Faulkner's Treatment of Past and Present

William Faulkner was one of the leading novelists of this century, and he drew upon his own town of Oxford, Mississippi for his stories, his setting, and his themes. The Civil War was the defining moment in history for the South, and the fact that the South had lived by slavery before that was an indictment of the old families of the South and a reason for the people of the new South to atone. In each novel, Faulkner infuses the story with a political and social structure related to the slave-owning past of the South and showing the effect of that past on the present. He does so in a way that is somewhat experimental in terms of his use of language particularly. Faulkner often uses shifting points of view to break up reality and to emphasize that reality is a matter of perception and is seen differently by different people. As I Lay Dying has several different narrators, each with a unique point of view, all centering on the dying central character, their mother. The Sound and the Fury also uses different points of view and shows a number of related stylistic shifts as each character provides a different perspective, with the totality creating a sense of modern life that goes beyond the specific family involved.

Jean-Paul Sartre noted the way Faulkner treated past and present and states,

The past here gains a surrealistic quality; its outline is hard, clear, and immutable. The indefinable and elusive present is helpless before it; it is full of holes through whi

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on contrasts with the previous two in its linguistic simplicity--Jason thinks in a straightforward manner, with time taking a chronological order and with past and present clearly delineated. Jason has his code of conduct, but it is on based on the need to keep up appearances, It might seem as if Quentin had a similar idea, since he was concerned about how people would view Caddy's downfall, but Quentin is more concerned with the code of the Old South and with ideas of honor, while Jason is concerned with rules to protect his own position in town and not an idea of family. Jason, the modern man, is selfish and thinks of family only as it affects his ability to do business, while Quentin had a sense of an ideal that has been violated. In As I Lay Dying, there are fifteen narrators in Faulkner's novel, shifting points of view around the central figure of Addie, the mother. Her importance to her children should be the center of the book and is meant to provide an anchor of sorts for each character to find his or her own identity. While family is central to As I Lay Dying, family is a burden more than a blessing. Addie feels her father has never loved her, and her new family becomes an escape from the old. Addie's life is see

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