The Crisis Of Identity By William Faulkner - 1575 Words

The Crisis of Identity Arguably one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, William Faulkner was plagued with a crisis of identity from a young age. Inadequate in nearly every aspect of his life, Faulkner projected his personal shortcomings onto many of his characters, such as with Miss Emily Grierson in â€Å"A Rose for Emily† and Wash Jones in â€Å"Wash.† However, instead of victimizing these characters within his works, Faulkner chooses to rely almost exclusively on the lowborn or outcasts, such as Wash and Miss Emily, as examples of heroism. Unconventional characters like Wash Jones and Emily Grierson pose a test for Faulkner’s readers. If the reader judges these characters with a conventional eye, seeing one other as a murderous†¦show more content†¦This isolation prevented Miss Emily from marrying at a suitable age, therefore leaving her ineligible after her father’s death. In â€Å"Wash,† Faulkner depicts Wash Jones as being the very bottom of society, an image that is strengthened by the foil of Thomas Sutpen. Unlike Sutpen, a self-made man who has risen to the top of society, Wash Jones is the lowest of the low. Wash’s exceptionally degraded status at the bottom of the social heap makes it so that even a Negro woman can block his entrance to Sutpen s kitchen: â€Å"Stop right dar, white man. Stop right whar you is. You ain’t never crossed dese steps whilst Cunnel (Sutpen) here, and you ain’t ghy’ do hit now† (131). Wash Jones’s monumental identity issues are further exemplified through his cowardliness. When Colonel Sutpen goes off to fight for the Confederacy, Wash does not go; he instead tells anyone he can that he is looking after Sutpen’s plantation and slaves. However, â€Å"this was a lie, as most of them†¦ to whom he told it, knew, though there were some who believed that [Wash] really believed it, though even these believed that he had better sense than to put it to the test with Mrs. Sutpen or the Sutpen slaves† (130). Like Faulkner, both Miss Emily and Wash Jones suffer from significant identity issues; however it is these issues that give them the potential to be the atypical heroes that Faulkner crafts. Similar toShow MoreRelatedWilliam Faulkners Major Works and Themes938 Words   |  4 Pagesdark touchy topics such as war, racism, mental illness and suicide in all of books, short stories, William Faulkner wrote about almost every part of life, from something that could be absurd at his time, to something real like racism in the American South. Throughout his life, Faulkner was kind of a rebel, notorious for his confidence, drinking, and he would often make up stories about himself. Faulkner wrote from experience and as a person who lived in the south during times of racism, he wrote aboutRead MoreComparing The Sun Also Rises By Ernest Hemingway And Faulkner1593 Words   |  7 PagesIn the novels, The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway and As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, the protagonists experience a difficult, emotional event. Both Hemingway and Faulkner capture how the protagonists feel unwanted and alone when they go through a life changing experience. Hemingway and Faulkner capture this by using different writing styles to show how the characters cope with their emotions and feelings from the setback. Hemingway writes simplistic sentences to show how Jake Barnes putsRead More As I Lay Dying Essay example1225 Words   |  5 PagesAs I Lay Dying In As I Lay Dying William Faulkner uses multiple points of view to explore the theme of existence as a motionless and meaningless cycle. The cycle is motionless because it is inescapable and unchangeable. 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Many of his stories take place in fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. In the Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, he focuses on two very different families in this county, and explores how the â€Å"iniquity of the fathers† is revisited â€Å"upon the children† (Holy Bible: KJV Deut. 5.9)Read More William Faulkners Use of Shakespeare Essay5388 Words   |  22 PagesWilliam Faulkners Use of Shakespeare Throughout his career William Faulkner acknowledged the influence of many writers upon his work--Twain, Dreiser, Anderson, Keats, Dickens, Conrad, Balzac, Bergson, and Cervantes, to name only a few--but the one writer that he consistently mentioned as a constant and continuing influence was William Shakespeare. Though Faulkner’s claim as a fledgling writer in 1921 that â€Å"[he] could write a play like Hamlet if [he] wanted to† (FAB 330) may be dismissed asRead MoreThe Influence of Realism and Naturalism on 20th Century American Fiction2205 Words   |  9 Pageschange as a result of a changing economy, society, and culture because of an influx in the number of immigrants into America. Realists such as Henry James and William Dean Howells, two of the most prolific writers of the Nineteenth-century, used typical realistic methods to create an accurate depiction of changing American life. William Dean Howells, while opposing idealization, made his comic criticisms of so ciety (Bradley 114) by comparing American culture with those of other countries. In hisRead MoreThe Impact Of Ancient Greek Theater And Tragedy1703 Words   |  7 Pages men dressed as satyrs, companions of Dionysus who are half-man and half-goat, while the women dressed up as maenads, the immortal followers of Dionysus. As the participants become drunk and filled with ecstasy, they â€Å"transform† into a different identity from before. Later on this behavior became the satyr play, a form of Greek drama. Tragedy is said to be originated from the Dionysian rites, where the name comes from tragoidos, which means the â€Å"goat song† from the satyrs – companions of Dionysus