Major Issues
Author Links
Essay Questions

Major Issues

Yoknapatawpha, William Faulkner’s fictional Southern county, figures prominently within Faulkner’s literary works and also in many critical commentaries on those works. Faulkner draws not only on Southern landscape, but also Southern history and society in his choice of subjects and themes, such as racism, class, and the benevolent tyranny of families. Despite this regional focus, Faulkner’s universalization of Mississippi has also been observed by many critics. His work is often discussed alongside that of other leading modernists, such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. His narrative experimentation has been closely analyzed, especially his use of interior monologue, multiple focalization and narration, and non-chronological ordering. Faulkner’s readers must be active participants in the assembly of "the whole story." Other scholars have traced his influence on later writers, especially his presentation of subjective consciousness.

Author Links

William Faulkner on the Web
An amazingly huge website, offering everything from scholarly articles to the weather forecast in Yoknapatawpha county, and everything Faulkner-ian in-between.

Mississippi Writers Page
A detailed, lengthy bio-critical essay.

The Making of a Modernist
Excerpts from an "intellectual biography" of Faulkner, which sets Faulkner’s work into the cultural and intellectual context of his time.

Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
A transcript of Faulkner’s 1950 Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

Faulker Photographs
A large image-gallery, with helpful annotations accompanying each picture.