William Faulkner,( 1897-1962),Life:,(1) born in a Southern family with fairly long tradition; his great-grandfather: a legendary character and a leader of a regiment in the Civil War; the family history was partly used by Faulkner in his novels (2) raised in a small town, later was used as the background in his novels named Yoknapatawpha county (3) no regular school, read widely (4) eager to join WWI, but the war was over when he was still trained (5) stayed in University of Mississippi only one year and then took some odd jobs (6) With the help of Sherwood Anderson, he published his first novel. However, he was not widely recognized in the US though in Europe he was highly praised by some famous writers such as Sartre. (7) In the late 1940s, with the recommend of famous critic Malcolm Cowley, Faulkners works were gradually recognized in the US. And in 1950, he was awarded the Nobel Prize.,Works:,Famous novels: The Sound and the Fury Light in August Absalom! Absalom! Go Down, Moses The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion (19 novels, 3 short story volumes and some other works ),The Analysis of Faulkners novels,(1) Special setting: Yoknapatawpha county (a typical small southern town) (2) Characterization: vivid, “flesh and blood people that will stand up and cast a shadow”; enjoying the complicated state with little interference (3) Plot: most about history of American South (its rise and fall; glory and evil sides; family story) (4) Theme: in praise of eternal virtues in human history, love, pity, honor and self-sacrifice (Faulkner thought that the doom of the South was caused by ill-treatment of Indians and blacks and the way to change the meaningless modern life is recovering the traditional and eternal virtues.) (5) Point of view: a new and experimental technique multiple points of view and unreliable narrator,Multiple points of view refer to showing within the same story how the characters reacted differently to the same person or the same situation. The readers should make judgments through analysis. (Example: The Sound and the Fury) (6) Fallible or unreliable narrator: perception, interpretation and evaluation made by the narrator do not coincide with the opinions and norms implied by the author. Readers should judge by themselves. (7) Style: variety from colloquial and dialect to formal and refined; sometimes difficult to understand because of the using of modern techniques, such as stream-of-consciousness,