Analytical Life of William Faulkner - Book Report/Review Example

Teacher Analytical Life of William Faulkner The chosen for analysis is William Faulkner because one of his work is a personalfavorite particularly the moving and sordid novel on A Rose of Emily. It is about the poignant love and obsession of Emily for Homer where she kept him in her house for years tucking him in her bed as if he was her husband while keeping herself isolated from the world. Another work that made Faulkner a favorite is his novel As I Lay Dying where it showed Faulkner’s social critique of the Southerners way of life. This story is strange because it revolved around a corpse named Addie who does not want to be buried in the South. She despise her husband because her husband Anse just wanted to have a new pair of teeth in Jefferson. This work however has to be interpreted using the lens of Faulkner’s background to be able to decode the allegory of the story which appears to be silly and surreal at the onset. The work A Rose for Emily may be one if not the most popular work of William Faulkner because of its originality and poignant plot. One may even wonder where did Faulkner derived the insight and inspiration for writing the sordid story of A Rose for Emily because it was so original and so sordid it must have taken a lot of inspiration for Faulkner to write it. During the research of Faulkner’s life story, the bitterness and poignant aspect of his work can in fact be derived from his own love story where he too, just like Emily was deprived for love for a very long time because her girlfriend Estelle married a different man. In the story, Emily was in fact Faulkner writing his unrequited love for Estelle who dated other boys while she they were together and worst, married other guy when he was about to propose. The narration of Emily’s unrequited love where she kept Homer for years as a cadaver was in fact the ordeal that Faulkner went through while waiting for Estelle. The woman who was the inspiration behind the work A Rose for Emily was Estelle Odhan whom Faulkner dated as a teenager in Oxford. Estelle was popular being an Ole Miss Law graduate in addition to being a daughter of prominent parents such as Major Lemuel and Lida Odham. She was the love of Faulkner’s life. Being the love of his life, Faulkner intended to marry her but instead, Estelle dated other boys in addition to Faulkner. And to aggravate the matter more, Estelle’s parents wanted Estelle to marry other boys and not Faulkner. So Estelle married Cornell Franklin in 1918 leaving Faulkner empty handed (Parini 22-29). It took him 10 long years and bid his time with all the uncertainty if he could still be with Estelle. He only got this chance when Estelle’s marriage to Cornell did work out she was finally divorced 10 years later. This aspect of Faulkner’s love life manifests how much he loved Estelle and how it must have pained him when Estelle married another man. This pain, this unrequited love must be the source of the poignant love, obsession and pain that Emily had to bear for loving Homer whom she had for a short time and even prepared for marriage only to be told that he is leaving her just like Estelle leaving Faulkner for Cornelle. This pain and ordeal that Faulkner went through when Estelle left her for another man can be found in the passage of his work in A Rose for Emily as “From that time on her front door remained closed, save for a period of six or seven years, when she was about forty, during which she gave lessons in china-painting” (Faulkner line 49). This line may be symbolic of the long years that Faulkner had to wait when Estelle married another man. She lived a reclusive life as probably did Faulkner emotionally who did not marry all those years that when Emily died, the doors of her house had to be dismantled only to find Homer’s body “apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace” (line 59) which is a manifestation of Emily’s extreme love tor obsession that she kept Homer’s body like a husband even if he was already a cadaver. This is symbolic of Faulkner’s love for Estelle that even if she is already way past her prime having had two children from her first marriage from Cornell, he still married her. Emily’s reclusion from the outside world is also symbolic of Faulkner’s love that all those years of wait he did not marry other women just like Emily’s door who was shut for a very long time. There is another work which has an obvious connection to Faulkner’s roots which is the novel As I Lay Dying. In the novel, William Faulkner’s disdain and criticism for the Southerners way of life was very obvious with all its backwardness and penchant for slavery. Although it was not very specific in the book which of the Southerner’s way of life Faulkner disliked, it was hinted however by his main character Addie who described her husband Anse as ineffectual. Anse incidentally came from the South and strangely, his wife Addie who is from Bundren does not like to be buried in the land of Anse, her husband. The symbolism in this work may be in the character of Anse who may be a substitute for Caroline Barr whom Faulkner treated as his second mother who raised and probably the person who had the most influence on Faulkner’s development as a writer. Incidentally, Caroline Barr was a black woman who was disdainful of slavery and how the South treated black men and women like her. This must have been subconsciously rubbed on the young Faulkner whereby he became sympathetic to plight to those who were oppressed by the slaving South. Having this as a backdrop, the novel As I Lay Dying made more sense as this novel seemed to have double meaning and written in the allegory. At the onset, it tells of Addie’s dying testament to be buried in her family tree in the Jefferson instead in the land of her husband. From there, they went all through the strange troubles just to fulfill Addie’s wish. These troubles include going through the menacing river because the bridge was not passable because it was obliterated. In the process of crossing the raging river, her son Cash broke his leg. Delay mounted that Addie’s cadaver is already in the advance state of decomposition that flies were already following her rotting body. To make matter worst and to show how bad the situation is, her mentally retarded son Vardaman burned the barn where her coffin was rested to end their penitence of traveling to Jefferson just to fulfill their mother’s wish. And all along, despite all this trouble, her husband Anse just want to have a pair of new teeth at Jefferson! This may sound strange and surreal at the onset but if we are going to consider Faulkner’s childhood, the reader will fully understand that the story was an allegory of Faulkner’s disdain of the South where Anse came from and his effort to empathize with his second mother, the black woman Caroline Barr. Perhaps William Faulkner is one of the few authors who drew inspiration heavily from his past. This also shows that by understanding the author’s background, one can appreciate the work of the author more because one can see beyond the allegory of the story and decode it properly to be able to understand and appreciate what Faulkner was really saying. Works Cited Faulkner, William. As I lay dying: the corrected text. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Print. Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily” Fu Jen University, Department of English Language and Literature. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 September 2014. . Parini, Jay. One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner. New York: HarperCollins. 2004. "William Faulkner Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2014. . Read More