Questions??

1. When and where was William Faulkner born?2. Why did he get denied from the army?3. What did he do to support his family?4. What was his masterwork that he got

recognized for?5. What college did he attend to?6. What was the reason he got fired from his

job?

William Faulkner By: Randi Dean

Background

William Faulkner was born in 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi.

He was the oldest of four sons of Murray Charles Faulkner and Maud Faulkner.

At the age of 13 he began to write poetry. He attended Oxford High School, then he

dropped out and worked in his grandfather’s bank.

Background

He wanted to join the Army but he was too short (5’5”). He then enlisted in the Canadian Air Force

After the war he studied literature at the University of Mississippi for a short amount of time.

In 1920 he left the University without taking a degree.

Faulkner moved to New York where he was a clerk at a bookstore. But then he got fired for reading on the job.

In 1933 Faulkner started taking flying lessons and bought his own plane so that he could earn money to support Estelle and their children.

Who influenced him?

William Faulkner was influenced by a woman named Sherwood Anderson because she encouraged him to write fiction rather than poetry.

His work

His first book was published in 1924 which was The Marble Faun. This was a collection of poems.

His other works included Soldier’s Pay Mosquitoes Flags in the Dust As I lay dying The wild Palms

The sound and the Fury (1929), his first masterwork Faulkner gained recognition as a writer.

Some of his stories are dedicated to other people such as Sherwood Anderson because she she got him to start writing fiction stories instead of poetry.

He received a Nobel Prize in 1950. During the selection process in 1949, the Nobel Committee for Literature decided that none of the year’s nominations met the criteria as outlined.

Quotes !!

“All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible.”

“I have found that the greatest help in meeting any problem is to know where you yourself stand. That is, to have in words what you believe and are acting from.”

InWilliam Faulkner’s writing he uses flashbacks.

Flashbacks are briefly and sudden recalls of a previous time or incident.

IT WOULD BE right after supper, before we had left thetable.

At first, beginning with the day the news came that theYankees had taken Memphis, we did it three nights in suc-

cession. But after that, as we got better and better andfaster

and faster, once a week suited Granny. Then after CousinMelisandre finally got out of Memphis and came to live withus, it would be just once a month, and when the regiment in

Virginia voted Father out of the colonelcy and he camehome and stayed three months while he made a crop and got

over his mad and organized his cavalry troop for GeneralForrest's command, we quit doing it at all. That is, we did

itone time with Father there too, watching, and that night

Ringo and I heard him laughing in the library, the firsttime

he had laughed since he came home, until in about a half aminute Granny came out already holding her skirts up and

went sailing up the stairs. So we didn't do it any moreuntil

Father had organized his troop and was gone again.

Granny would fold her napkin beside her plate. She wouldspeak to Ringo standing behind her chair without even turn-

ing her head:

"Go call Joby and Lucius."

And Ringo would go back through the kitchen withoutstopping. He would just say, "All right. Look out," at Lou-

The reason that I chose this fragmentary technique is because in the story he has flashbacks of times that he use to have when his father was there. He also remembers things that happen during the depression and connects them with his writing.

References

www.google.com www.kirjasto.sci.fi/faulkner.htm www.Nobelprize.org/williamfaulkner