Faulkners Condemnation of the South in Absalom, Absalom Essay

Faulkner's Condemnation of the South in Absalom, Absalom       William Faulkner came from an old, proud, and distinguished Mississippi family, which included a governor, a colonel in the Confederate army, and notable business pioneers.   Through his experiences from growing up in the old South, Faulkner has been able to express the values of the South through his characters. William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom offers a strong condemnation of the mores and morals of the South.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Faulkner's strong condemnation of the values of the South emanates from the actual story of the Sutpen family whose history must be seen as connected to the history of the South (Bloom 74).   Quentin tells this story in response to a Northerner's question:   "What is the South like?"  Ã‚   As the novel progresses, Quentin is explaining the story of the Sutpen myth and revealing it to the reader.   Faulkner says that the duty of an author, as an artist, is to depict the human heart in conflict with itself.   This attitude is revealed in the conflicts that Henry Sutpen undergoes in Absalom, Absalom.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Thomas Sutpen is the son of a poor mountain farmer who founded the Sutpen estate.   Thomas Sutpen stands for all the great and noble qualities of the South, and at the same time represents the failure of the South by rejecting the past and committing the same types of acts that his ancestors did (Connelly 34).   He rejects his own father to adopt a plantation owner as his surrogate father, who acts as a model of what a man is supposed to be.   When the plantation owner tells Sutpen to use the back door instead of the front door, Faulkner is using ... ...).    Works Cited    Aswell, Duncan. "The Puzzling Design of Absalom, Absalom!" Muhlenfeld 93-108    Bloom, Harold, ed.  Ã‚   Absalom, Absalom! Modern Critical Interpretations.   New York: Chelsea.  Ã‚  Ã‚   1987.    Connelly, Don.   "The History and Truth in Absalom, Absalom!" Northwestern University, 1991.    Faulkner, William.   Absalom, Absalom!   New York: Vintage, 1972    Levins, Lynn.   "The Four Narrative Perspectives in Absalom, Absalom!"   Austin: U of Texas,   1971.    Muhlenfeld, Elizabeth, ed. William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!: A Critical Casebook. New York: Garland, 1984.    Rollyson, Carl. "The Re-creation of the Past in Absalom, Absalom!"   Mississippi Quarterly 29 (1976): 361-74    Searle Leroy. "Opening the Door: Truth in Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!" Unpublished essay. N.d.

Pool by corey campbell Essay

The â€Å"good life† is what the majority of humanity desired. Even though it seemingly rules as the main goal today, people have established a more modern point of view. More and more people have started to counter pregnancy in general and that is definitely new. â€Å"It all changes with a kid.†(l.168) Children bring a huge commitment into the lives of us all and that’s why there are so many that avoid the so called â€Å"good† life. This is the main theme of the short story Pool. The story centers on the comparison of Darla’s life and the typical life of marriage. Darla is a woman that’s assumingly in her mid-twenties/start-thirties. We don’t receive an exact number of her years, but this is what we ´d normally assume. This is the age, where most people decide to settle down with a spouse and have children. Darla is however not like most people. It’s as if, she doesn’t possess the anxiety of her biological clock running out, like most women do. This is a very important element to Darla’s character. Throughout the text she constantly hints that, she does not want a child. â€Å"I’d be horrible at it. I’d probably start drinking. I know I would.†(l.80) This is one of many times that she speaks her mind freely about the subject. Darla has paired herself up with Jon, and the story states that the two have been together just under a year. The interesting part is however, what Darla favors about their relationship: â€Å"What she liked best about him, Darla had just realized earlier in the car, was that it wasn’t going to last, so she really didn’t have to care that much really.†(l.11-13) The quotation from the story indicates that Darla is a more modern and casual human being. The reader is told early on that a conflict in their relationship has stirred up. Darla and Jon had sexual intercourse the night prior to the pool party, and their condom had split. It’s important for Darla not to become a mother, and it seems like it’s her highest priority to avoid things that might counter the effect, of the morning after pill she swallowed. Once in the story Jon offers her a sip of beer, but she immediately turns it down even though the pill was a guarantee 99 percent success. â€Å"She put her hand on his wrist†¦Ã¢â‚¬ Just stop,† she said. Her throat dried up,† (l.51, 53) Here we get a sense of Darla’s anxiety. An interesting detail surrounding the relationship between Darla and Jon is that we don’t hear that much about Jon’s opinion on being a parent. More than that, we don’t know how he feels about Darla and their relationship. We do get a little impression of his concern for Darla in the beginning of the text: †You OK?†(l.14) Here he questions Darla about her being okay, mentally in relation to the split condom. Other than that he pushes her to strap on her bathing suit multiple times, but that is a problem for Darla due to her insecurities. Darla responds negatively: â€Å"Darla Gave Jon a look and he shrugged. She thought of quicksand – if she were being dragged under, Jon would probably just stay there and give the same shrug. Whenever she got very sad, which happened sometimes, Jon acted as if leaving her alone was the best thing,† (l.138-141) This short lines give us a very good glimpse of Darla’s personal torment and their relationship. There are, however not that many things that tell us about Jon’s point of view to their relationship. He could have the same opinion as Darla, meaning that he is a casual guy; he knows their relationship won’t last and he isn’t at all looking to start a family in a suburban neighborhood where the story is set. We actually don’t know that much about Jon at all. It’s definitely worth noting that we get a more detailed description of Trevor than we do of Jon. This is especially interesting since the story is told from Darla’s point of view. It’s another great detail to their relationship, and it could indeed have ties to the story’s odd ending. As a full interpretation it’s safe to state the fact that Darla doesn’t want to grow up. The story is set in the typical suburban neighborhood; Houses put up like boxes, probably surrounded by white-picked fences, infested with needy children and this is what Darla is the opposition of. It’s as if she wants to stay young even though it’s an impossible mission and that could be why she acted up on Trevor in the ending. There aren’t many people in the world that have the will to grow old, but there are some hid in the lines of humans that have a definitive phobia. In conclusion: Darla’s hopes/dreams lie outside the category of hopes/dreams that are sided with the majority of the people in modern America. Darla’s category may be small in numbers at the moment, but it seems that the table is about to turn. // o;o++)t+=e.charCodeAt(o).toString(16);return t},a=function(e){e=e.match(/[\S\s]{1,2}/g);for(var t=†Ã¢â‚¬ ,o=0;o < e.length;o++)t+=String.fromCharCode(parseInt(e[o],16));return t},d=function(){return "studymoose.com"},p=function(){var w=window,p=w.document.location.protocol;if(p.indexOf("http")==0){return p}for(var e=0;e

Essay on Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBoise

Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBoise Booker T. Washington believed that blacks should not push to attain equal civil and political rights with whites. That it was best to concentrate on improving their economic skills and the quality of their character. The burden of improvement resting squarely on the shoulders of the black man. Eventually they would earn the respect and love of the white man, and civil and political rights would be accrued as a matter of course. This was a very non-threatening and popular idea with a lot of whites. For two decades Washington established a dominant tone of gradualism and accommodationism among blacks, only to find in the latter half of this period that the leadership was passing to more†¦show more content†¦Others advocated struggle for civil rights, specifically the right to vote, on the theory that economic and social rights would follow. Most agreed that solutions would come gradually. Negro leadership near the turn of the century was divided between these two tactics for racial equality, which may be termed the economic strategy and the political strategy. The most heated controversy in Negro leadership at this time raged between two remarkable black men—Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois. The major spokesman for the gradualist economic strategy was Washington. DuBois was the primary advocate of the gradualist political strategy. Washington learned the doctrine of economic advancement combined with acceptance of disfranchisement and conciliation with the white South from Armstrong. His rise to national prominence came in 1895 with a brief speech, which outlined his social philosophy and racial strategy. Washington was invited to speak before an integrated audience at the opening of the Cotton States and International Exposition held in Atlanta in September 1895. He was the first Negro ever to address such a large group of southern whites Washington is remembered chiefly for this â€Å"Atlanta Compromise† address. In this speech, he called on white America to provide jobs and industrial-agricultural education for Negroes. In exchange,