Research Paper Since the inception of time, man has been confronted with the intriguing, yet confidential debate about slavery and racial discrimination against minorities. Nobel prize winner and literary merit William Faulkner, was a preeminent American author who examined and presented such archetype through his southern style genre and works, A Rose for Emily, The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom. Connected to his work, William Faulkner is herald today to be one of the greatest southern-interpreted writers in American history. His brilliant description of the racial battle between the common white man and enslaved African Americans is craftily persuasive and exhaustively presented through disintegration of southern aristocracy, Fictitious
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In his novel Absalom, Absalom, Faulkner delves back in time to rediscover the life of the main character Sutpen, an enslaved African American. Faulkner seemingly and effectively explores the history of the South when slavery was thriving before the Civil War. The author and the works simultaneous discovery of the nature of Sutpen’s eventual fall and the demise of the antebellum South, however, is not coincidental. The tragic events of Sutpen’s life as presented in the novel are a metaphorical representation of the South. Faulkner’s exploration of the history of Sutpen’s fall and the tragedy of the South contributes to the reflection of both Sutpen’s and the South’s histories, eventually leading to the discovery of their shared tragic flaw, an ignorance of racial prejudice. Portraying such a compelling metaphor, Faulkner was frequently asked about the novel, Absalom, Absalom, by many critics. In response, Faulkner craftily responded with a connection to the prehistoric being of America where stating that, “our republic had been born out of a dream. It had been founded to guarantee to every citizen freedom from oppression…”(Stable …show more content…
Born in New Albany, Mississippi it does not come as a surprise to see traces of personal experience with racial discrimination. Exclaimed by critics, “Faulkner’s works explore the concept of slavery as the nation's original sin.” (Ole Miss 1) Portraying such ideology and with a myriad of success, Faulkner has also been credited as one of three “founding fathers” of the Southern gothic literary movement. Also called “the Southern Renaissance” (Southern 1), it “has been declared by critics as having begun in 1929, the year that saw the publication[s] of major works …”(Southern 1) Faulkner, an author who often specifically expressed “the grotesque, loads of decay and disintegration”(Shmoop 1) which revolved around such movement, typically presented work “based on ‘the ghost of a dead civilization,” and “the diabolically vital and haunting specter of slavery recorded and recounted in the written word of the slave narrative and the slave novel.”(Sullivan 1) Such representation was highly disputed by critics, as “the book engendered outrage in Faulkner's hometown of Oxford and garnered a great deal of negative publicity for the young author. One reviewer said… Absalom, Absalom was a ‘devastating, inhuman monstrosity of a book that leaves one with the impression of having been vomited bodily
In his novel Absalom, Absalom, Faulkner delves back in time to rediscover the life of the main character Sutpen, an enslaved African American. Faulkner seemingly and effectively explores the history of the South when slavery was thriving before the Civil War. The author and the works simultaneous discovery of the nature of Sutpen’s eventual fall and the demise of the antebellum South, however, is not coincidental. The tragic events of Sutpen’s life as presented in the novel are a metaphorical representation of the South. Faulkner’s exploration of the history of Sutpen’s fall and the tragedy of the South contributes to the reflection of both Sutpen’s and the South’s histories, eventually leading to the discovery of their shared tragic flaw, an ignorance of racial prejudice. Portraying such a compelling metaphor, Faulkner was frequently asked about the novel, Absalom, Absalom, by many critics. In response, Faulkner craftily responded with a connection to the prehistoric being of America where stating that, “our republic had been born out of a dream. It had been founded to guarantee to every citizen freedom from oppression…”(Stable …show more content…
Born in New Albany, Mississippi it does not come as a surprise to see traces of personal experience with racial discrimination. Exclaimed by critics, “Faulkner’s works explore the concept of slavery as the nation's original sin.” (Ole Miss 1) Portraying such ideology and with a myriad of success, Faulkner has also been credited as one of three “founding fathers” of the Southern gothic literary movement. Also called “the Southern Renaissance” (Southern 1), it “has been declared by critics as having begun in 1929, the year that saw the publication[s] of major works …”(Southern 1) Faulkner, an author who often specifically expressed “the grotesque, loads of decay and disintegration”(Shmoop 1) which revolved around such movement, typically presented work “based on ‘the ghost of a dead civilization,” and “the diabolically vital and haunting specter of slavery recorded and recounted in the written word of the slave narrative and the slave novel.”(Sullivan 1) Such representation was highly disputed by critics, as “the book engendered outrage in Faulkner's hometown of Oxford and garnered a great deal of negative publicity for the young author. One reviewer said… Absalom, Absalom was a ‘devastating, inhuman monstrosity of a book that leaves one with the impression of having been vomited bodily