Southern Literature:
William Faulkner
A central figure in the study of Southern literature, Faulkner directly influenced the mission and content of the project with the theme and style of his works.
William Faulkner (1897-1962) is a Nobel Prize winning author from Oxford, Mississippi who wrote in the early twentieth century about the culture and condition of the American South. His works have been and will continue to be hugely important to the field of Southern studies, because they paint some of the most vivid pictures of life in Mississippi in the early 1900s.
Faulkner’s novels utilize a version of the stream of consciousness writing style also made famous by authors like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. It allows him to express the most bizarre and convoluted thoughts of his characters, a feat that plays a significant role in the acclaim surrounding his works. Stream of consciousness makes Faulkner’s novels some of the most difficult to read in the history of American literature, but it also inspires literary critics to continue writing about his works almost a century later.
Faulkner is particularly known for the complicated and conflicting narratives he uses to tell his stories. In As I Lay Dying, for instance, each chapter is written from a different character’s perspective, and those accounts are not necessarily in chronological order. Similarly, the real action in Absalom, Absalom! exists within the span of only a day and is comprised simply of mere conversations, but the story Faulkner really wants to tell is communicated within these conversations. Thus, perspective and narration are important facets of Faulkner’s works, and he is constantly pushing the boundaries of what “history” and “memory” really mean.
The writing style and content of Faulkner’s works have provided an important foundation for this project. The character excerpts are written in stream of consciousness style, and the way memory is narrated and represented in novels like As I Lay Dying and Absalom, Absalom! is one of the foremost inspirations for “Think Again.” Faulkner is no stranger to using dual narratives and complex memory formation to complicate historical perspective, and that is a tactic that aligns directly with the mission of this project.