williamfaulkner.ppt

William Faulkner (1897-1962)William Faulkner ¡Life¡literary career: three stages¡masterpieces¡Yoknapatawpha County as the setting¡The thematic patternlife¡The Prominent Representative of Southern Writers ¡American Southern writers mainly write about the history, customs, people and social change of the American South, a region that contains much beauty, violence, passion, courage and, finally tragedy. It was from the region's characteristics that Faulkner drew the material for most of his fiction.life¡Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi and raised in nearby Oxford, and lived there almost all his life. ¡He left school in his teens and later studied as a special student at the University of Mississippi. Fond of literature, he was increasingly motivated to become a writer. ¡In 1918, he enlisted in the British Royal Flying Corps. ¡Later he traveled to Europe and learned the experimental writing of James Joyce and of the ideas of Sigmund Freud. ¡He died of a heart attack in Oxford, Mississippi.literary career: three stages(1) 1924~1929: training as a writer The Marble Faun 云石牧神 Soldier’s Pay 士兵的报酬 Mosquitoes 蚊群 (2) 1929~1936: most productive and prolific period Sartoris The Sound and the Fury As I Lay Dying Light in August Absalom, Absalom (3) 1940~end: won recognition in America Go Down, Moses 去吧，摩西masterpieces¡Of Faulkner's literary works, four novels are masterpieces by any standards: The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom! and Go Down, Moses. masterpieces¡The Sound and the Fury(238): his acclaimed masterpiece, an account of the tragic downfall of the Compson family. It is a story of “lost innocence,“ which proves itself to be an intensification of the theme of imprisonment in the past. ¡Faulkner develops the theme of deterioration and loss by juxtaposing the childhood of the Compson brothers with their present experience. As a result, the novel not merely relates Quentin's nostalgic feeling about the past, or a Southern family that remains trapped within its past, but conveys a strong sense of grief over the deterioration of the South from the past to the present. masterpieces¡Light in August (239): Its major concern is primarily about the South as a state of mind. In this novel, different attitudes towards life - plainly obsessions with the past, with blood or race - represented by different major characters. masterpieces¡Absalom, Absalom!(240) Its theme is about doom brought about by the denial of humanity.¡To counter rejection, man tries to assert his own individuality and the significance (or insignificance) of his existence, but all comes to nothing in the end.masterpieces¡Go Down, Moses(241): moral injustice poisoned southern civilization at the root.Yoknapatawpha County as the setting¡Most of Faulkner's works are set in the American South, with his emphasis on the Southern subjects and consciousness. They are about people from a small region in Northern Mississippi, Yoknapatawpha County, which is actually an imaginary place based on Faulkner's childhood memory about the town of Oxford in his native Lafayette County. With his rich imagination, Faulkner turned the land, the people and the history of the region into a literary creation and a mythical kingdom. Yoknapatawpha County as the setting¡The Yoknapatawpha stories deal, generally, with the historical period from the Civil War up to the 1920s when the First World War broke out, and people of a stratified society, the aristocrats, the new rich, the poor whites, and the blacks. As a result, Yoknapatawpha County has become an allegory or a parable of the Old South, with which Faulkner has managed successfully to show a panorama of the experience and consciousness of the whole Southern society. The Yoknapatawpha saga is Faulkner's real achievement.The thematic pattern¡ Most of the major themes are directly related to the tragic collision or confrontation between the old South and the new South (or the civilized modern society) represented by different characters in his novels.The thematic pattern¡(1) Faulkner exemplified T. S. Eliot's concept of modern society as a wasteland in a dramatic way. He lamented the decline of the old South and condemned the mechanized, industrialized society which has dehumanized man by forcing him to cultivate false values and decrease those essential human values such as love, courage, fortitude, honesty and goodness. Faulkner held tolerance and compassion with traditional values such as serenity and elegance on one hand, and recognized the need to redefine and reaffirm them on the other. The thematic pattern¡ (2) The past and the present, nature and society are always juxtaposed in his works. Almost all of his protagonists turn out to be tragic because they are prisoners of the past, or of the society, or of some social and moral taboos, or of their own introspective personalities. 。