Poor, Poor Nancy: That Evening Sun Go Down

While reading "That Evening Sun Go Down," I wanted to cry because the character Nancy struck me with so much sadness and sympathy. Nancy reminded me of the old slave mentality that many abused and broken spirited African Americans had. She didn't view herself as being equal to or as important as her white counterparts and employers. Throughout the story I just wanted to give her a hug and let her know that she was worth much more than what she claimed to be.

I could compare Nancy to many other literary characters in novels. For example, Pecola in The Bluest Eye had the same broken spirit and lack of self esteem that Nancy had. When Nancy said, "I'm just a nigger!" it reminded me of the self hatred Pecola had throughout The Bluest Eye as she searched for ways to make her eyes blue like the little white Shirley Temple she admired. Both Nancy and Pecola represent that self hatred many African Americans harbor within themselves because of racial prejudice in society that formed their view of themselves.

Faulkner did a great job with tapping into a woman like Nancy. Even though it would be hard for Faulkner to precisely capture the essence of a black women living in a world of racial prejudice, he did a great job with providing imagery into her situation. I give this one a thumbs up!

Beauty Unheard by the Audience

The most touching part of Faulkner's Nobel speech, to me, was when he mentioned the "conflicts of the heart" that are the only things worth writing about.

To me, this is not only true to Faulkner's style, but true in general. It may be true when people say that there is "nothing new under the sun" but that's a limited statement, and Faulkner shows us why. Perhaps the only thing worth writing about is something that is perpetuated in each of us over and over and over, but that doesn't mean we're always writing about the same thing. Faulkner definitely stuck true to his general knowledge, and didn't write about things that he wasn't well saturated in, or things he didn't care about. This produced a body of work so vast, and so beautiful. If he would have attempted to solve all the world's problems, essentially, in his works instead of just writing about what HE cared about, it probably wouldn't be as eloquent or mean as much to an audience.

Writers today, I feel, are often trying to overstep their knowledge range in order to produce what they have in mind to be the new "great american novel." However, going about it that way turns it into a false feat. Like I said before, the reason Faulkner created what he created is because he wrote what was inside of him, what he knew, and what he loved. Even though there are a number of made-up characters and situations, Faulkner wrote his truths. Even when he wrote about the slaves and had a very limited view of the slaves he wrote about, his limited knowledge was, in itself, a truth. He didn't pretend to know more than he did. He didn't try to create a false south. The south bled on all of Faulkner's pages with horror and sadness and death—and also beauty and magic and love.

When Faulkner says "until he learns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man" he means that until a writer starts writing what's in his heart, what he cares about, the whole saying that there's "nothing new under the sun" assumes it's presumed fatalistic meaning, and the world of writing is over. Not to say that experimentation is wrong, we can see clearly Faulkner experimented with style and narration and broke all sorts of grammar rules. Also, just because someone is from a certain region in no way limits them to that certain region like Faulkner only wrote about the south. What he's trying to say, though, is don't tell lies on paper. A writer has to basically strip themselves naked in front of their audience, and Faulkner doesn't want writers who claim that they're naked but still have concealed or changed parts of their body. He could see through them, and in this speech, is urging us all to disrobe entirely.

The Reivers

I have been re-reading As I Lay Dying for my paper, so reading The Reivers at the same time really kind of highlighted how different it is from the his others. It reminded me of this movie I used to watch when I was younger, The Journey of Natty Gann, but I don't really know why. I guess it was the time period.

This book reminded me of Huck Finn, and I think that was the intention. With the characters, the young boy and Ned on adventures. It was so much lighter and even funny, and it's striking that this was his last novel. Of all of the things that could have closed out with, it's a comical, light-hearted adventure book. I would have preferred more on the Compsons or the Bundrens, but this was fine. I don't know how he died, so I don't know if he knew this would be the last. Since he had written about so much heavy, sometimes dark stuff about the human condition, it's almost sweet that this is his last. And to make it about a young boy who is put into some strange situations, some pretty questionable. It was good. I don't want to use the word "cute." But it was kind of cute.

In true Faulkner fashion, though, some of the sentences were long and meandering, and initially, I had a hard time breaking past the first few chapters. I

This is kid of off, but my paper is focusing on animals and so it was interesting how a horse came into this one again, as in As I Lay Dying, and how it was an important figure in the novel.

After reading this, I felt a great sense of accomplishment. All that Faulkner. It's nice to be done, though. I just got Absalom, Absalom! on cd and plan on listening to it and sharing how great it is with my boyfriend on the two week road trip we'll be embarking on in May. I think I will be revisiting a few of his novels, for sure.

Reminscening on a new Faulkner

I’m not sure what to say about The Reivers. It was Faulkner’s last novel and the winner of a Nobel Prize in literature. For a book that was, in a sense, Faulkner’s coup de grace, it is uncharacteristically Faulkner. The style is off, the tone is too light, and the novel was overall too happy to be the Faulkner I know. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy the novel. I’m a fan of the picaresque novel and believe that it is the dominant form of epic in modernity, so this may have been Faulkner’s step toward an epic (attempting to tie and tie up characters and story lines from his Yoknapatawpha), but this jaunty, reminiscent, “story” is unlike Faulkner from days gone by.
The Reivers does, in fact, carry the markings of Faulknerian novels. It is plagued with convoluted run-on sentences, long and winding paragraphs, and a not-quite but almost stream of consciousness narrative. But the overall effect of the novel is just not like Faulkner’s other novels, like The Sound and the Fury or Absalom, Absalom! It is the story of two members of the McCaslin/Edmonds family from Go Down Moses—Lucius Priest and the black servant/relative Ned NcCaslin—,along with a family retainer—Boon Hogganbeck, also mentioned in Go Down Moses—who steal a car and head to Memphis. Boon wants to go to the city to woo a prostitute, Luscius, only eleven at the time, goes with Boon, and Ned hides out in the back of the car. Once in Memphis, Boon begins to court Miss Corrie, Luscius comes of age and must grapple with his turmoil over explaining what he see with the way he was raised, and Ned sells the car they stole to buy a horse in the hopes of racing it and earning money. The majority of the plot is somewhat irrelevant to my point, so I’ll skip to the end. Luscius’ grandfather, the owner of the car, finds the boys in Memphis. Ned, slyly playing the old man, bets against his own horse in a second race and purposely loses. The whole story ends on the happy note that Boon and his prostitute Miss Corrie have married and have named their first child after Luscius. This “it all works out in the end” feeling is so unlike Faulkner that it is almost jarring to the avid reader. The Reivers was a best seller, adapted later in a film, and think that attests to that fact that it is somehow different that Faulkner’s other works. It is easier to read and relate to than most of the novels we have read so far.
That being said, I still believe that The Reivers is a great work. Luscius Priest’s monologues on virtue, his idea of women, and his conception of smart animals make him a highly complex and intelligent character. I would like to someday take a more in-depth look at Luscius, as his role of narrator of the story adds a great deal to his character than I believe a lot of people see.

Faulkner's View...Noble Speech

Since this blog is entitled “Responses to the writing and the world of William Faulkner”, I am going to dedicate my last post to Faulkner’s Noble Prize Speech. Because this speech is as much part of the world of Faulkner, as this week’s reading The Reivers, and I believe it was Ms. Ethridge, who said at the beginning, this course will be used to interpret the different personalities of Faulkner through his work. The speech is given to Faulkner as a life time achievement award for his work so I thought its relevance is undeniable to understanding Faulkner as well as his work.

His Noble Prize speech brought so many things together for me. It seemed as if many others, whom have read his fiction, took Faulkner’s pessimist to heart. Like some of us, they viewed Faulkner only from the surface. They saw him as an author, who viewed life and man in general, as victims of idiocy by our own making due to us ignoring “the problems of the human heart.” However, this was not who Faulkner was at all; in fact, he was a man, who very much believed in the spirit and compassion of man to carry himself through hard times such as the radical transformation of the south after the Civil War or what the south was to its inhabitants before the war. Faulkner was merely documenting a time and place (Yoknapatawpha County) in history that was relative to him, and to us all since the Civil War deeply affected the U.S.

I believed that doom and gloom were simply themes that Faulkner explored on his path to self discovery that as writer he must not forget about the problems that the human heart endure or that the basis of all things is to be afraid; therefore, to leave no room for anything but the old verities and truth of the heart. Faulkner must have gone through these things himself in order to offer such in depth advice about where one should find inspiration to write. I know that the human heart takes on different identities, thus speaking to us in a voice that is not always familiar, yet we go along and discover another part of ourselves or craft. This is what I believe Faulkner went through when he wrote using the writing technique stream of consciousness. Because he was so trusting to undergo this transformation he got really good at it, and people mistakenly believed this was the real William Faulkner, when really he was just playing part in order to tell that character’s story. Faulkner happily did his duty as wanna-be poet/novelist by prompting man, through his work, to endure and prevail. I never viewed Faulkner as pessimistic. I definitly felt at times that I only captured a glance of what he was doing,but after reading this speech it widen my view, more than any criticism, about what was one of his many aims were.

Faulkner's reminiscence

This book, The Reivers: A Reminiscence, is the starkest shift in Faulkner's style that I have noticed since that occurring between Soldiers' Pay and Mosquitoes and the Sound & the Fury. It seems that the reason behind this may be the fact that it is a first-person account, narrated as a story. Of course, The Sound & the Fury was primarily in first-person, and As I Lay Dying was completely first-person. But each of these were lacking the light-hearted, story-telling quality seen in The Reivers.

The fact that this novel is told as a story perfectly complements its status as a "Reminiscence." The main character is spanning his coming-of-age years, while also, at times, giving the reader (or, in this case, listener would perhaps be a better designation) an explanation of years prior and beyond. I was rather touched by the fact that Faulkner referred to this novel as a reminiscence. So many of our old Yoknapatawpha friends and acquaintances were mentioned, especially those mentioned in Go Down, Moses. It seems that not only was the main character, Lucius Priest, reminiscing, but Faulker himself was revisiting those old friends and histories, while musing on potentialities of the future, of Yoknapatawpha County.

Of course, this book was also the most technologically aware of Faulkner's, at least as far as I can tell. Not only do Faulkner's characters venture to the city for a large portion of the novel, but there is a long explanation of the first automobile in Jefferson. Henry Ford is even mentioned, giving the first link (that I have noticed) to a prominient figure from the known-world.

I found the character of Boon Hogganback an interesting one, at least in his relation to the automobile. Boon pretty much just appears out of the wilderness. He seems to belong to the wild in a sense: he materialized from there, he has a sensitivity to the horses he handles at the livery. But, by golly, he is the first to jump on the automobile bandwagon. Perhaps he represents something in the shift from the natural to the progressive?

The Power of Myth & The Bear

Obviously there's a lot of myth in southern writing, especially Faulkner's, and I feel like whenever animals are present, the "mythical nature" is heavily present as well. We have now read two stories where a person encounters a snake and says: "Grandfather," and I think this should be explored.

What is it about snakes? What is it about grandfathers? What is it about always personifying animals? Does it make them mean more to us? Can we understand them better this way? Do certain animals represent parts of us, or parts of our world? Have they always?

I believe that Faulkner's use of "grandfather" particularly in The Bear, but also in Red Leaves, is an act of respect and reverence toward nature in general. A snake can bite and kill a human. It's "sneaky," it's fast, it's mysterious, and it's all over stories of myth and legends of mankind (ie: Bible). ALSO it's probably the most un-human of the animal kingdom. There is no "shared moment" when one looks into the eyes of a snake. They snake recognizes a human as an entirely different species, and the odds of living or dying rely completely on the snake's agenda. This makes humans nervous. We have no "control" over the snake, we don't even know how to fight them. They don't have a "call" like ducks, you can't hear them coming like deer. They put us on edge.

The reason I'm explaining all of this, is because I think that Faulkner parallels the snake to nature. For all the reasons that we are scared of nature, we are scared of snakes. Faulkner wants to show how the reason people feel like they need to take control over nature (build roads, cut trees, make factories, etc) is because they don't fully understand it, and that scares them. The innate human drive for destroying what has created them, essentially, is the simple fact that they can't comprehend it, but feel like they should be able to.

The characters that give themselves up to these snakes, and call them "grandfather" enforces a certain amount of respect that Faulkner does not believe the masses of the world have obtained yet. A grandfather is a very relatable, human thing, but is also held to a great respect, unlike "brother" which would imply nature is right on the level with man, or even "father" which implies some great respect, but is still too close to man in age and wisdom. GRANDFATHER implies wisdom obtained through many many years. Grandfather implies a very much loved, yet somehow distant source of stories and knowledge. This is the snake. The snake is the grandfather. Grandfather is nature. The characters who refer to all three things simultaneously in these lines, give themselves over to the trust they've had for nature, disregarding all other facets.

Faulkner dismembers some of the snake myths and makes his own, here, which is interesting. Perhaps he still wants the snake to represent original sin, but Faulkner interprets the original sin differently than the Bible. His take on it is more concerned with the wisdom gained from biting the fruit, not the fear of being cast out of the garden naked. His symbols are loaded and complex, but the best way to think about the snake, I believe, is a symbol for everything man cannot comprehend or prevent that occurs in nature. The choice: respect it, or spend an entire life trying to deny it's great existence.

A Second Look at Nancy

After Wednesday’s discussion, and the points Kristen made, I went back and re-read “That Evening Sun Go Down” trying to keep Kristen’s perception of Nancy in mind as I read. What I found upon my second reading was that although I can understand where Kristen is coming from, I see what she means, I stand by my original analysis of Nancy—she is strong, black female character, admirable and pitiable, but not a flat stereotype of an African American servant. While I respect other characterizations of Nancy, I think that once one looks beyond the surface of her character, taking the time to read the story with the care Faulkner wrote it with, it becomes apparent that Nancy is an impressive and dynamic character.
The first thing I noticed on my re-read was the way that Faulkner wrote about Nancy in the very beginning of the story. He, or rather Quentin, describes the way she does the laundry in uplifting and flattering terms. She is steady with the laundry basket, holds her head high and dignified, and is independent, not being helped by her husband like the other laundresses. I think that this description is very telling. It is not just about the way she does the laundry but about Nancy herself. She is proud, independent, strong, and steady. Though it may not seem so, what with the drinking, prostitution, and possibly by unlikely drug use, but Nancy is proud to be how she is, which is why she refuses to “learn” breakfast for the Compson family even when it is her duty, and why she laughs when Mr. Stovall kicks her teeth out. Nancy is stronger than she lets on, and Faulkner lets the reader know this, though in an indirect way.
Second, Wednesday we talked about how Nancy kept say “I’m just a nigger,” and the way little Jason kept declaring that he wasn’t a “nigger.” It was posited that this was ridiculous, and that these declarations reinforced stereotypes and depicts Nancy as comically “black.” I respectfully disagree with this assertion. Nancy’s repeated claim that she is a “nigger” is not her blaming her life on her skin color, but, rather, Nancy’s acceptance of what society has labeled her. She is not a “nigger” by choice, and because society labels her so, she must resign herself to the fact that she cannot do anything about her situation. Like Will Mayes, no one believes Nancy when she claims that Jubah is coming to kill her. She cannot convince the Compsons to help because she is seen only as a “nigger” in their eyes. There is one telling thing in the story which leads me to believe this. When Jason is naming “niggers,” stating that Dilsey and Jubah are “niggers,” he has to ask if Nancy is a “nigger.” He is too young to automatically label Nancy the way his parents do because he sees her as someone he admires (think back to the way Quentin describes the way Nancy does laundry). And when Jason asks Dilsey if he is a “nigger,” she replies “I suppose not,” and not outright no. This leads me to believe that being a “nigger” is more than just a skin color, it is a designation one “earns” from society.
I can go on and on about the intricacies of Nancy’s character. Her relationship with Jubah is complex, at the same time both touching (everything he had was also hers) and terrifying (she fears he’s going to kill her). Nancy is complex, a sign of rebellion against the social constraints of her race in a turbulent time, and when one looks at Nancy and Dilsey together, all sorts of binary oppositions appear. Ultimately, though, Nancy is a very three dimensional character, and one of Faulkner’s most dynamic African American characters.

Faulkner,Colored,and Progression

Go Down,Moses is the first chance we as readers see Faulkner writing about black people. Sure, in his other works, there was a black character here and there, but never in the forefront of his novels. Of course, we get to know these black or colored(I personally favor the one drop theory) characters through a white man's eyes.

In the midst of our,at times, heated discussion of Faulkner and his use of colored characters, I understand that Faulkner's perspective cannot shift to the view of a colored person living in Mississippi during his time. Also, in the class discussion, New Orleans was viewed and not being progressive. This did not sit so well with me. Racially, culturally, ethnically, muscially,etc-New Orleans is progressive.What other city can you possibly name(and no, its not NYC) that has all these elements? What is it that people want? Would you want an Applebee's placed on St. Charles Avenue so that it can be like Dallas or Houston? Would that make New Orleans progressive? Someone mentioned the schools being segregated. First of all, segregation is no longer legal. Whites simply high tailed it, or what is usually referred to as white flight, to the suburbs leaving the blacks behind in the cities with crumbling schools. It annoys me that people think Mississippi and Louisiana are "not progressive" or they are "so far behind." I completely disagree with this idea.

For a very short period of my high school academic life, I lived in Dallas,Texas-enrolled into white suburbian Coppell High School-what was supposed to be the BEST school in the district. However, I have never experienced so much racism before in my life until I set foot into this place. Immediately, the teachers and faculty automatically assumed that you should not be in the advanced curriculum courses simply because you were of another race. The student body was segregated according to race. People looked at me strangely because I mingled with everyone, not just the black students. Needless to say, I did not remain at this God awful school very long. I moved back to Mississippi, re-enrolled into the small little Presbyterian high school where I was content. I never felt any form of racism there in MISSISSIPPI,yes MISSISSIPPI as I had felt in good ol' Texas.

People from different places do not seem to understand New Orleans as a whole. It is more than just hand grenades and Bourbon Street. Give the city some credit. It is unique within itself. Many cookie cutter cities like Dallas,Houston,Atlanta, and even star studded L.A. are,for the lack of a better term, LAME. There is no culture;everything is the same. There is nothing that sets them apart,which makes them less appealing.

Sorry if this is a rant, but that's my feelings on the matter.

"Grandfather"

The Bear was by far the most existential thing I've ever read by William Faulkner. It reminds me a lot of "Walden" in some ways, but a tapered version, one that more closely focuses on actual land ownership, greed, and all the negative human desires that corrupt nature. To be continued...

Who the Hell Killed Owen Taylor?

As I've read The Big Sleep I didn't have any issues with some of the massive plot holes in the movie. There is no satisfying reason in the film for why Carol Lundgren would want to shoot Joe Brody. The homosexuality between the characters is present in the screen play but was removed from the final film because of the Hays Code.
The Big Sleep may be a classic display of Bogie and Bacall. It may be a classic piece of film noir. It's also a classic example of post war fear of corruption coming from the arts.
The Big Sleep is dealing with the underbelly of Hollywood. There's pornography, gambling, sexuality, and plenty of drinking. What we get in the film is an innuendo filled story that lacks the punch because the plot is censored.
Where as in the book Reagan was Vivian's husband, the film just has him as an employee of Sternwood. This is because you can't have Vivian in a relationship with Reagan and in anyway involved in his death. Mars killed Regan. Really? During that last scene I was unconvinced. I was more convinced when Vivian tried to say she killed him, and even then I didn't believe it. Mars has no real motive to commit the murder. He also has enough connections to not need Mars being believed to be in Mexico. HE also wouldn't need to hide his wife away.
I felt bad for the actress that played Carmen. She was practically cut out of the film because her performance out-shined Bacall's. Her character was central to the plot but she got no real chance to show how much of a danger she could be.
Do they ever really explain Geiger's business? I mean you know that Brody took it over but there's never a good idea of what it really is. Other than not "first editions".
The movie suffered greatly from a restrictive code. The screenplay did a good job of getting the grittiness of the novel.
Well I'd rather get wet in here than out there.

The Big Sleep is Anything but a Big Yawn

While reading the screenplay for The Big Sleep, I found myself forgetting that William Faulkner had anything to do with it. It was so unlike anything we’ve read by Faulkner up to this point that I struggled with fitting it into the spectrum of Faulknerian literature. That being said, I enjoyed both the screenplay and the movie, and would recommend both to anyone.
The Big Sleep was written in 1944, later than Faulkner’s most famous works, which may explain, to an extent, why the screenplay is so different from rest of Faulkner’s work. Also, the silver screen is an entirely different medium from any Faulkner had written before. In a screenplay there is no room for rambling sentences, detailed descriptions, or stream of consciousness narration. Also, the theme of a detective-type story sans racial, incestual, or war-related tensions and subtexts is a departure from Faulkner’s normal MO. William Faulkner just doesn’t DO stories like this. The Big Sleep screenplay was adapted from a novel written by Raymond Chandler, so the overall story was not Faulker’s own. Still, the writing in the screenplay is not typical of Faulkner; he had to modify his way of writing to fit the medium. I think he had a great deal of help from the other writers, though, because the screenplay is so unlike his normal writing.
Even though The Big Sleep is so different from Faulkner’s novels and short stories, there are still a few Faulknerian characteristics in the screenplay. To begin with, the women in the movie—namely the two Sternwood daughters—are extremely sexualized. From the beginning, they are described in sexual terms, the eldest flashing her bare legs for Philip Marlowe and the youngest coming on to Marlowe in a very naive and sexual way. The youngest daughter, Carmen, is reminiscent of some of Faulkner’s other female characters, though she is not exactly like those women. Carmen reminds me a little of Temple Drake and Cecily Saunders, young, slightly androgynous girls who use their sexuality to get what they want. These girls get away with things they shouldn’t because they are spoiled by their fathers, and this is clearly the case with Carmen Sternwood.
Faulkner’s penchant for description and exposition can also be seen in the screenplay for The Big Sleep. Several of the character descriptions and stage directions are terribly complex and unrealistically detailed. For example, early in the screenplay, Faulkner describes Bernie Ohls as:
. . . a man who has been in close places in the course of his duty, has killed several lawbreakers, at times when he was outnumbered and they thought he was covered and helpless until too late. He is pleasant and affable to all, respects courage, loves no man. (The Big Sleep 32)
No person watching this movie could possibly know this unless he were told it. No cinematic clues can give an audience this much information, especially in such a small time frame. This is not specific to just Ohls; several other scenes and characters are introduced in a similar fashion.
Last, even within the first few scenes in the movie, it is apparent that alcohol is an important part of the story. General Sternwood and Philip Marlowe bond over brandy in one of the first scenes of the movie, Vivian Rutledge is seen “drinking her lunch,” and Marlowe and a bookstore owner spend two hours together drinking from Marlowe’s private flask. Alcohol and Faulkner are inseparable, no matter what the medium, decade, or anything else.

The Big Sleep

Initially, I thought it was very unusual that this was written (partly) by Faulkner. Humphrey Bogart doesn't strike me as a Faulknerian actor, but that doesn't mean I don't think he is awesome. I read that it was based on a book by someone else, and the screenwriters were told not to mess with the script too much-- to just stick to the book, so I guess it wouldn't have as much of a Faulkner influence as needed to make it apparent. Maybe?

As a movie, though, I liked it and thought it was entertaining. As I watched, though, it became a bit more confusing with all of the different characters entering unexpectedly and then all of the dying, and that's where I finally saw Faulkner's influence. But I think it was just the book that had a Faulkner flair. I feel I am not making sense. The plot was hard to follow at times, it seemed to meander a bit, but the movie was entertaining, nonetheless.

This movie had some really great lines in it. Of course, delivered by Humphrey Bogart.

The Big Sleep

Faulkner was one-third of the screen writers for The Big Sleep, but by far the most noticeable. It's clear to me why he liked this story: it's about corruption, there's no real plot, and the characters are all either double-sided or complex in their own way. For instance,

Vivian & Carmen Sternwood are both unique female characters, but are each very different. Each are essentially two-sided. Vivian appears snobbish but reveals herself to be loyal and capable of love. She is a very masculine, "androgynous" female, because she takes on the role that her sickly father is too weak to. She drinks scotch. She gambles. She can hold her own in conversation with a witty protagonist, and is obviously virtuous enough for him to fall in love with her. Carmen is also two sided but in a different way. She appears innocent but actually isn't, she a murderess, a suspected nymphomaniac, porn star, drug user, and perpetuates all of the evil in the novel. These girls, combined, mirror a lot of Faulkner characters in their defiance of social norms. Caddy's muddy underwear for instance. They are both the pure and impure, the ultra-feminine but ultra-masculine androginous characters.

Then we have General Sternwood who represents his own deteriorating family. He's the "head of the household" yet has to have everyone else work for him, including his eldest daughter. He is clueless in their upbringing and let's them run "wild". He's on the verge of death, and symbolizes collapse. He is extremely wealthy, and, like Thomas Supten, is coming to terms with the fact that you can't just "buy in" or "buy out" of life situations. This is illustrated when Marlowe suggests just paying off the blackmailer, but Gen. Sternwood refuses and says that wouldn't do any good for him, showing that he has realized material goods can't do it all, there are emotions, too.

Lastly, Philip Marlowe is the shining star in a corrupt world. Anything he touches or holds dear is supposed to be looked at in a good light, and we are constantly shown women offering themselves to him and he refuses sweetly every time, placing himself somewhat above the innate sexual desire and the rest of the men of that time. He's the good, in combat with the evil. He's the teller-of-the-tale and somewhat of a rebel.

These characters, though classically "film noir" are also classically Faulkner. They defy expectations, social normalicy, etc. They come from broken or incongruous families. They have to assume roles different than what society expects them to assume. They're also rather exciting.

Death saturates this film, just as it does many Faulkner novels, and when thought of in conjunction with the greenhouse at the beginning of the screenplay being sweltering hot, motivates a plethora of comparisons to be drawn between this and Faulkner's motif of The Wasteland.

A Blurry Line

I think "Pantaloon in Black" was my favorite of the seven pieces in Go Down, Moses. The book is obviously intended to depict the ever-volatile relations between blacks and whites in the Old South in a realistic and moving way. Rider, the protagonist of "Pantaloon in Black," is an incredibly sympathetic character: his grief is deeply gut-wrenching, especially when compared to the white sheriff's deputy who coldly and ignorantly relates the last tragic events of Rider's life. It was the most emotional I've ever seen Faulkner write. Reading the description of the footprints of Rider and his wife in the August dust almost brought me to tears.

However, I started to question the motive Faulkner had for writing this story, indeed, any of the stories in Go Down, Moses, which are considerably more focused on blacks than anything else we've read by him. Why document the the incredible pain and suffering of Rider's grief? Because Faulkner is white, I have to wonder how accurate his depictions of Rider and the black community are. Is this story meant as an apology for all those long, long years of slavery, cruelty, and oppression? Perhaps Faulkner wants to do his best to validate the feelings of the black community, to humanize them in the prejudiced eyes of the white American South. The juxtaposition between the visceral nature of Rider's mourning--he cannot eat, cannot sleep, cannot even stand still--and the detached, contemptuous deputy's story seem to indicate that the pain of a race beaten down for so many years must go deeper than the white man's, and the race that is capable of inflicting so much hurt without even flinching must be callous and unfeeling. Maybe this story is the product of a white man's shame.

On the other hand, Rider's grief is often portrayed as animalistic. I once saw a special on the Discovery channel about young bull elephants who are driven out of the herd and go berserk. Elephants are normally very gentle creatures, but these elephants will destroy everything in their paths. It was like Rider was being illustrated as one of those elephants. Faulkner may be saying that white people cannot grieve like this, but it could sound like black people are less in control of their emotions. They aren't as rational as white people, and have to "tear shit up" in order to properly express themselves. It's like saying women may not be as intelligent as men, but they are very pretty to look at: black people may not be as sophisticated as white people, but see how deeply some of them feel!

As I pondered these questions, I felt myself treading into very dangerous territory. As a white reader myself, how can I gauge the accuracy of these representations? I was incredibly moved by the depth of Rider's love for Mannie, but was it just white guilt on my part? Is "accuracy" even the issue here? In my heart, I would much rather read "Pantaloon in Black" in the first way, rather than the second, but as a critical thinker would I be deceiving myself?

I asked myself, "If the protagonist of this story was white, would it change how moved you were?" Would I be angry at a white person for committing suicide in the end, or would I see it as tragically and devastatingly as I saw Rider's death? I ultimately found myself feeling as ignorant as the white deputy acts in the second half of the story. How much of this world am I blind to?

Black Community

Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses set a different tone in terms of understanding African Americans in the antebellum south. I thought this novel was real treat, compared to other works we’ve read involving Faulkner, who ventured out of his comfort zone ( as much as he could) to give an accurate account of either the black consciousness or experience in the south. Up until now, we’ve been presented with traditional southern stereotypical black characters such as Dipsey, the mammy figure, Joe Christmas and Charles Bon, the tragic mulattos. Here, Faulkner explores the community of Blacks in the south and the way he portrays this community is accurate as far social norms go.

For instance, the chapter Was gives a depiction of the expectation of marriage due to a male intruding on a female’s personal space thereby tainting her reputation. This is seen when Uncle Buck surprisingly find Ms. Sophonsiba in the bed with him. It is expected that Uncle Buck now must marry Ms. Sophonsiba. Also, in Was there is much discussion about Uncle Buck being a widower, and Uncle Buddy being a bachelor. Although these terms are not new, they are mostly used to describe a person’s character socially. In southern literature, the relative term “uncle” is usually used to de-sexualize the black man, making him nonthreatening to be around white women, and kindly looked upon. The same is done with the term “mammy”; all “mammies” are usually old women, who have motherly tendencies. This figure is scoped out by her old age to be categorized in the white mindset, thereby placed into the white household as nonthreatening because she is de-sexualize due to the role she is to play. Faulkner moves away from that traditional way of storytelling. Surprise, surprise Uncle Buck actually is an uncle! There is no stigmatism attached to his name. Another social norm we see is courtship; Turl and Tennie courtship is not only cute, but another aspect in the black community that is rarely seen during slavery. The audience gets a chance to see the challenges of courtship back then. Ms. Sophonsiba husband hunting is also amusing…again the audience is presented with a black character, which is depicted outside of stereotypical role.

Faulkner also thoroughly explores the African-Americans want to experience the wilderness. I think he hinted at this with Absalom, Absalom! except it’s the frontier. Creationism is a minor theme in Absalom, Absalom! It’s first obviously shown with Thomas Sutpen, who “supposedly” creates something—Supten’s 100/dynasty---out of nothing. However, this theme can be applied to the Haitian slaves as well, who along with Supten created Supten’s 100, either through building the house or working the land. It is because the slaves are occupied “creating” something that they miss out on experiencing the frontier as the white man does. By the time the Negros can experience the frontier, it’s gone leaving it be a Was. Uncle Buck represents all the blacks that had a desire to experience the wilderness just like white people did. Such an experience is very much part of being an American, yet Uncle Buck is separated from that experience.

Dry September

This story describes a typical situation in southern states during times of intense prejudice and racial discrimination. Dry September describes a story based on the "Southern White Goddess" concept of the southern white woman being a fragile and incapable of wrongdoing. If a white woman ever accused a black man of any type of sexual wrongdoing, she would automatically be believed. Class adds to the southern white woman's argument as well. A white woman of privilege would never be questioned concerning her allegations of a man's sexual misconduct towards her. This is the case in Faulkner's short story Dry September.

The black man Will Mayes is accused of raping the white woman of privilege, Miss Minnie. Even though Will seems to be innocent of the accusations, he is still treated with violence by the white males in his town. He only had one person on his side, the l0cal barber. It is questionable if the barber was fully white. In the story they compared him to the character McLendon by saying, "They looked like men of different races." Because the barber believed Will was innocent, he was also scolded and accused of being a "niggerlover."

This story is not very different from the historic case of Emmett Till in the early 1950s. The same discriminative justice that was sought after concerning Miss Minnie's allegedly rape by Will Mayes was taken with Emmett Till. The concept of justice was absent. White privilege filled the place of justice in the South, especially concerning acts of violence towards the delicate flower known as the "Southern White Goddess." Faullkner did a great job with capturing this concept and pointing the problems with it through the character called the barber. I was very pleased with this short story, although I was not sure if Will Mayes was killed or just left to wander back to town. It is documented that in the original version of the story Will Mayes was killed.

Red Leaves

I was first a bit confused about the meaning behind Red Leaves and why Faulkner wrote it, but as I completed the story I gained a greater appreciation for it. Instead of reading about racial relationships between people who are black and white, as in Faulkner's past novels, this novel deals with race relations between Native Americans and African Americans. The way in which they interacted and the level that the Indians understood the African Americans was very strange. At a certain point, it became funny despite the cannibalism. It was really funny that the Indians believed black people enjoyed sweating and had dark complexion because of the sweating. The tribal rituals including killing a dead leaders possessions once he died was also very interesting. This is actually a common factor in Egyptian history, but it is depicted in this novel.

The element of the story that stood out the most to me was the scene when Issetibbeha's servant was bitten by the poisonous snake. He says, "It's that I do not wish to die." After running from the Indians in fear of being eaten, his life is cut short by being bitten by a poisonous snake. His statement really stuck out to me because it seemed to sum up in one statement the feelings of other African Americans who found their lives cut short after fighting so hard to simply live. Even though this story does not include White Americans being harsh to African Americans, African Americans are still given the same position of lowly servitude. However, the Indian Americans in Red Leaves were very nice to the black male servant.

This story was a big breathe of fresh air from Faulkner. He never really seemed able to fully tackle racial subjects concerning white and black Americans, but he did a good job in this story with the Indian and African Americans. He did a great job of making fun of how African Americans are understood by an outside race and culture.

A Rose for Emily:Narration

Overall, I enjoy reading Faulkner's short stories as opposed to his strange novels. In his short stories, he moves away from fighting with the "new" southern ideals and finds himself writing more creatively. In "A Rose for Emily",my favorite of Faulkner's short stories, it is important to note the narration. The narration often times switches between first person plural and third person plural. First person is used because the narrator is,obviously, one of the townspeople. When using third person plural, the narrator seems to set him or herself apart from the townspeople,observing what is occurring, and then gossips about it. There is a possibility that the narrator switches from different people of the town. Even though there is no clear indication whther or not they are male or female, gossip is prevelant mostly among women. Faulkner most likely created such a narrator so that he or she could in fact switch to different perspectives.

"A Rose for Emily" is a horror story both in the thematic sense having dark and gory imagery as well as in the sense of what could possibly could have happened to a young southern woman who never found true love(as creepy as it is).

That Evening Sun

This story was interesting mostly because it's the true ghost story that we read for today.
Quentin Compson is nine during the events this story. A story that took place 15 years ago as he tells it. So arguably Quentin is 24. However Quentin committed suicide at the age of 19.
That's the telling part of this story. Where is this story being told from? Are we getting it from beyond the grave? Has Faulkner simply forgotten the year of Quentin's death is 1910? Was the story written before or after The Sound and the Fury?
Since it was published for the first time in 1931 in a collection of Short Stories. It is impossible to tell without further research if Faulkner wrote this before the novel or after. But it's interesting because like Sophocles before him, Faulkner is using the same characters but perhaps not the same person.
In the quote unquote Oedipus Trilogy Oedipus and Antigone are not the same in any of the stories. This is because the Trilogy wasn't intended to be read as such. They were all collected later for publishing reasons.
But can we argue this for Faulkner? He seemed to think that he wrote the same Quentin Compson in both Sound and Absalom! Absalom!. However I still disagree with his assessment. There is very little in the Quentin from Absalom! that suggests that in less than a year he will have committed suicide. It does not work.
And that's fine.
Faulkner is working to create a mythology. In Mythology time isn't a clear span. Some events seem to happen both before and after other events. So this story functions in that same pattern. Faulkner is able to bring you back to Yoknapatawpha without worrying about internal consistency. Enjoy the story and look for the meaning.

Insanity

This story brings up questions about the integrity of many of the white people from the South. It also shows just how bitter the South is against the North, or to be more specific, the Southern mentality against the Northern mentality. When the barber, Hawkshaw, rose up both to defend Will Mayes but also to suggest that they allow the Sheriff/Marshall to handle it or to look for clues and search for the truth, he is treated and called names that suggested Hawkshaw to be a Negro lover or someone who supports the Negroes. They also called him a northerner, although Hawkshaw stated he was born and raised in that town. This suggests many things, such as the fact that the Southerners are very much bitter for their loss in the civil war and their loss to the rights of slaves. Its more than a simple grudge at this point, it becomes unconstitutional in the fact that they lynched the Will without giving him a fair trial of any sort. It was also a bit of a conspiracy since they kept it secret and no one really caught wind of it, even though Will was innocent.
It is also important to note the fact that Minnie was the only person who stated that she had been raped, a 38-39 year old woman who no longer was able to create sexual attraction towards her without causing some kind of an uproar.
This fact is brought to light several times, especially by Hawkshaw who states that she had said similar things before, although nothing was proven either true or false. McLendon, the one who took charge of the lynching, stated that he did not care whether that was the case or not, but to instead take care of Will before he or another black man decided to do it for real. This is not verbatim but the idea that can be seen from McLendon’s prejudice.
He was willing to avoid the law and kill a black man who he knew might have been innocent. There was no hesitation on his part and he was happy to gain other allies in order to do this evil deed. This deed was done under the excuse that the heat was causing people to not think straight, and because of a simple accusation from a woman who people figured lied before. However, the truth of the matter is that Will Mayes died innocent, simply to support the honor of the South. The idea that the Southern people had a right to defend or attack without repercussions against a black man must have been prevalent in some people, who would also have been willing to tarnish reputations for help. It shows the kind of evils that can come up from simple high societies with deep prejudices and grudges.

Compson

The Compsons are never going to escape taking part in different parts of history and society. They have seen their own family fall apart, but also bear witness to a unfaithful black woman break down mentally and physically before she eventually was murdered. Nancy garnered the attention of the Compson children just from the way she walked with the laundry and the balance she had when the kept the laundry over her head. At the same time, the serious issues were brought around many of the children and were not well hidden or worded in such a way that everyone would not understand, but the children, in their innocence, had very little understanding of what was going on. Quentin was the only child that finally realized a bit of what was happening, enough to know that when they were leaving the house in the final section, they would never see Nancy alive again. He also knew that Jubah/Jesus (he’s named different according to different versions) would be the one to kill her.

Brush fires and nooses

What causes violence and aggression?  Faulkner lays it on the line in "Dry September."  As anyone who has graduated from high school knows, sometimes it's just the weather.  Don't you remember how suspensions escalated, detentions spiked, and fights always seemed to break out along with the break of spring?  And it only got worse from there.  Heat makes people crazy.  And irrational prejudice, combined with the whole "Southern Belle" mythology, doesn't help.

The saving grace of what seems to be a pretty trite story is that, like the mob, we don't know the facts.  We are a captive audience, crowded into a swelting barber shop, stuffed into a car skidding across dusty roads at midnight.  Perhaps, as the reader, you're with Hawkshaw.  Will Mayes is a good man, or at least a good nigger.  He couldn't have done this.

Perhaps you're with another anonymous speaker, whose voice clings to some semblance of rationality even within the amoebic mob: "We'll get the facts in plenty of time to act."  Of course, as things go, you're already acting, and then you've acted, and the facts never seemed to materialize.

Minnie is both a contemptible and sympathetic character in the story.  She's approaching old maidhood, and this terrifies her.  What better way to stir interest than a harmless little rape accusation, born of desperation, and directed against an expendable member of society?  And it seems to work just fine; when last we see her, Minnie is carried, as if on a palankin, to a bed, where she is fawned over in an almost orgiastic scene.

When all is said and done, all that's left is a dead black man, a sad spinster, and a bunch of pathetic, impotent white dudes.  McLendon goes home to his gilt, cramped little shack and smacks his wife around.  A war hero with nothing left to fight for, he likely feels ashamed of himself as "cooler heads prevail" and Faulkner's narrative camera pans out and away into the cold sky.  The heat is gone, and so is the frenzy.

A Ghost Story.

What exactly is the Ghost in a "A Rose for Emily"?
Is it the Northern Man whose skeleton rests in Emily's bed?
Is it Miss Emily herself? A member of this community that they'd rather forget, because she makes them uncomfortable.
The story is interesting because it can be read both ways.
Some people want to say that this is a comment on the relationship between the North and the South post-Civil War. To me that seems like a bit of a stretch. It seems to me more likely that a Northerner was an easier person to get lost without anyone noticing or saying anything. If it had been a member of the community who had suddenly gone missing, people would have more questions. But if an outsider gets into a situation and then just suddenly disappears people are less likely to talk and less likely to put the clues together.
Faulkner said that the story started with the image of the silver hair on the pillow. That may have been the first thing that he wrote but it seems unlikely that the piece of hair is the real focus of this story. The real focus of this story is the people of the town.
The people talk about Miss Emily constantly, whether saying good things or offering pity, or spreading gossip. This is a aspect of small-town life that is inescapable.
The truly interesting story though is the fact that the town let her get away with it. This is an interesting side of history. Many criminologist believe that some of the great "unsolved" crimes would have been easier solved today because people would have looked at the females as likely suspects. In history, murder is dominated by men killing other men, but it is likely that women committed murder more often but were simply not suspected. The men spread the lye around the place because they couldn't confront a woman about the smell that came from her house. They even recognize the smell as something dead, but can not fathom that Miss Emily could have killed the Northern man.

The Damned Dust.

This story perhaps featured dust more prominently than even Flags in the Dust did.
This story was interesting because of the fact that the story it features around is a rumor and the "Truth" as it would appear is never given. There is also the hint of Will is dead and has been killed by these men but it is never explicitly stated.
The rumors of his demise have been greatly exaggerated.
For such a short story, Faulkner deals with a few large issues. The idea that a Southern man must always accept Race before the person. Hawkshaw is doubtful that Will did anything to Minnie Cooper. The rest of them don't care if he did or if he didn't. The rumor is enough justification for them to make an example of Will.
The dust serves as a reminder that something came before this. This world that is established wholly in this story alone comes from somewhere else. There was a time before and it has fallen. The people are now surrounded by the dust of the past.
The fact that Mayes works at an "ice plant" is interesting. In the middle of a heat spell in the South, the fact that Mayes works at the place where these Men get the ice to cool them off is interesting. It also suggests that Mayes comes from somewhere cooler and is not as hot-blooded as these men. It also ties him symbolically to Minnie Cooper because the ice is the only thing that can calm her at the end of the story.

The Sole Black Man

The strangest character in this entire short story would have to be the black servant. He is the one character who has no motivation that I can discern and he seems to have no real point in the entire story except to explain why Emily was able to eat and do what she needed without ever leaving the house for years at a time. At the same time, he easily escaped the harsher punishments of prejudice from officials and from lesser people, either by simply working in the mansion or being able to state that he worked for Emily. It might have been possible for the officials to have found out more about Emily or what secrets the mansion might have hid if they had taken the servant, killed or interrogated him and entered the mansion themselves. While this is something that other Southern people would have found no problem with, it never happened anyways. The black servant was able to get away from the entire situation after Emily died, and finally left the house out of the back door and effectively disappeared before anyone realized that there was a murdered body inside of Emily’s home. But the question that comes up, again, is why was he there to begin with and why did he keep the secret anyways? If he was a simple servant only following orders, then it is more likely that he would have remained within the mansion even after Emily had died. By running away he seemed more like someone who was forced to remain within the home by some strange power that Emily seemed to have or something she had and held over his head.
Now it would have been strange and unlikely for the servant to have been the actual lover/murderer of the late Homer Barron, but that would have been enough to give us a better understanding of why he was still there.
If in fact the reason that he stayed was because of his duty to his mistress and her house, then he was worldlier than his mistress was or any other “duty-bound” servants might be. Willing to survive, get paid, he followed orders and even kept dirty secrets, but knew that once the dead body was found, he would have been implicated as an accomplice to murder and likely hung either by trial or a lynching mob. So he escaped, deciding to keep up with the role until the last minute and while people would be searching around and becoming confused by the sight of the dead body, escape and find a way to survive his final years peacefully (Considering he was also a fairly old person).
This is, of course, speculation but it is put forward to allow for a better explanation than the one that the story gives us (Which is none).

The indifference of adults and naivete of children

Okay, I'ma break it down.  This story is about several metaphysical divides: between black and white, young and old, and naivete and indifference.

Quentin - in a manner consistent with the nostalgic bent of the rest of this week's stories - begins by reminiscing about old-timey Jefferson, when the negro women simply walked back and forth on laundry day rather than driving.

We learn that Nancy has been knocked up by a white storekeeper and church deacon, Mr. Stovall, in an act of prostitution.  We also learn that her husband, Jubah (or Jesus, apparently, although I would find that name change a bit irrelevant and distracting), is none too pleased with this development.  The thing is, we understand these things because we are old enough to pick up on clues hidden within the context of the adults' language and interactions.  The children don't understand these things because of their youth, and the white adults may understand these things but, frankly, they don't give a damn.

Nancy is clearly terrified for her life, and Jubah is clearly lurking just out of sight.  The interesting implication of this story is that all that separates the naivete of these children from the indifference of their parents is time.  As sure as spring follows winter, the Compson kids will grow up into Compson parents and, unless somehow profoundly affected and changed, will keep on walking away from black folks in peril of death.

Emily, you so crazy

"...All the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches..."

This line, near the end of the story, sums up "A Rose for Emily" to me.  Above all, this story is steeped in nostalgia.  Or, perhaps, not quite nostalgia, but a strange nostalgic preference that the past would remain the present.  The narrator, to be sure, is guilty of this; his perspective drifts among reverence of Emily, peculiar fascination, and quiet contempt.  As the town itself ages and decays, Emily seems to remain sacrosanct, inviolable, and secure in her home.

Only after Emily dies do we learn that she has perpetrated the ultimate nostalgia; what better, in her mind, than to keep things "the way they are," so there never has to be a "way they were?"  It seems apparent, in the final paragraph, that Emily had long ago poisoned Mr. Barron and had been sleeping next to his corpse for many years.  For her, this may have effectively frozen time.  This, from such a reticent woman, one who simply would not acknowledge any phrase resembling "things have changed," seems hardly surprising, if a bit shocking.  Indeed, to the intruders in her home, things have changed quite noticeably.  Jefferson has been corrupted by encroaching industry, Homer Barron's belongings lie obscured under thick tarnish, and he himself is withered, dessicated, and skeletonized.  Emily, too, will soon take this road.

So, what to make of this?  Is Faulkner linking Emily's grotesquerie to the Confederate war veterans waxing nostalgic on her lawn?  Is he focusing his dark satirical gaze on those who would, in an effort to preserve their idealized memory of Dixie past, regress it and pervert it beyond recognition?  Probably.

The Feminist Faulkner?

Faulkner's short story "Dry September" deliberately and forcefully deals with the issue of race and racism in the American South. The repeated question of "Won't you take a white woman's word before a nigger's?", however, seemed to me to bring gender issues into the question as well. The Southern concept of the "White Goddess" is something we've encountered before in other Faulkner works: white women of the South are both perceived and maintained as creatures of the utmost virtue and delicacy. When it comes to matters of sexuality, they are helpless and utterly passive, totally innocent of any lust or longing. When white women like Caddy Compson or Temple Drake, however, recognize their own sexual prerogative, they are immediately cast out, eternal pariahs of the community.

While Faulkner clearly admires the transgressive women he writes about, especially Caddy, complete female sexual freedom still seems very frowned upon. Caddy's daughter Quentin has clearly taken ownership of her sexuality, but she is portrayed as promiscuous and hopeless. The character of Minnie Cooper is clearly dealing with her own sexual frustrations. Once the belle of the ball, so to speak, she removes herself from social life after "One evening at a party she heard a boy and two girls, all schoolmates, talking. She never accepted another invitation." This seems to mark the beginning of her frustrations with relationships between members of the opposite sex.

The conflicting feelings shared by the town about her private life didn't seem to help either. Whether she has passed marrying age and is called "Aunt Minnie" or seen with a middle-aged cashier and addressed as "Cousin Minnie," she is always "poor Minnie." She is pitied for her lack of luck with men, but the townspeople also seem determined to keep her in a state of virginity. Then again, her alleged adultery with the cashier is at the both looked down upon and encouraged because of the titillating gossip it provides. The only thing that keeps their dalliance from completely outraging the town seems to be her age. Faulkner's portrayal of the townspeople shows the Southern paradox of sexuality: there are very strong public feelings about what men and women can and cannot do, yet people are driven to obsession by tales of the sexual lives of others.

The townspeople cannot make up their minds about what is "proper" for a woman of her age and status, meanwhile Minnie is locked in a state of growing hysteria. This is not the first time a man has been accused of assaulting her purity, recalls the men of the barber shop. We never know if Will Mays actually raped her or not, but her nervous breakdown at the end of the story makes sense either way: she will only be noticed, truly noticed, by the townspeople if she is involved in some kind of sexual scandal. The body that publicly belongs to the "White Goddess," with all the sexual mores that go along with it, is also publicly speculated about in the most humiliating way. I wouldn't be surprised if Minnie Cooper was laughing at the hypocrisy of her "friends" at the end of the story.

More like Moketubby

Red Leaves; what an entrancing little story.  What interested me most about this was Faulkner's treatment of these two groups of people - Africans and Native Americans - with qualities both similar and disparate.  Each fell victim to the encroaching European culture in its own way.  In Red Leaves, we learn how a line of Native American men came to own and run a plantation, and consequently a brace of slaves.  As they are unaccustomed to agriculture, they are initially at a loss as to how to dispose of the Africans; they have superstition about eating them (even though they seem to view them more as cattle than as people), but their stewardship sensibility prevents them from simply killing the Africans.  Ergo, the gravitation to agriculture and profit.  This is a problem - and, of course, a conclusion - I had never thought about before, but it makes sense within the context.

This story, like many of Faulkner's works, also seems to touch upon the perversion of an ideal, or a fall from an original state.  Doom (du homme) begets Issetibbeha, who begets Moketubbe, and they progressively deviate further from the expected culture and lifestyle of Native Americans; indeed, Moketubbe is too rotund to move large distances, and the very plumpness of his feet prevents him from wearing the special shoes that seem to signify the mantle of authority and leadership.  Near the story's end, Basket remarks "Take them off.  Honor has been served."  The shoes become a symbol of authority rather than a requisite of authority.  Rulers become figureheads.  Sic transit gloria.

That Evening Sun

I just read some of the other posts about this story and there are some differences in my text. First, it's only called "That Evening Sun," and second, the man who Nancy is hiding from is named "Jesus" in my book. Those seem like some major differences. But all that aside, this was my favorite of the short stories assigned. I was excited to see that it was about the Compsons, and at a time when they seemed to be doing okay, not clashing and fighting or obsessing about what Caddie was doing. Was this narrated by Quentin? I couldn't really tell. I thought it was but I was not totally certain.

This story allowed the readers to get a view of the Compsons as children, moreso than in that first really difficult of Sound and the Fury. I was particularly interested in the character if Jason, because of how he was in the novel. He seemed like a normal kid. I wasn't sure how old they were supposed to be in this story.

The character Nancy was mostly the focus of this one, though, and her constant moaning or whatever she was doing was kind of creepy. Or, at least it gave me the creeps. That, coupled with the lurking Jesus outside, hiding in ditches ready to kill. And her ultimate fate, too. I think Nancy was pretty mentally unhealthy and Mr. Compson seemed to kind of pick up on this. He never seemed to anger with her, and was very patient. This was nice. I liked the character of Mr. Compson-- I pretty much liked all of the characters except for Jesus, of course. I tried to understand that watermelon/vine brief conversation that Nancy and Jesus had in front of the Compson kids, but I didn't really get what he meant. I guess he was threatening her?

This story was so dark feeling. I really liked it a lot and it made me wish that there had been a whole series of short stories dealing with the Compsons as children, so there could be more insight to their lives and all.

Faulkner's short stories, the ones we read, were all pretty good, but this one was, in my opinion, the best of them.

What is Kept too Long

There are largely two kinds of rule-breakers or convention-shakers in the world, those who are too ahead of their time, and those who are too behind. In A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, it's the story of a person stuck in the past, which causes problems with modern convention and reality. Miss Emily lives unbound by rules of current society. She doesn't want to pay her taxes because she hadn't had to before: "I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me. Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy yourselves." She says with a stern, dry voice. The mention of the city records implies that this was a long-ago established write-off, probably not one that exists for her anymore. She doesn't even consider the town Sheriff really the Sheriff. She probably only associates the job title with the previous Sheriff, the Sheriff of her prime. Miss Emily refuses to comply with convention not because she believes there needs to be a change, but because she hates the change that has occurred.

Emily hides from life after the death of her father and the mysterious "disappearing" of her sweetheart. She locks herself in her house, a relic in itself of the past, and clings to whatever memories she has stored in there, whatever routines, untarnished by the slowly modernizing outside world. In her neighborhood, which was once the finest neighborhood, only her house remains among the newly sprouted gins and mills. This historic, immaculately built place is isolated, cut off from the surrounding town. It's arrogant in this way, but also sad, lonely. Like Emily herself, who refuses to conform. The house being a manifestation of her ideals, she has chosen to remain standing immaculate among the newness, as an old relic.

Faulkner then takes this motif and puts a spin on it. If we are to see Emily's house as a manifestation of her ideas, than we have to take note of that hideous smell, the product of a dark secret. We find out that Emily has kept her "sweetheart" in her house rotting away for years. Perhaps she didn't want to be alone, maybe she was obsessed, but either way, there's a body in a bed in a room that hasn't been opened in forty years. Two old relics, Miss Emily and her home, are the keepers of a dead man; the cradlers of death itself. Sure, the house is filling up with the stench of a dying body, but Faulkner wants to imply that so is Emily. This obsession that has led Emily to keep the body in a locked-off room, is the same obsession that keeps her from interacting in a forward-moving world. There's not just a hint of Emily's past life within her, it's dead inside her, and she reeks of it.

This all may sound disgusting, and Faulkner probably intended it to in some way, but in another, we have to take note that this "stench" is not coming from someone who was an evil person in Emily's eyes, it's coming from a body that held a soul that Emily loved. In some way, we all hold on to some form of nostalgia. Some people talk about "the good old days" some talk about "the glory days" some talk about college days, some about childhood, but whatever the day or moment of life or time period people subscribe to, they are ignoring the present. The constant ignorance of present only leads to stagnation, to decay, wether or not the love for it is sweet and true.

Dry September

The first five words of this story really struck me: "Through the bloody Septmber twilight..." How beautiful. The sentence continues, of course, but those first words were really striking to me. The first and the last: The last line from "Dry September" was also very striking: "The dark world seemed to lie stricken beneath the cold moon and the lidless stars." Wow! It seemed to really sum up this whole story. Cold, always watching the dark color of the skin... "...lying stricken" seemed to show what happened to Will Mayes, even though we never really get closure on that. I enjoyed this story as well as "A Rose for Emily" even though it made me tense and sad. The language was so remarkable-- these short stories have been very strong, in my opinion.

The barber shop dialogue was really captured real tension between the men. The horrible McLendon and his getting the whole horrible mess going... I thought it was interesting that Faulkner never gives any details about what actually had happened between Will and Minnie. And that her being older and unmarried would be a reason that she would create stories about men. Minnie was an intriguing character and I would have liked to have gotten to know her a bit better than was offered. Same for Will. We don't really get into their lives very much, moreso Minnie's. This, though, kind of steered the story to excentuate the innocence of Will, I thought, and the injustice and prejudice of many whites in this time period. A white woman's word was more valuable than the life of a black person's life. People who didn't even really know her were willing to murder just because she said something happened. This really brings home what, or maybe what Faulkner thought, was a likely scenario. Maybe?

Since there is such a lack of information on Will's life and Minnie and Will's interaction, there is still a question left in the mind of the reader as to what really happened. Did Minnie lose it because something terrible happened or because she had lied about it? Faulkner leaves the conclusions to the reader, but I felt it was a bit leaning more toward Will being innocent.

The last scene showed McLendon in a really poor light, and continuing in the mind of the reader uncalled for brutality that he was capable of. His wife stayed up past a certain hour and she gets smacked... That's pretty ridiculous. Faulkner seems to zero in on the characters that are supposed to be disliked, like Jason in Sound and the Fury and Popeye in Sanctuary, and I think he really didn't want the readers to like McLendon from the beginning.

I enjoyed this story and it, along with "A Rose for Emily" was less Faulknerian than his novels, in my opinion, and a lot more accessible.

A Rose for Emily

"A Rose for Emily" brought me back to grade school. We read this at some point either in seventh or eighth grade and I didn't realize until I began reading that I had read it before. The curiosity of the neighbors-- the nosiness-- immediately conjured memories of the first time I had read the story.

I enjoyed this story a lot. It was the first I read of the series of assigned short stories, and I was struck by how different it was from all of the Faulkner we had read thus far. It was very accessible-- so accessible that it was assigned reading at a Catholic grade school.

After reading, however, I wondered who the narrator was and why the story was called "A Rose for Emily" when I don't recall a rose being mentioned. But maybe it passed me by and I didn't realize. A rose offered to Emily, I guess, would have been when one was courting or when she was dead, as a sign of respect. I was confused about that as well.

The character of Emily brought to mind the character or Flannery O'Connor's Joy in "Good Country People," although Emily was far less gruff, I thought. Faulkner really illustrated the character of Emily pretty clearly, and did so in such a short story that it really showcased the depth of his abilities.

Another question I had after reading was how did the grey hair get on the pillow next to the dead man if the room had been sealed for so many years? Did I miss something here? He said there was dust everywhere... How did she get in? And did her negro house man know what was going on? He bolted pretty quickly after the people were let into the house, so to me, that said that he was aware of Emily's bed partner. But how did she get in?

This was a really great story but it left me with many questions for Faulkner.

Who are you Mr. Compson?

"That Evening Sun Go Down" follows the same fractured time frame as Faulkner's other works, in particular, that unique and often dizzying timeline that is employed in all tales of the Compson family. The story begins in the present, which is not a place the reader returns to. The title refers to an evening which we find out later on is in the past, yet the title itself could allude to the future or the past. The setting goes back and forth like the sun goes up and down, the present exists and then doesn't, the past exists and then doesn't. Similarly other elements in the story exist and then cease to exist. Immediately I knew that this was an important theme in this short story. In several instances Faulkner describes things as being and not being, such as, "she said she was ... she said she wasn't" or "it was like singing and it wasn't like singing." The theme uniting the aforementioned provides a circular realm wherein the story can take place. Perhaps it is even linear, yet, in a nonconventional way. In this story, if we were to perceive it as employing a linear pattern in the way that I am speaking of, the pattern is one that goes back and forth, i guess slightly similar to that of a ping pong game. The back and forth motion can be representative of two opposing forces, that of good and that of evil--both inherent in human actions and intentions. The characters in this story walk the line between, under, and above these realms, wobbling from side to side. Each character is distinguished by their placement amid the good and evil forces. I believe that Nancy, a "hell-born" Negro, is representative of this struggle. Her character embodies fear, unease and anticipation. Caddy, particularly when persuaded by Nancy, demonstrates human weakness in the face of temptation whereas Jason's character mimics both Caddy and Nancy at the same time. He is both fearful and tempted to act in discordance with his intuition because of Caddy's heckling. Jubah, is the devil waiting outside, whether there or not there his presence does not cease and it is feared by all characters except for Mr. Compson whom I have yet to fully comprehend in terms of my analysis thus far.

I am interested to see how people viewed Mr. Compson.. That is, what role does he play in this story? What is he representative of in your perspective?? Does he contribute to my argument?

Hold On, Nancy

William Faulkner’s short story “That Evening Sun Go Down” is a chilling thriller set in his iconic Yoknapatawpha county. We are once again privy to the lives of the three Compson children, Caddy, Jason, and Quentin, our narrator. At this point in the children’s lives they are seven, five, and nine, respectively. In this story we are introduced to a new character, Nancy, a black servant to the Compson family. Nancy is a troubled individual, dabbling possibly in alcohol, prostitution, and cocaine. For the second half of the story she lives in fear of her delinquent husband who she thinks has returned to cut her with a razor. Though Faulkner leaves the biggest and most important leaps entirely up to the reader, he succeeds in creating the atmosphere of fear and depravity that Nancy herself lives in.
Nancy is an interesting and complex character. She serves as a foil to the Compsons’ usual housemaid, Dilsey, who is sick at the time of the story. Nancy’s rowdy and debauched life is strikingly juxtaposed with Dilsey’s diligent servitude. Dilsey is the typical submissive black servant of the South, calling her employer master and fawning over her children. Nancy, on the other hand, is rebellious of her job and refuses to be governed by her skin color. At the beginning of the story she refuses to get up and make the Compsons breakfast because she has to “get her sleep out.” Nancy is a prostitute, having sex with the white Mr. Stovall. Nancy’s rebellious nature is also seen when she attempts to escape from prison, hanging naked out of the window holding onto nothing but her dress. Nancy and Dilsey are two sides of the same coin, though, as they are both African American women in 1920s Deep South. They are both at the lowest of the chain, being both females and blacks. It is interesting to see this difference, though, and I think that Faulkner did a nice job depicting these two sides to black womanhood in the south.
The thriller element in this story is a new one, at least in my Faulknerian experience. Parts of “That Evening Sun Go Down” seemed more like Poe than Faulkner, but this simply proves that Faulkner is more diverse than I once thought him to be. The suspense in the second half the story over whether Jubah was really going to kill Nancy or if it was just her crazy imagination reminded me of “The Telltale Heart.” I found myself reading faster through Nancy’s walks back to her cabin in order to get her home safely. I think Faulkner masterfully crafted this story, and has once again hooked me into his writing.

Did you Hear?

"Well," He said, "Are you going sit there and let a black son rape a white woman on the streets of Jefferson?"

This line exemplifies what, to me, Faulkner is trying to communicate in this short story. It is clear to any Faulkner reader that he's mostly writing about issues of race, wealth, the idea of the "Old South", and the potent characters within this realm. However, we should not let this specific placement (Jefferson) and particular time period cloud the fact that these issues of rumor and prejudice are eternal and all-encompassing. From the time of the ancients to the time of Shakespeare and even in popular culture of the present, these themes permeate our thoughts and actions.

The rumors surrounding this black man and white woman in Dry September reach beyond this specific racism. Faulkner is highlighting all forms of prejudice, subtle and overt. When Shakespeare wrote Othello, a story with a similar predicament, he was not just writing about the personal struggle between two people of different races in love, but the complex, constructed laws of humanity. It's important to remember that when we are reading Faulkner, we aren't just reading about the South, we are reading about the world—ancient, modern, eternal.

That being said, Will Mayes (black man) is suspected of raping Miss Minnie (white woman), and the outcome is never revealed in order to show the reader that the actual rape the least important thing surrounding all of the anxieties, questions, and thoughts that it spawned. The rumor lingers in front of the reader's face to show that wether it happened or not is unimportant. What really matters is that it's a huge, penetrating situation that occupies the thoughts and conversation of an entire community.

"Are you going to sit there and let..." Yes. That's exactly what happened in this city of Jefferson. They talked, spread rumors, and in that occupied all of their lives with the mere idea of a rape that may or may not have happened. Storytelling is a big part of human interaction, but add discrimination of any kind, and soon enough the stories turn into harmful, snowballing lies.

Rape is a terrible thing, and I'm not saying this is not to make light of it. But it's suggested that Miss Minnie may well have created the story as a scapegoat to keep her name which is described as "not the best people in Jefferson" but a family that's "good enough". This is also a common occurrence among women. Some people even suggest that the Virgin Mary may have created such an elaborate story about conceiving the son of God so as to not be called impure. Just as permeating as the discrimination between races is that double-edged sword of sexuality between men and women, where the woman is usually always to blame.

This world of rumor is created out of the struggle to maintain socially constructed racism and discriminations. Faulkner wants to show that nothing worthwhile is created from letting socially constructed and destructive boundaries between race, gender, and class get to you. As soon as a person puts faith in the system, they have to become a slave to that system, and that's always been a vicious cycle of misunderstanding among us.

Did He? Or Didn't He?

The major premise of William Faulkner’s short story “Dry September” revolves around the question of whether or not Will Mayes, a black man, raped Minnie Cooper, a white woman. This question is never really answered, at least not outright, and I, at least, was unable to deduce the truth from the context. The way I look at it, Mayes could have raped her, or Miss Minnie could be lying, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter either way.
In the first scene of the story, several men are discussing what has happened in a barbershop. One of the barbers defends Willie Mayes, saying “I know Willie Mayes,” and claiming that Willie is a good man who wouldn’t hurt anyone. The other men in the shop disagree, calling the barber a “niggerlover” simply because he wants to collect the facts before making any judgments. One man, an ex-soldier known as McLendon, joins the discussion and is outraged by the barber’ “niggerloving.” McLendon hurls accusations as the barber and it is implied that McLendon challenges the barber to a duel outside. McLendon is incensed by even the thought of giving Willie Mayes the benefit of a doubt or the chance to prove himself. While the barber believes in Mayes’ innocence, or at least his right to proven himself so, McLendon has already convicted Mayes in his mind; Mayes is guilty not matter what. These two men represent opposite ends of the spectrum of beliefs in the town, two extremes. While most people believe Miss Minne’s story that Mayes raped her, several times throughout the story it has been suggested that she has maybe made it all up. One of her old classmates and friends ask another woman “Do you suppose anything really happened?” There is always an element of doubt lingering the air, though most people, like McLendon, are quick to judge Mayes harshly because of the color of his skin.
One of the scenes, when taken a certain way, may add credence to the idea that Miss Minnie Cooper made her rape story up. One night after the story has circulated town, Minnie and her friends go to the movies, but before the show even begins Minnie begins to laugh uncontrollably, continuing all through the night. Nothing can stop her, and it appears that she has lost her mind. These hysterics seem to suggest that there is something nor right about Miss Minnie; something is driving her to insanity. It is possible that the rape has sent her over the edge, but, to me, it seems more likely that she is hiding something, and the guilt of lying is eating away at her. It is also peculiar that she is laughing. This might suggest that she thinks it is funny that she has fooled the town with her story, or that she finds the attention on the wrong rapist amusing in a sick and twisted way.
In the end, it does not matter whether Willie Mayes raped Miss Minnie or not. “Dry September” is less about this incident and more about the nature of people and racism in the South. Miss Minnie is an example of fading old money, a spinster who is “forced into” adultery. Willie Mayes is a black man, but not matter how a good a man he is, how kind and honest, he is still persecuted for a crime he may not have committed. The final scene, where McLendon comes home late, suggests that something sinister has happened, and the reader is left with the sense that Willie Mayes has paid his dues, time after time, done his sentence, but committed no crime.

Poor Nancy

That Evening Sun Go Down seemed to contain many allusions to mysterious fears. The dark ditch in which the man is supposedly hidden, for instance, seems to be symbolic of faceless fears in the dark.

I say “faceless fears” because I was not fully convinced that Nancy was hiding from Jubah. Perhaps there was a lack of reader comprehension on my part, but it did seem that Nancy considered Jubah a good man in her life: “Jubah always been good to me…Whenever he had two dollars, one of them was mine.” I wondered if Nancy was more afraid of the white man, the Baptist deacon. Perhaps it was the deacon hiding the razor “on the string down his back.” Perhaps it was the deacon who gave Jubah his scar. Or maybe, once again, I simply did not fully understand this short story.

Whether Nancy feared Jubah, the deacon, or Jubah’s reaction to her pregnancy (presumably by the deacon), what I took from the story was Nancy’s helplessness and the lack of support she received from the white community, specifically the Compsons – the people she believed could truly help her.

In the novel, it is repeated, by Caddy and especially Jason, that Nancy is a “nigger.” Dilsey and Jubah are also labeled as such, repeatedly. It is interesting that Faulkner includes this, and it seems to speak for the fact that white people define black people by this word and all of the connotations implied therewith – being a “scairdy,” for instance. Not only are the young children aware of this term, in tune with the involved stereotypes, and constantly using it to describe their black acquaintances, but Nancy herself seems to view herself as such as well (“I ain’t nothing but a nigger”). Interestingly enough, when she relays the story of a woman crossing a ditch to get home, she describes a queen.

Nancy’s fears do not seem to be taken seriously. At one point Caddy tells Jason that he was “scairder than niggers.” It therefore seems that a stereotype associated with black people is superstition or irrational fear. Nancy is a woman living alone without a husband. When the evening sun goes down, she is alone in the dark. So she seems to gravitate toward the light – staying by the fire, leaving it burning once the Compsons leave her alone. Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems Faulkner wishes the reader to sympathize with Nancy, to see past the outlooks of young Quentin and his siblings and view Nancy as a justifiably scared woman, desperate enough to seek comfort in children. To me, it was very sad how she had to bribe young, helpless children as a means of achieving perceived protection. How she was ultimately left alone by Mr. Compson and the younguns.

This story seems to contain a theme of change. The town used to be one way, until it changed into another way. Nancy herself was once steady, carrying a bundle on her head that “never bobbed nor wavered.” By the end of the story, she is unsteady. She is described as being outside of herself. Her hand seems to be detached from the rest of her body. She is frightened out of her skin.

Narrator in A Rose for Emily

Small-town gossip and general societal nosiness are common themes in most every Faulkner novel. They are also used as a means of relaying the stories themselves, as in Absalom, Absalom, Light in August, and even Soldiers’ Pay. A Rose for Emily, with its nameless, faceless narrator, is no exception.

As Professor Ethridge said, much is conveyed in the opening sentence of any Faulkner work. In A Rose for Emily, Emily Grierson herself is, off the bat, presented as a “fallen monument.” A monument in any community is often a centerpiece. This idea is enhanced by the implication that Miss Emily, despite being a recluse, is a highly known – the women were curious to see the inside of her house, the entire town attended her funeral.

The story, as shown in the very first sentence, is told from the perspective of the town itself. Although the reader cannot know from the first line that the narrator will never be developed as his/her own person, he/she is presented as part of a collective from the very beginning (“our whole town”). The fact that the narrator never develops an identity of his/her own enhances the idea of small-town gossip and nosiness. All of the information attained by the reader is told by the voice of this narrator, this faceless member of a community. Therefore, everything the reader learns about Emily herself is presented through the eyes of the community. We do not see the inside of Miss Emily’s house after all of those years of solitude until the community itself enters and sees for itself the dead man and the gray hair upon the pillow.

I cannot say why Faulkner chose to tell the story in this way, nor why he titled it A Rose for Emily. A rose implies passion, romance, and danger. For the most part, Miss Emily is seen as a passionless person. She is a person lacking vivaciousness. She is in that claustrophobic, dusty house, hidden. People disappear through the front door; they disappear out the back door. I suppose the point is, nobody knows what goes on in Miss Emily’s home or, even more, in her mind or heart. We only know that we see the iron-gray hair on the pillow beside a presumable lover.

Absalom, Absalom: A Ghost(ish) Story

For me, the most captivating aspect of Absalom, Absalom is the relationship between Henry and Judith Sutpen. This brother/sister relationship contains competitiveness, incestuous urges, and telepathic connectivity. What struck me most about their particular relationship was the idea that I had read about similar relationships in other novels. In Donna Tartt’s contemporary The Secret History, it is discovered by an outsider protagonist that a set of twins is engaging in sexual activities with one another. Furthermore, the female twin, like Judith Sutpen, is described as having masculine qualities. In Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, siblings Flora and Miles are interpreted by their nursemaid as sexually corrupted beings with telepathic powers. It is important to note that what we find out about Henry and Judith’s strange relationship is also an interpretation, in this case from Quentin’s father, one of several narrators relaying the rise and fall of the Sutpen family in Absalom, Absalom.
Quentin’s father says: “…perhaps this is the pure and perfect incest: the brother realizing that the sister’s virginity must be destroyed in order to have existed at all, taking that virginity in the person of the brother-in-law, the man whom he would be if he could become, metamorphose into, the lover…” This is, in fact, mere speculation on the part of Quentin’s father, Mr. Compson. However, it is so twisted and clever that I, who has only the words on the page as evidence, took it to be true of Henry’s relationship toward his sister. Henry’s urge for Charles Bon, whose every act he emulates, to marry (and presumably bed) his sister is interpreted by Mr. Compson as a way of, somehow, “de-virginizing” Judith on his own and, thereby, somehow, controlling that loss of the precious.
As for their mystical connectivity, Mr. Compson discusses “that telepathy with which as children they seemed at times to anticipate one another’s actions as two birds leave a limb at the same instant.” Mr. Compson/Faulkner also uses the word “clairvoyance.”
This novel is an epic account of a man’s attempt to acquire a name and a place in this life. However, the account of Sutpen’s children by Mr. Compson gives the Sutpen saga the feel of a ghost story at times. The mentions of clairvoyance, spells and body-snatchings (“as though it actually were the brother who had put the spell on the sister, seduced her to his own vicarious image which walked and breathed with Bon’s body”), as well as the image of Miss Rosa Coldfield creeping around as a child, listening behind closed doors, certainly give the novel an eerie quality, and make the story within the story read like a ghost story (a la The Turn of the Screw).
It is not only a ghost story because of its, at times, chilling nature. There is also the fact that actual figures from the past are being conjured and mingling with those of the present. This can be most clearly seen in the re-telling of the story by Quentin and his roommate Shreve: “First two of them, then four; now two again. The room was indeed tomblike…”

As I Lay Dying

I'm going to honestly say that this novel made me, as a reader, want to die. It was a great attempt by Faulkner, just not a great delivery. Faulkner wrote this novel using stream of conscious allowing the characters in the novel to give their point of view. Many of the ideas in the novel were hard to catch on to especially the idea of the dying mother being a fish. I didn't understand why that was so. Anywho, I was also tired of the country setting which Faulkner seems to include in nearly every novel.

The characters in As I Lay Dying were not very interesting to me either. The only character I had an appreciation for was Dr. Peabody. He viewed the family the same way I do. He's able to point out the absurdity in the actions of others in the novel. For example, it was absurd that the mother was left in her room only to hear her son create her caufin. It's as if all of her family was waiting for her to die! Her husband also played a part in this theory as well. He was only concerned with their sons heading off to town soon enough to beat the storm so they could make money. Even though he said it was his wife's wishes to be buried in town, he was mainly concerned with the money he would be missing if they didn't make it there before the storm reached their area.

It is questionable if the woman's children and her husband loved her at all. I found myself asking this question when noticing the time and attention Cash gave to creating her cauffin but the little emotion he exhibited to the fact that it was for his dying mother. He seemed unmoved that his mother was inside their home hanging on to life. Their love for her was also questionable when I noticed that none of her children visited her often. She was only accompanied by a young woman taking care of her.

Faulkner did a great job with setting up an eerie and heartfelt setting, but the interesting aspects of the novel were lost. As a reader, I was unable to tap into the novel and really enjoy it. I felt like there was a lot going on but yet still not enough to make it interesting. Sorry.