William Faulkner His Life And Works

William Faulkner: His Life And Works Essay, Research Paper

It is not often that a fictitious character creates another, but manifest in the person of William Faulkner this phenomenon has been given truth. A walking contradiction, Faulkner existed more in the stories he wrote than in the world which housed him. Throughout his life, his characters lived his life while he descended into his own world. Faulkner was a man whose literature borrowed its essence from his reality, and gained a life of its own to be regarded among the greatest American writing. Indeed, the literature of William Faulkner was driven by the man William Faulkner.

On the chill afternoon of September 28, 1897, William Falkner came into this world. The first son of Murry and Maud Falkner, young Billy spent his first years in Ripley, Mississippi. For those first few years, the Falkner family was happy and content. Murry was doing what he loved, namely, working at the railroad owned by his old father, who everyone referred to as “The Young Colonel.” Maud stayed at home, occupied with mischievous little Billy. Soon Jack and Johncy would add to her work, but she was happy enough with the added task. Life returned to normal for the Falkners.

In mid 1902, the happiness of the Falkner family would be shattered. The Young Colonel had decided that he no longer needed to burden himself with the Falkner railroad line, and announced that it would be sold and that his son.s family would have to move to Oxford to manage his livery stable. As Stephen Oates, author of William Faulkner: The Man and the Artist, put it: “Murry was devastated, for the railroads had been his passion since the 1880s, when he had dropped out of the University of Mississippi to work as a coal-shoveling fireman on the family line.” Soon after the hated move, his father drove a wedge between himself and his family. This wedge would later come back to haunt Faulkner, and its name was booze.

When Murry Falkner was sober enough to think, he would work half-heartedly in the stable, dreaming about trains the entire time. At home he no longer paid any attention to Maud, and his occasional presence at the dinner table would throw up a veil of silence. Maud in turn grew depressed and weary from her vain efforts to cure him of the drink, and had little time for young Billy. Even at his young age, he could feel the tension in the Faulkner house. Still, Billy found a diversion for his worry and loneliness. Her name was Estelle.

At the ripe old age of 7, Billy announced to his father that he was going to marry a girl he had met at school. Sober enough to be amused, his father asked him what the date would be and made a big deal out of setting up the “arrangements.” Billy, however, called off the wedding when he found out that he would have to kiss Estelle. They decided to be friends. Estelle Oldham would play a large role in the life of Billy Falkner, and later, in that of William Faulkner. And she would come into play repeatedly in his stories and poetry. Indeed, Oates suggests that, had it not been for Estelle, William Faulkner would never have existed. Oates postulates that without the despair Estelle would cause in Billy, he would have followed through with his original desire to become a railroad engineer and never have metamorphosed into William Faulkner.

Let us now turn to some of the other factors that put Billy on the path to becoming William. Certainly nobody would argue with the fact that Maud was one the key influences on Billy as a youth. It was she that introduced him to poetry, to art, to music. Murry was repulsed that his son would behave in such a “girlish” manner. According to the Internet information site of the Center for Faulkner Studies, Murry even accused Maud of “corrupting” the boy, and took his belt to her. Still, without Maud.s influence, it appears likely that Billy Falkner would have become the railman his father desired him to be, and the world would have lost one of its great writers.

Phil Stone proved to be another important influence on Billy. When Billy was sixteen, he met the son of one of Maud.s friends. Impressed with Billy.s knowledge of Melville and Conrad, and believing that he could shape the boy into a great poet, Phil became Billy.s mentor and friend. For years, he was Billy.s only real companion besides Estelle.

The people who helped to shape Billy.s life also helped to shape his stories. The characters in Faulkner.s fiction resembled the people he knew as he grew up, as he struggled to find work in a world which seemed to reject him at every turn. This can clearly be seen from his first published poem, The Marble Faun, in which a mime tries to woo a beautiful nymph with his guitar, to no avail. From the first, Phil Stone recognized this poem as a cry of anguish from a man who, while on the verge of proposing to his companion of ten years, suddenly finds out that she has accepted the engagement of another. On April 18, 1918, Estelle Oldham became Estelle Franklin, wife to Cornell.

Within a year of Estelle.s wedding, after battling with depression, Billy decided to enter the Royal Air Force to fight in the Great War, as he was below regulation height for the United States military. There was one problem though – only British and Canadian born men could enlist in the RAF. Thus, Billy Falkner walked into the recruiting center and signed his new name for