The Lost Generation William Faulkner F Scott Fitzgerald

The Lost Generation William Faulkner F. Scott Fitzgerald Ernest Hemingway

The Big 3 of The Lost Generation ► William Faulkner – As I Lay Dying; The Sound and the Fury; Absalom, Absalom; Light in August; Barn Burning; A Rose for Emily; etc. ► F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby; The Last Tycoon; Tender is the Night; This Side of Paradise; etc. ► Ernest Hemingway – A Farewell to Arms; The Old Man and the Sea; For Whom the Bell Tolls; The Sun Also Rises; The Snows of Kilimanjaro; etc.

William Faulkner ► Born in New Albany, Mississippi on Sept. 25, 1897 ► He explored the gamut of post Civil War southern life, particularly personal histories of characters such as the Snopes family ► He wrote poems, essays, and short stories as well as novels and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novels A Fable (1954), and The Reivers (1962) ► He was also awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949 ► He died in Byhalia, Mississippi, on July 6, 1962

Faulkner’s writing style ► William Faulkner made extensive use of symbolism and utilized the streamof-consciousness technique ► As I Lay Dying is told in turns by each of the family members, ‘the mood of the novel ranges from dark comedy to the deepest pathos’

Quotes about Faulkner ► “For all his concern with the South, Faulkner was actually seeking out the nature of man. Thus we must turn to him for that continuity of moral purpose which made for the greatest of our classics. ” Ralph Ellison “Faulkner…belongs to the full-dressed post. Flaubert group of Conrad, Joyce, and Proust. ” Edmund Wilson

As I Lay Dying ► The shifting narrator perspective enables the reader to experience the differing point-of-view of each speaker, although it is a limited perspective the reader can piece together a Bundren family portrait ► The Bundren family includes Anse; Addie; Cash; Dewey Dell; Vardaman; Darl; and Jewel.

Character List ► Addie Bundren - former school teacher whose bitter, loveless life causes her to despise her husband, she favors Jewel ► Anse Bundren – hunchbacked head of the family, poor parenting skills cause most of his children’s predicaments, he is hated and disrespected by them ► Darl Bundren – most sensitive and articulate of the children, with greatest number of interior monologues, disaster after disaster occurs and Darl attempts to end it by incinerating his mother’s coffin

Character List ► Jewel Bundren – the bastard child of Addie and Whitfield, the minister. Darl seems to understand him he is an enigma to everyone else. His dark, brooding nature reveals a dedication to be a fierce protector of his mother’s coffin ► Cash Bundren – eldest child, and a skilled carpenter who is the paragon of selflessness and patience. He refuses to complain about his broken leg, that festers and deteriorates to the extent that he may never walk again

Character List Dewey Dell Bundren – 17 year old, only daughter, whose recent sexual experience has left her pregnant ► Vardaman Bundren – youngest child, with an active imagination who views his mother’s death through the same lens which he views a fish he has caught and cleaned ► Vernon Tull – Bundrens’ wealthier neighbor, who is both a critic and an unappreciated help to them. He hires Darl, Cash and Jewel to do odd jobs and helps them cross the river ► Cora Tull – Vernon’s wife, stays with Addie during her final hours, and is a deeply religious woman who disapproves of Addie’s impiety ►

Character List ► Lafe – the father of Dewey Dell’s child, although he never appears in the novel he is a driving force behind Dewey Dell’s thoughts and actions ► Whitfield – the local minister, held up by Cora Tull as the pinnacle of piety, who is in fact a hypocrite. His affair with Addie results in the conception of Jewel and he resolves to confess the affair, but ends up deciding that the intention to confess will suffice ► Peabody – severely overweight doctor who attends to Addie and then later Cash, he is extremely critical of the way Anse treats his children

Characters Samson – the local farmer who puts up the Bundrens on the 1 st evening of their disastrous journey – he sees their problems as a judgment on their uncouth manners and Addie’s and Anse’s disregard for God ► Amstid – local farmer who puts the Bundrens up on the 2 nd evening – Anse repeatedly refuses his offer of mules ► Gillespie – a farmer who puts them up later in their journey ► Moseley – The Mottson druggist who refuses Dewey Dell’s request for an abortion ► Mac. Gowan – the employee of the Jefferson drugstore that extorts sexual favors from Dewey Dell in return for a fake abortion treatment ► The Gillespie boy – he helps Jewel rescue the coffin from the barn fire ►

Themes and Motifs Impermanence of Existence and Identity – this has the greatest impact and meaning for Vardaman who babbles senselessly in the beginning of the novel and Darl who is declared insane at the end of the novel ► The Tension between Words and Thoughts – ► The Relationship Between Childbearing and Death – for both Addie and Dewey Dell this is the perception ► Interior Monologues – a narrative technique that delves into individual characters’ consciousness (utilized by Proust – In Search of Lost Time, Joyce – Ulysses) ► Issues of Social Class – social class was more hierarchical in the south where Faulkner lived and wrote about ►

Symbols ► Animals – Vardaman equates mother to fish; Darl asserts that Jewel’s mother is horse; although, to Jewel, his horse symbolizes hard earned freedom from his family; Dewey Dell calls the family cow a woman; etc. ► Addie’s Coffin – literally represents the enormity of the burden of dysfunction of the Bundren family ► Tools – Cash’s carpentry tools symbolize respectable living and stability thrown into jeopardy by the recklessness of the Bundren journey