William Faulkner

William Faulkner is a great author of his time. He wrote countless stories, most of which are published in his book Collected Stories. I have chosen three short stories of his, which I find to be outstanding, to share with you. With each of these stories I will discuss the symbols that Faulkner uses in his stories, the imagery he creates to make his stories come to life, the point of view of each story, and lastly I will give an overview of the plot. The first short story that I will discuss is “A Rose for Emily.” This short story is not what the title portrays it to be. Faulkner is already using symbols in this title. This story contains great details and images that make it such an interesting read. Faulkner always seems to leave you wanting more at the end of his stories. The title itself is a symbol. Reading the title, you might think this is a very happy story, when in fact it is the complete opposite. Emily is what we would call a black widow, even though she never marries. Why is this? Growing up, Emily had it rough. Her mother wasn’t around and her father might as well not have been. She is an outcast in town, and she hasn’t gotten any friends. People tend to steer clear of her house not only because of the way it looks, but because they are afraid of coming into contact with her. “Only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-as eyesore among eyesores” (119). One day, this young man comes into her town. He is very easy on the eyes. Emily and this young man, Homer, become lovers. A couple of people see her in the store one day looking for poison. She ends up buying arsenic. Why would she need this? A while goes on and people begin to notice they haven’t seen Homer around anymore. They just assume he has up and left town, including leaving Emily. It isn’t until her death that everyone learns the truth. “For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlast love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust. Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, ad leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair” (130). Yes, Emily killed him. She poisoned him with the arsenic she bought. Why would she kill someone she loves? All her life she has felt abandoned. Once she realized that Homer could possibly leave her, she panicked. Love is a very strong symbol in this story. Love seems to conquer all, especially in this excerpt that I chose. Faulkner describes to us the manner of Homer’s death. We see that Homer seemed to be embracing something when he died. Could this have been Emily? It was apparent that she loved him, and it is implied that the feeling was mutual. She slept next to his rotting corpse every night. She couldn’t bear the thought of someone she loves leaving her again. Fear of abandonment is another symbol in this story. Emily did not have any friends and even her own family seemed to steer clear of her. Emily didn’t want the love of her life to abandon her also. This story is told by a narrator, or in third person. “Barn Burning” is another short story that I will be discussing. In this story, the details that Faulkner uses are phenomenal. Faulkner also intertwines characters. In “Barn Burning” there is a young boy named Colonel Sartoris who is also very briefly in “A Rose for Emily”. This story starts out as an interrogation about what young Colonel Sartoris knows about the burning of Mr. Harris’s barn. There are many people who think that he was the one who burned the barn and he even acquired the name “barn burner” (5). There is one section of this story that I find the imagery just amazing. “Again he could not see, whirling; there was a face in a red haze, moonlike, bigger than the full moon, the owner of it half again his size, he leaping in the red haze toward the face, feeling no blow, feeling no shock when his head struck the earth, scrabbling up and leaping again, feeling no blow this time either and tasting no blood, scrabbling up to see the other boy in full flight and himself already leaping into pursuit as his father’s had jerked him back, the harsh, cold voice speaking above him: ‘Go get in the wagon’” (5-6). Later in the story we are under the impression that Sartoris’s father set the barn on fire and that Sartoris was questioned because they wanted him to give his father up. His father is a very brutal man, which was common for this time period. The father of the household was meant to be in charge and has even been known to be violent. In the end of the story Sartoris ends up running away. There are many ways that this story could be interpreted. The way I saw it was that the father wanted the son to cover up for a crime he committed and in the end the son just couldn’t. Faulkner uses so many descriptions to build his images. It’s almost as if you are there with Sartoris as he runs through the woods. He also appeals to all of the senses. “From where he sat he could see the ranked shelves close-packed with the solid, squat, dynamic shapes of tin cans whose labels his stomach read, not from the lettering which meant nothing to his mind but from the scarlet devils and the silver curve of fish-this, the cheese which he knew he smelled and the hermetic meat which his intestines believed he smelled coming in intermittent gust momentary and brief between the other constant one, the smell and sense just a little of fear because mostly of despair and grief, the old fierce pull of blood (3).” It is almost as if you can taste and smell the images as well as see, hear, and touch them. The symbols are grand and make you think critically. This story also has a narrator and is told in third person. The last short story that I will discuss is “Shingles for the Lord”. Once again, Faulkner has outdone himself with his details and images. This story is different from the other two that I have picked. I did notice that Faulkner used another character in this story that he used in “A Rose for Emily”. He may just use the same names but the characters really have no significance to the other stories. Faulkner goes from being a well-educated man to being a “hick”. This story is mainly about working and making shingles. This story goes into great detail how you have to work very hard. There is some deceit, however, the main characters go behind one of their coworkers backs to take shingles off of a piece of decking. “It wasn’t jest a patch of shingles, it was a whole section of decking, so that when he lunged back he snatched that whole section of roof from around the lantern like you would shuck a corn nubbin. The lantern was hanging on a nail. He never even moved the nail, he jest pulled the board off of it, so that it looked like for a whole minute I watched the lantern, before the whole thing started down into the church. Then it hit the floor again, and this time the whole church jest blowed up into a pit of yellow jumping fire, with me and pap hanging over the edge of it on two ropes” (39). They also set a fire like in the previous story I discussed. I feel like Faulkner’s stories are somewhat connected. There is so much reading between the lines that you have to do, but connections are made. The language is also very different in this story than it is in the other two. “We rid on past the church, and there was not only Solon Quick’s school-bus truck but Reverend Whitfield’s old mare too (27).” This quote not only shows the language used in the story but it also has a couple of tiny details that make it interesting. It completely fits the time period in which his story is set in. This story is told in first person, unlike the other two stories that I have chosen. William Faulkner is a great author. His use of images and details makes his stories come to life in the most amazing ways possible. His stories also seem to have connections intertwined. The point of views in his stories are also different. One story is told in third person while the next is told in first person. You never really know what to expect when you read a short story by William Faulkner, you just know it’s going to take you beyond the pages of the book into a whole new world. Works Cited Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." Collected Stories. New York: Curtis, 1950. 119-130. Print. Faulkner, William. "Barn Burning." Collected Stories. New York: Curtis, 1950. 3-25. Print. Faulkner, William. "Shingles for the Lord." Collected Stories. New York: Curtis, 1950. 27-43. Print.