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Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.), Xavier University, English, 2008.

Abstract

In the vast realm of William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County, population 15,611, live two young boys who, unlike other members of their imaginary territory, never grow old. Vardaman Bundren of As I Lay Dying and Sartoris Snopes of Barn Burning may forever be minor players in Faulkner's overall work, but they are forever a part of the moral courage that make the struggle of the South an integral part of American Literature.One grows into adulthood during the 1890s, whereas the other is born about three decades later. Each is a product of what William Crowley calls "Faulkner's mythological kingdom ... on the border between the sand hills covered with scrubby pine and the black earth of the river bottoms" (34). Neither boys are members of aristocratic families, like the Compsons or Sartorises, nor are they old enough to be cognizant of the effect their families' lot in life will have upon them. They each face a life near or within Frenchman's Bend that, by virtue of their birth, allows them none of the pleasures known to the antebellum families who live in nearby mansion plantations. Unlike other Faulknerian characters who are developed over the course of many stories, Vardaman and Sartoris never re-emerge in Faulkner's work, yet the two boys creep into the lasting crevices of our minds as they live out their struggles.

Subject Headings

American Literature; Literature

Keywords

William Faulkner; Faulkner, William, -- 1897-1962 -- Criticism and interpretation; Vardaman Bundren; Sartoris Snopes

Committee / Advisors

Norman Finkelstein, Ph.D (Advisor)
Tyrone Williams, Ph.D (Advisor)
Alison Russell, Ph.D (Committee Member)

Pages

62p.

Document number: xavier1352494838
Permalink: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=xavier1352494838

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