knapatawpha County, indeed the South as a whole, is also an aspect of what has been read as Faulkner's post modern, almost existential world view. This is revealed from several angles: the richly eventful history and culture of the South, good and bad, white and black, and as deeply felt by its inhabitants as it is a curiosity to outsiders; the legacy of slavery, which informs virtually every Faulknerian consideration of the South; the impact of massive change of the South from rural/agrarian to modern/industrial. Deriving from the other angles and strongly illustrative of a decidedly modernist perspective is the sense of alienation, estrangement, anxiety Faulkner's characters experience from their insular world, from one another, from the universe. These are hardly well defined categories, least of all by Faulkner. The feelings and events associated with them overlap and converge. Not incidentally, the ostensibly inchoate expression of a Southern perspective of the world contributes to the sense of anxiety that pervade contemporary thought abo
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