William Faulkner
...ugh Oxford, like a man riding a balloon. At a very young age, the boys were trained to use guns and to hunt. They were fascinated by all means of transportation: horses, automobiles, trains, airplanes, or whatever. (Barger7) It may have seemed that Faulkner’s career started out as a writer, but in fact he started out as an artist. Author Badger points our that “ The artistic strain in the family came from both sides. Bill’s grandmother, Lelia Dean Swift Falkner, was considered to be a good artist. So was his mother, Maud Butler Falkner, as well as two of his brothers, John and Dean (7 & 8).” Faulkner himself was a good enough artist that he did some drawings for the Ole Miss yearbook where he attended college (Badger 8). Faulkner had two close acquaintances in his early career that would play a major part in his future (Padgett 2). One being his close family friend and childhood sweetheart, Estelle Oldham (Padgett 2). Estelle was a popular girl who was very social. Despite her romance with Faulkner, she dated other boys. One of which was Cornell Franklin, an Ole Miss law student who proposed marriage and moved together to Hawaii to establish a law practice (Padgett 2). Faulkner’s other inspiration for many of his novels came from Phil Stone who acted as a mentor and set out to give him encouragement, advice, and models for study (Padgett 2). Faulkner’s first job was with the Winchester Repeating Arms Company while he stayed with Phil Stone in New Haven, Connecticut (Padgett 2). Soon after Faulkner’s military career started when he quit his job and accepted an invitation to the Royal Air Force in Canada (Padgett 2). Author Padgett comments that “ Earlier, Faulkner had tried to join the U.S. Army Air Force, but he had been turned down because of his height (3).” After Faulkner’s duty in the military he returned home to Oxford, Mississippi and started on his first short story and poem. In 1919 he published his first short story called “Landing in Luck” in the campus newspaper, The Mississippian (Barger 9). His first poem “L’Apres-Midi d’une Faune” was published in the New Republic (Barger 10). Many of Faulkner’s first writings and poems turned out to be disasters, however he hit success in 1929 with The Sound and the Fury which got critics such as Henry Nash Smith and Evelyn Scott to recognize his bold ways of writing literature to not please others but himself (Gresset 4). In his writings, Faulkner created his own fictional county called Yoknapatawpha where all but 5 of his novels took place (Gresset 4). Yoknapatawpha in Indian means where water runs slow on flat land (Barger 2). His most prized novel, A Fable, which was a story of a French corporal wanting to bring peace with the Germans during World War I (Gresset 4 & 5). Gresset points out that “This novel retold the story of the New Testament Christ, in much the same way as Absalom, Absalom! Borrowed from the Absalom episodes found in Samuel in the Old Testament (5). In times when Faulkner was low on money he would settle for a contract and sign with Hollywood to write scripts and movies beginning in the year 1932 (Padgett 10). His first contract with Hollywood was with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for six weeks (Padgett 10). Padgett writes “In July, Faulkner met director Howard Hawks, with whom he shared a common passion for flying and hunting. Of the six screenplays for which Faulkner would receive on-screen credit, five would be for films directed by Hawks, the first of which was Today We Live based on Faulkner’s short story Turn About (Padgett 10).” Soon Faulkner’s contract expired and with that he purchased a Waco-210 monoplane for enjoyment (Padgett 10). In Faulkner’s elder years he managed to publish a copious amount of novels and short stories that many still read today. Even with the marriage of his childhood sweetheart, Estelle and their only surviving daughter Jill he found time writing by modeling himself a...