Was he a positive or a negative character for the author? He possesses good moral qualities but he is not the paragon of moral beauty, he obtained his wealth by not clear ways. It’s clear that he is a tragic person. He wastes his talent for money. Very often he is compared to Clyde Griffite (Dreiser’s). But Gatsby is a personality.

Fitzgerald’s own story in a way repeats Gatsby’s story: he lived bohemian life, gradually writing became an obligation. He appeared to be a hostage of his own success. He also had drinking problems, & his wife whom he loved very deeply had some mental problems.

The other works are “This Side of Paradise”, “Tender is the Night”, “The Last Typcoon”, “The Beautiful & the Damned” where he developed the same topic. Fitzgerald also had a dilemma & he had to choose to write for money that ruined his health. He died in 1940.

William Faulkner (1897-1962)

A unique personality born in small town of Oxford (Mississippi) he grew up in an impoverished southern aristocratic family & it had impact on him (the spirit of the South). His education was not systematic. He inherited the tragic confrontation of white & black. In 1925 he mat Sherwood Anderson, dropped out of the university. He tried his hand in different areas. After an unsuccessful attempt to become a pilot (was wounded in the WWI), he did different odd jobs, worked in a bank, had a published collection of poems. He wrote a couple of books imitating lost generation novels. He produces novels “Soldier’s Pay”, “Mosquitoes”. Though published they were not welcomed by critics. Their words were rather hush: “Faulkner has no voice of his own, he has nothing to say.” So he decided to write in a unique style, did not bother himself with any literary tradition. If you don’t like it – it is your problem. All his life he lived in that small town &it became a background for most of his books. It is known as “Yoknapatawpha County”

But he found writing to be a pleasure for him. In 1929 he wrote “The Sound & the Fury”, “Sartoris”. This year was a turning point for him. He wrote as he pleased disregarding traditions. His perspective was to make things clear to himself. He began to write about the things that he knew firsthand. Both these novels look into the decay of south’s families. Faulkner mercifully exposes the degradation of the South. There are moral reasons for this: here the topic of slavery springs up, topic of incest, moral impurity of people living there, their sins. At the same time one can feel Faulkner’s anxiety even hatred about the civilization, contemporary life. The civilization did only harm. The alternative is a patriarchal way of living. Much as he scorned the past he still longed for those times.

He needn’t invent anything – “The Sound & the Fury” is taken from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. He alluded to the words that Macbeth said before his death:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts & frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound & fury,

Signifying nothing.

It seems that the same feeling of confusion is familiar to Faulkner. The story is about the decay of the Compson’s family. The novel consists of four parts. The first is told by Benjamin Compson who is mentally handicapped. He is that very idiot who tells the story of life’s confusion. Events are given as fragments of his perception as if through the stain glass. He doesn’t know what’s going on, he is subconsciously aware of the conflict in the family. Everything is blurred, mixed, no chronology. We can indicate time by the hints the characters drop now & then. He uses device of interrelated temporal plains. The second part is told by Quentin. He is a romantic type of a person who feels deeply & suffers deeply. He is too fragile, too frail. He cannot cope with the harsh world (committed a suicide). The third – by Jason Compson. He is practical, persistent, knowing what he waits from life, a tenacious man. The fourth is told by Faulkner himself. He tries to be objective, was to put everything their places. Everything is centred round their sister Caddy. Use of subjective viewpoint, inner monologue, stream of consciousness – achieved a striking effect – highly individual characters become universal types: Bengy – childish perception, Quentin – adolescent consciousness, Jason – pragmatic. All of them are contrasted to authors representation of things – combining particular & general. The degradation of one family is the symbol of the decline of the South in general. He shows that the family gradually collapses, people are driven to death & despair. Life is chaos of sound & fury. Another message was that Faulkner himself didn’t put up with darkness & gloom. Positive note is present in the book. His intentions are realized in the fourth part.

The following works treated the same topic. In 1945 he produced the chronological supplement to the work “Light in August”, “Absalom! Absalom!”, “The Sanctuary”, “ As I Lay Dying”.

The decline of the South, race conflict & the constant overlap of the past & the present, loss of human values are the themes of his works. A line of descendants of formerly rich South families. The values of the past generation became corrupted in the modern world. Atmosphere of doomed despair. He got a Nobel prize in 1950. The values for him are courage, honour, pride, hope, sympathy, self-sacrifice, compassion.

In 30’s his style changed. These works are easy to read. He turns to another topic – the trilogy “The Hamlet”, “The Town”, “The Mansion”. He thought he had spotted a disease in American society called “snopecism” (from Flem Snopes – the main character of one of the parts of the trilogy). Snopecism is evil, the product of capitalist civilization, lust for money, put on the pedestal of American society. Money dominates American life. It is people’s God. The trilogy is written in a realistic key. It deals with the snopes – former poor white people. Flem is the first in the rank who by cunning, corruption, bribe, general unscrupulousness elevated himself to a ruling financial class. It is shown how this lust for money leads Flem to come over his friends, family to power. Faulkner shows that a collision with Snopes ruins people, especially if they are not of his kind. He is to blame for many deaths. He didn’t do it with his own hands but he drove them to such circumstances. He is not human. Makes him socially dangerous. People fall victims of his thirst for money. The character who opposes Flem is his stepdaughter Linda. Faulkner makes her a communist (probably he saw no other force in the society that could oppose snopecism as a social phenomenon).

The change in Faulkner’s outlook resulted in the structure of the novel. Chain of associations is not so unruly as previously.