William Faulkner's Short Biography

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William Cuthbert Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi on September 25, 1897. Faulkner was the oldest of four children. When Faulkner was five years old, his father decided to move the family to Oxford, Mississippi. During his childhood, the adults around him would tell him stories about the civil war, slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, and his family history. A favorite tale among his family was of his great-grandfather, after whom he was named, who was a successful business man, writer, and war hero. Faulkner’s father taught his sons to hunt, track, and fish while his mother taught William to value his education and helped him develop a creative imagination. Faulkner did well early in his schooling but became more withdrawn and shy around …show more content…
Through publishing his short stories Faulkner earned enough income to buy a home in Oxford, Mississippi for his family. In 1932, Faulkner’s financial security slipped out from underneath him. After his agent could not find him any paying jobs, MGM offered him work in Hollywood, California as a screenwriter. Throughout the 1930s and 40s, Faulkner continued to work as a screenwriter. In 1949 William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for his work in literature ("William Faulkner - Biographical"). This helped Faulkner career as a writer which helped to maintain his financial stability. During this period of his writing Faulkner continued to gain popularity and recognition. In 1950 and 1951 respectively, Faulkner won the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Howells Medal for Fiction and the National Book Award for his collection of stories ("William Faulkner - Biographical"). In 1958 and 1959 Faulkner served as a writer-in-residence at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. On July 6, 1962, William Faulkner died from a heart attack at Wright’s Sanatorium in Byhalia, …show more content…
This can be seen in many aspects of Emily’s life. For one, looking at Emily’s home, it is described as “big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies” (219). Throughout the many years that Emily had been living in the home, she never changed how it was decorated, inside or out, this could have been attributed to many different things but was most likely caused by her aversion to change. The other example of this is when a room in the house is broken into. The room is covered in dust and looks to be prepared for a bridal. On the bed is the dead body of Homer Barron. It could be guessed that Emily may have killed Homer to prevent him from deserting her like her father had years before when he died. On the other pillow on the bed was the indentation of a head where a long strand of iron-gray hair was lifted from. This suggests that Emily often lay with the body of Homer Barron for, quite possibly, years after his death. I really enjoyed “A Rose for Emily”. I liked this story because of the way it was told, how the plot was revealed, the message behind it, and the genuine mystery that surrounds the characters until the end. I do wish that more detail would have been given on the surroundings and the other characters just to add some context to the story, but the story stands alone perfectly fine. Emily

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