William Faulkner’s Life and Writings Essay Example for Free

William Faulkner’s Life and Writings Essay William Faulkner is one of the great American writers of the 20th century. He has written several highly-acclaimed novels, short stories and poems and was among the pioneers who revolutionized storytelling through the use of the stream of consciousness technique, something not common during the time. His works are considered brilliant and remain to be among the required studies for literature in colleges and universities in the United States as well as other English speaking countries. Faulkner’s literary accolades are numerous. He won two Pulitzer Prizes for his 1954 novel A Fable, which received the Pulitzer a year later, and for his 1962 novel, The Reivers, which was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer in 1963. In 1949, or three years before his first Pulitzer, Faulkner received the Nobel Prize for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel. But the journey to literary success was never â€Å"a walk in the clouds†, or so to speak, for William Faulkner who struggled to get recognition for his earlier works. His first book, a collection of poems entitled The Marble Faun, published in 1924 did not immediately hit the mark as it barely got any serious attention from readers. It is also said that it was during this time that William Faulkner decided to change the original spelling of his family name to make it â€Å"sound more British† for the publication of his first book. His real family name came from an old Customer’s last name 2 Southern family named Falkner from New Albany, Mississippi where the novelist was born on September 25, 1897, as the eldest of four sons. But Faulkner spent most of his life at the nearby town of Oxford, Mississippi where his family moved when he was barely five years old. Much of his inspirations for his work were drawn from his personal experiences. And his views were tangible in many of his writings especially those that probe the prejudices of his own region, the deep South. Faulkner started writing novels on 7th Grade at about the same time he lost interest in school after he found the classes boring. His first themes were romance inspired by her childhood sweetheart and later wife, Estelle Oldham. Faulkner remained married to her until his death in July 6, 1962 but his family seems to come only second to his writing, which he puts at the center of his life. In an interview for Writer’s at Work: The Paris Review Interview in 1959, Faulkner described how important his writings to him. He remarked: The writers only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the Ode on a Grecian Urn is worth any number of old ladies. (Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, 1959) Faulkner’s statement in that interview glared what was already apparent and clear all along to his family, friends, and the people who work closely with the reclusive writer. When Faulkner released his third novel, Sartoris (Flags in the Dust), in 1929, he used his great-grandfather William Clark Falkner, himself a colonel in the American Civil War, as the Customer’s last name 3 model for Colonel John Sartoris. The novel deals with the decay of an aristocratic Southern family following the social upheaval of the American Civil War. This novel is a good example of how the novelist’s life is reflected on his writings. It shows that Faulkner was influenced by the history of his family and the region in which they lived. A critical examination of Faulkner’s masterpieces such as The Sound and the Fury, As I lay Dying, Absalom, Absalom! and A Rose for Emily will reveal that his main focus, as a writer, is to explore and expose the deterioration of values in his own region. Faulkner wrote with such sensitivity of the moral degradation he has witnessed. In the sense, Faulkner is a historian who provided an overcast view of a segment of America during a tumultuous period that demanded radical social change. And albeit his works were fictions, it mirrored the horrendous realities of a society diminishing in its traditional values and unable to embrace the dawn of modern realities. Most of Faulkner’s stories were set in Yoknapatawpha County, a fictional place after his own Lafayete County. The town of Jefferson is within Yoknapatawpha County and is the equivalent of Oxford, the novelist’s hometown. While the setting may not be original, it was easy for Faulkner to provide a vivid description of his settings and characters he based from non-fictions or from something he has intimate knowledge on. Aside from Faulkner’s hometown being modeled for the fictional setting in his writings, it was suggested that some characters from his works were inspired by real people and biblical characters like the 19th century politician Jacob Thomson for the character of Jason Compson III from his The Sound and the Fury novel and the character of Benjamin Compson from the same novel which is said to symbolize a Christ-figure while in his Pulitzer winner novel, A Fable, his main character Corporal Zsettslani Customer’s last name 4 is representative of Jesus. This method made it easy for Faulkner to personalize the characters in his stories. Faulkner’s strong sense of moral and social responsibility is also very much visible in his works. He often deals with the transgression of the Southern whites against the Black with tragic bluntness to denigrate a blatant social aberrant. In a way, Faulkner was the greatest admirer and critic of the Southern life and history. He absorbed the sordid and brilliant, blithe and painful history of the South and transposed it into soul poetry. Moreover, Faulkner also tried to advocate, albeit tacitly, for the preservation of culture and the environment in his writings. In his 1942 novel, The Bear, Faulkner lamented the encroachment of civilization into the natural world. The novel is a tale of initiation into the adult world set against a backdrop of a yearly hunting expedition of Old Ben, a bear believed to be last of its kind in Mississippi woods. The narrative is also about the young Ike McCaslin coming to know both the woods and himself through the help of an old Chickasaw who is symbolically named Sam Fathers (Castor 37). In Faulkner’s narrative, the death of Sam Fathers is symbolically linked to the death of the bear and the wilderness (Castor 38). To Faulkner, the economic conquest of the southern landscape was inextricably linked, not only to the conquest of blacks and women through the legacy of slavery, but also to the conquest of Indian cultures as represented by Sam Fathers. (Castor 39) The Bear was written by Faulkner at the time when there is a tremendous environmental upheaval in Mississippi and the South. There was massive deforestation activity and thousands of acres of land are being cleared for timber. The setting, the plot, and the character in The Bear Customer’s last name 5 reflect an historical development and Faulkner was able to relate his sentiments with what is happening in his writings. Faulkner was a brilliant writer who examines his environment and reflects on his life experiences for inspirations in his writings. Much of the plot and the theme of his novels were based on his hindsight on the degeneration of the values of the Sought. Through his tragic stories, Faulkner was able to depict â€Å"the effect of the dissolution of the traditional values and authority on all levels of Southern society†. His novels were rich of his views, sentiments, experiences and personal convictions. He was never very famous as a writer for most part of his life but he has dedicated his life to this profession. He was a reclusive and a taciturn writer who found comfort in his solitude. But in his writings, he spoke volumes and his voice holds a resonating sound for many more generations to hear. He was a legend in the world of literature and his stories are immortalize by its unforgettable characters, unbelievable and challenging stories and the unique manner these stories were told that continues to captivate millions of followers. Faulkner told many great stories but along with it, he told the story of his life too. The challenge is to continue to unravel the mystery and discover how of much his own story was told in his many great masterpieces. Customer’s last name 6 Works cited Nobelprize. org. William Faulkner Biography. Retrieved December 21, 2007 frm http://nobelprize. org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-bio. html Reference. com. William Faulkner. Retrieved December 21, 2007 from http://www. reference. com/search? q=william%20faulkner Castor, L. Hunting History and Myth in Linda Hogan’s Power and William Faulkner’s The Bear. Retrieved December 21, 2007 from http://www. hum. uit. no/nordlit/12/03_Castor. pdf William Faulkner on the Web. Retrieved December 21, 2007 from http://www. mcsr. olemiss. edu/~egjbp/faulkner/faulkner. html

Melvilles Characters/comparison Of Captain Ahab And Billy Budd :: essays research papers

Melville’s Characters   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Melville’s characters are distinct individuals that have some similarities and differences. There are three traits that tie Captain Ahab and Billy Budd together even though they are on different sides in the fight between Good and Evil. They each have communication problems that play a part in their deaths. Neither of them can see an issue from another point of view, nor can they be influenced by others, although for entirely different reasons. Ahab and Billy share a few traits even though they are generally opposite characters. Communication problems are one of the factors that lead to Ahab’s and Billy’s deaths. Ahab never tells the entire truth to his men. He only tells them the parts that he thinks will motivate them to help him catch the whale. If the entire crew had been told before they signed on to help that they would be hunting the most dangerous whale in the sea none of them would have gone on the voyage and died. Also, Ahab is so inflexible that no matter how heated the conversation gets, he won’t change his opinion. Starbuck can’t talk any common sense into Ahab, he’s just too stubborn. If Ahab had listened to Starbuck, he might have died an old man instead of the way he did. Billy’s communication with others helps and hurts him. When Billy talks to people they almost always come away from the conversation with good feelings about Billy. He makes a lot of friends that way. However, Billy has troubles communicating too. He cannot sense if the person he is talking to is truthful or not. He talks to Squeak several times but never even guesses that Squeak is talking to him for mischievous purposes. Billy also stutters when he’s overcome, when he can’t find words to describe the emotions he is experiencing. He ends up dying because of this character flaw.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Neither Ahab or Billy can see more than one side of an issue. Throughout the entire trip, Ahab never thinks of chasing the whale as something dangerous, something that shouldn’t be done. Nearly everyone else on the ship, excluding Fedallah, thinks that chasing after one whale, the most dangerous whale in the entire ocean, is crazy and that it’s an unnecessary risk of the crew’s lives. But Ahab, because of his inability to consider his crew’s views about the hunt and because he can only think of the whale as pure evil, condemns them all to death.

Chagrin, Woman versus the Society

James Joyce’s â€Å"Clay† and Guy de Maupassant’s â€Å"The Diamond Necklace† satirize the conflict between woman and society. They illustrate the lives of two very physically different women of the common class and how they struggle against their environment, for society and fate seal their lives with chagrin. Joyce is more effective than Maupassant in revealing the fictional character in relation to community and social environment, because Joyce uses plot, design, perspective, and language to show subtly what the clay means in the story, wherein the clay depicts Maria’s frailty and commonness, and a life of conflict with herself and her environment, which she is not aware of, while Maupassant employs more of plot, narration, and character to enact a woman’s satirical lifelong struggle to resist her fate, which led her, paradoxically, to become her destiny, after all. Joyce does not reveal the meaning of the title â€Å"Clay† in the plot, which makes it quite difficult to understand the plot and its connection with clay. Soon the plot exposes itself- it is a story about how something so simple can be so complicated too. Maria’s simple life has its own complications, because she struggles with society and her destiny. Joyce provides details about Maria’s life and how she goes about it, day in and day out. For Maria, she is an efficient and reliable person, and a peacemaker. She feels proud of her work, which is portrayed in the barmbracks that she confirms she made herself. She also states that she is happy with her life, even if she has no companion, and she tells Fleming that â€Å"she didn’t want any ring or man either† (Joyce 184). The ring represents the synecdoche for marriage. The ring is also mentioned several times in the story, once by Fleming, once by Maria, and then during the game at Joe’s house. This ring represents Maria’s struggle. Apparently, there exists a gap between her self-perceptions and social perceptions of herself. Maria thinks of herself as more superior. She views Fleming as having the â€Å"notions of a common woman† (Joyce 184), and yet Maria herself is exceedingly common. When Maria thinks about how many minutes her travels are, â€Å"twenty minutes† here and there, it underscores how empty her life is in that she fills it with ordinary numbers. Maria also wants to think that she is happy with being single, but when Fleming jokes her about it, she â€Å"laughed†¦. with disappointed shyness† (Joyce 184). â€Å"Disappointed† juxtaposes with the satisfaction that Maria feels, which accentuates that she is not at all content with her life. The plot expresses, nevertheless, the cluelessness of Maria about herself, which makes it more effective to depict chagrin in several ways. Readers will also feel chagrin, because Maria is not just physically frail; she is also mentally and emotionally frail too. Maupassant employs plot that also does not readily give away the ending. His story satirizes a woman’s struggle to resist her fate, which led her, ironically, to become her destiny. Loisel feels that she is born for something greater, and yet, as Maupassant illustrates, she was born: â€Å"as if through an error of destiny, into a family of clerks† (Maupassant 297). This â€Å"error† implies how Loisel sees her whole life: a huge â€Å"error† of fate. But â€Å"error† takes in a new life, as Loisel makes the biggest of all- borrowing Mme. Forestier’s diamond necklace. This necklace brings Loisel the happiest day of her life, when she receives the life she dreams of- attention, richness, and fame. Ironically, this necklace also seals Loisel’s fate to poverty and toil, both of which she detests. She loses the diamond necklace and she and her husband paid for it for ten years, only to discover in the ending, that the necklace is false. The ending shows the climax of the struggle and underlines that women cannot fight society and their destinies. The language that Joyce uses portrays the common language of Maria’s class. Joyce uses the words â€Å"spick and span† and â€Å"nice and bright,† which are words of commoners and their life of toil (Commentary 192). Words are also frequently repeated, which symbolizes the lack of sophistication in Maria’s life. The repetitive use of â€Å"And†¦And†¦. And† and â€Å"always†¦always† (Joyce 183) is a â€Å"syntactical pattern† (Commentary 192) of the disproportionate plainness of Maria’s viewpoint of her life, and how readers also come to understand how â€Å"boring† her life is. The language reinforces the plot that depicts Maria’s humdrum life, and exposes the struggle against society and fate. Maria ardently believes that she needs no man or ring, but when a common man gives her some attention, she floats in the air enough to forget her expensive plum cake. Thus, Maria cannot deny it; she yearns for a lifelong companion, someone her fate has denied her, and someone society is quick to point out as the source of her loneliness and unhappiness. Maupassant uses narration to illustrate the satire of Loisel’s conflict with her life. He narrates the thoughts of a woman’s yearning for a wealthy life. Loisel dreams of â€Å"elegant dinners, of the shining silver† (Maupassant 298). This narration represents the perspective of Loisel and her endless chagrin. The narration contrasts her life before and after, however, of a dream come true. Before the diamond necklace, Loisel has at least a maid and comfortable lodgings. After the loss of the diamond necklace, Loisel is forced to be who she does not want to be- a common working woman. Furthermore, Maupassant also uses strong characterization, as he narrates the changes in Loisel. From a â€Å"charming† young woman, Loisel transforms into â€Å"strong, hard woman, the crude woman of the poor household† (Maupassant 303). Loisel has become the person she hates, and she has learned to embrace the life she could not ever cherish. Maupassant, however, seems to want to rub it in on Loisel, when he ends the story with the revelation of the false diamond necklace. Loisel must have fainted, or even unsurprisingly, died from chagrin, after this revelation. Joyce predominantly uses the perspective of Maria, from his choice of words, although in a way, it is also revealed that Maria is not who she thinks she is, in the viewpoint of other people. In general, she believes that: â€Å"Everyone was so fond of Maria† (Joyce 183). However, the snide remarks about her spinsterhood, in the laundry shop and at her friend’s home, accentuates that people look down on her or pity her, because of her homeliness and state of singlehood. When Joyce says: â€Å"the tip of her nose nearly met the tip of her chin,† this remarks of how people slate her homely features (Joyce 183). Joyce also designs the story in a way that is not always too obvious, and he compels readers to do extra work, which makes the story more effective in revealing the character’s need for companionship. As readers analyze and research about the missing lines of the song â€Å"I Dreamt that I Dwelt,† this pursuit for something more about Maria ironically responds to the â€Å"attention† that Maria craves for. Joyce’s story design is also different from Maupassant’s â€Å"Moonlight,† because â€Å"Clay† has a different and more meaningful connotation. The clay represents Maria’s emotional and mental frailty. When she chooses clay, a joke of the next-door girls on her, and which is not even directly stated by Joyce, clay represents the mortality of human beings (Commentary 190). Clay also reinforces the meaning of the omitted song lines. Joyce illustrates that Maria unconsciously forgets these lines, because it tells of â€Å"suitors† and â€Å"vows† that fate neglected to give her. Clay hints that Maria will soon die without living life, wherein society says that a lived life equals to a married life. Joyce is more effective than Maupassant in disclosing the fictional character in relation to community and social environment, because Joyce uses plot, design, perspective, and language to show delicately what the clay indicates in the story. The clay portrays Maria’s frailty and commonness, and her conflict with her society and destiny. It is also a suggestion of her mortality, which is limited to a life of loneliness that she has to bear with. Maupassant, on the other hand, addresses the same conflict with dark humor and satire. Of the two, Joyce creates a more distinctive image of a woman who has nothing, who is more pitiable, because of her lack of awareness and admission of her life’s perpetual struggles.

An Evaluation Of A Social Worker - 2267 Words

A social worker is obligated to report suspected abuse or neglect of a vulnerable adult as under section 42 of Care Act 2014 safeguarding regulations this is a reasonable cause for a Local Authority to conduct an enquiry (Care Act, 2014c.23:P1:s42). Hence, even when working with family carers, social workers remain vigilant as according to Age UK (2016) 50 vulnerable people per hour are abused or neglected within their own home by people known to them. Accountability could explain social workers’ preference to undertake the assessments of both carer and who they care for at the same time. Joint working has two functions; incorporating and addressing the carer’s needs in the disabled plan (Alzheimer’s Society, 2016) and clarifying discrepancies, like those which may cause alarm (Knapp and Hewison, 1999). In addition, joint assessments incorporates and addresses the carer’s needs in the disabled person’s plan (). Likewise, Campbell Reay and Brown e (2001) state that in-depth knowledge of the carers’ history and current lifestyle must be an essential part of the assessment process as it could highlight some aspect which potentially puts vulnerable people at risk of harm. When working with carers, social workers need to follow their ethical code of practice as the diversity and dynamics of caring means carers cannot be stereotyped (BASW, 2012; BASW 2015). One common misconception is that women are presumed to undertake caring roles because they are seen as moreShow MoreRelatedEvaluation Of A Social Worker886 Words   |  4 Pagesinteraction and engagement a social worker experiences when working with clients, colleagues, people in the community, other professionals, and significant others of the clients. Three important issues to comprehend one-on-one interaction were: engagement and formation, the nature of relationship, and communication. 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