William Faulkner

A detailed Summary of William Faulkner

"Faulkner's Works-A Breadth of Social Vision"

In Faulkner's works, his distinctive achievement was to combine a penetrating grasp of individual consciousness-"the story behind every brow"-with a remarkable breadth of social vision. His writings encompassed with many different types of people...equal authority aristocrats and poor whites; black people and Indians; old maids and matriarchs; Christ-like scapegoats and pathological murderers; intellectuals and idiots (Standberg 1). Faulkner created a body of work that was mainly American yet reflects the universal values of human life ("William...1). He summarized his life's work in terms of an internal struggle-the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about.

On one side of that conflict is the ideal self, trying to recognize its potential for love, honor, compassion, pride, and sacrifice. On the other side is the weakness that keeps these ideas from being realized. In Faulkner's works, he portrays his individual protagonist as relating their effort to some unique private symbol of identity (Strandberg 1). In every story written, Faulkner gives his characters some kind of symbolism by

Faulkner's works are highly complex, just like himself (Blotner 668). "The Bear" is Faulkner's best-known and most highly regarded story. This story takes place among the wilderness and has a wilderness narrative. The work done in this story symbolizes the destruction of the wilderness (Blotner 676). It also relates the mythic initiation of a young boy into manhood. In this story Faulkner shows a mythic two-toed bear, Old Ben, who has been eluding hunters for years. The hunters have been trying to follow Ben, but not kill him. They bring a dog, named Lion, out to the camp for the young boy to keep. One day, Lion tried to attack Ben and caused Ben to get shot by one of the hunters. In this story, Faulkner compares the awe and majesty of the now-departed wilderness with the civilization that has taken place over the years.

That lasts pages long. Faulkner's philosophy has been difficult for many critics to understand. He believed in God but did not pretend to be a Christian. He borrowed freely from the Bible, yet used as parallels to Christ uncouth characters such as Joe Christmas in Light in August (Blotner 669). Critics in the United States think of his writings as excellent, but it should be known that his work is uneven. Almost everything he writes about is available anywhere, including apprent

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Approximate Word count = 890
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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William Faulkner

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