an odd concept but when you take into consideration these circumstances, it’s expected. William and Estelle had a rough marriage, to say the least. Throughout his life, he received frequent rejections that would plunge him into deep depression. The most prominent rejections had to be courtesy of Estelle who at first refused to be with him. Even during their marriage, Faulkner was never able to completely put their troubled past behind him. “First, Faulkner continued to resent Estelle’s early rejection of him and, with it, his sense of belatedness as her lover” (Minter, 759). This may perhaps be the most powerful impact of Faulkner’s introverted spirit; he seems to unhealthily keep all of his true feelings bottled up. This is in fact another trait that may stem from his Southern roots in that it is not the traditional action of a man to, as they say, open up.
Due to marital problems, Faulkner turned to alcohol. Estelle would turn to drug abuse and the two then became consumed with abusive substances rather than pertinent issues such as their marriage and children. Faulkner looks to drown out his sorrows and stresses with a drink, but always made sure people knew it was not for creative purposes. He remained level headed whenever he wrote; believing alcohol did not positively affect the creative process. However, when it came to the daily pressures of life, he would never shy away from a drink or two. When considering the circumstances, it seems as though Faulkner’s dark writing stems from personal experience and is, in some instances, justified in totality. His writing served as an outlet for his emotions leading to a dark style of writing. Faulkner’s work seemed to provide a fascination with murder, rape, suicide, incest, and an all-around general depravity that existed only in the mind of the author.
During his childhood, Faulkner had a major admiration for his great-grandfather, but as he grew older, he began his separation from him. The most significant and obvious separation from his great-grandfather had to be the re-addition of the “u” in his last name. Years ago, his great-grandfather, William Clark Falkner, removed the “u” from Faulkner and as young William tried to form his own identity, he placed the “u” back into its former position (American Writers, 526). William Clark Faulkner was a Colonel in the army and his family often referred to him as the “Old Colonel”. The position of Colonel is a pivotal role in many of Faulkner’s works including: “A Rose for Emily”, A Light in August, Absalom, Absalom, and others. Faulkner would later observe that his great-grandfather had lived “like a living force” (Minter, 755).
In an attempt to follow in his great-grandfather’s footsteps, he began a period of his life in which he relentlessly struggled to join the army. Listed at 5’5″, the army rejected him for being too short (William (Cuthbert) Faulkner). This is an emasculation for Faulkner, which is tough especially since he was raised on those Southern values that put much emphasis on masculinity. He would then enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RAF) but would never actually engage in combat during the WWI. Later on, Faulkner, being the storyteller that he is, would still often discuss how his plane was gunned down in France.
Faulkner’s identity as a writer seemed to be constructed by the use of his social environment. While he seemed to lack some crucial social skills, he did manage to maintain some core of family values. He would often incorporate his family and his family’s traditions into his novels. In the novel The Sound and the Fury, the grandmother is nicknamed “Damuddy.” This is in fact the real nickname of Faulkner’s own grandmother. She also embodies the same strong-willed nature as the character in the novel. Another example of Faulkner’s personal sentiments in his writing would be the incorporation of his family values. “‘Don’t Complain-Don’t Explain’ was the message Maud Faulkner hung above the stove in her kitchen, and it was a motto she lived by and sought to imprint on the minds of her sons” (American Writers, 525) and this was a motto that seemed to loom about William Faulkner’s ideas when writing about any family relations.
Often throughout his life, Faulkner would seem to have no true direction in life and was caught moving from job to job, frantically. His still pursued a writing career at all times, but it seemed that the daily pressures of life were not going to let that dream occur. The most notable of jobs for William Faulkner had to have been his job working as a post-master that lasted for three years. In truth, Faulkner was a terrible post-master; turning in mail late, if at all. The reason he would have delayed deliveries and such was due to his time spent writing. He was constantly consumed in the written word, giving him no time for his real job. Though it may seem like a terrible job for William Faulkner to do, it does prove well for his writing. Many of his novels and poems contain references, mostly symbolism, to his post-master job. For example in “A Rose for Emily”: he uses the symbol of a stamp. Also, when referring to the history, geography, and folkways of North Mississippi, he calls it his: “own little postage stamp of native soil” (Minter, 757).
William Faulkner has always been attributed as a writer that was “bringing the past into the present” (American Writers, 535). Throughout his adult-life, he seemed to possess a longing for his childhood. “In an attempt to create a saga of his own, Faulkner has invented a host of characters typical of the historical growth and subsequent decadence of the South… Their theme is the decay of the old South” (William Faulkner); and as we find, many of Faulkner’s literature contains themes that express his desire to maintain the strength of the South. Minter writes about Faulkner: “both lives lived and tales were, for Faulkner, surrounded and impacted by other lives and other tales, but within lives and tales the balance between repetition and revision differed” (758). For example, he expresses tenderness for the children in The Sound and the Fury but he had to direct them toward painful ways of living to help teach. Within the tale, only repetition could teach the lesson. There was a confusion of interpretation; however, it was evident that Faulkner was clearly attempting to cleanse the corrupted South. A Southerner at heart, Faulkner knew they had lost their values and his novels tried to alert other Southerners that a change was in desperate need. In The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner writes: “Don’t you know it’ll take more than a eighteen year old nigger to make Queenie run away” (10). Though he often stressed equality, he was well aware of prejudices and openly discussed them. “And finally, the South did these things while living within a nation accustomed to thinking of itself as fundamentally good and innocent” (American Writers, 524). No one was more aware than Faulkner when it came to the mind of the South. He understood the regional hypocrisy that the South had developed and was determined to revise their Southern ideals. One surprising fact is: despite the theme of the South within his work, Faulkner’s novels continued to receive the majority of its praise in European countries (American Writers, 524).
A notable benchmark for William Faulkner’s writing would be his great discovery. His great discovery is associated with his discovery of Yoknapatawpha County while writing Flags in the Dust. Yoknapatawpha County is “an imaginary county… that he thought of as an analogue to the world he had observed and heard about, and after his fashion had studied, all of his life” (Minter, 757). People generally associate this county as Faulkner’s “dream world.” Flags in the Dust, or Sartoris (the edited version released two years afterwards), is the first glimpse we receive of the county. Colonel Sartoris, of course, was being molded to be his great-grandfather, or the “Old Colonel.” “In his great novel, The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner takes his investigation of Yoknapatawpha County to more profound levels. Playing with the notions of memory and repetition” (Bloom, 11). He helps clarify values of the county, or the South, with memories and experience, which are most likely his very own.
One cannot stress the importance of environment in the shaping of one’s character throughout their life, especially when you consider William Faulkner. His surroundings seem to be proportional to his behavior, as you can clearly observe, paying attention to the way he discusses the post-Civil War/post-Reconstruction Era South with a nostalgic tone just as you would suspect from any Southern man or woman. He would visit his past frequently, taking up old habits, and venturing to familiar places. These visits seemed to give William Faulkner a sense of calm in a life clouded with pressures. On July 6, 1962, America lost one it’s most innovative writers due to heart failure but his work lives on. Faulkner’s literature was driven by his passionate understanding of Southern decadence and will continue to drive people this day in age to understand that man that is William Cuthbert Faulkner.
Works Cited:
“William (Cuthbert) Faulkner.” http://kirjasto.sci.fi/faulkner.htm. March 21, 2008.
“William Faulkner.” American Writers. Vol. #2. Ed. Leonard Unger. New York: Charles
Scriber’s sons, 1998. 521-535.
Bloom, Harold. Introduction.” William Faulkner: Short Story Novelists. Bromall: Riverhead
Trade, 2000.
Minter, David. “William Faulkner.” American National Biography: 7. Ed. Ernest A. Clarke. New
York: Oxford University, 1990. 755-760.
Faulkner, William. The Sound and The Fury. New York: Vintage, 1991.
