The Dynamic of Representation: The Narrative Pattern in William Faulkner’s Short Stories

Abstract

Faulkner’s achievement as a fiction writer is massive. Faulkner’s novels have too often been read not as fiction but as realistic accounts, with the notion that they represent only slightly distorted pictures of southern rural and small-town life.

Carothers is of the opinion that Faulkner’s stories and novels have been praised and condemned for their lack of realism or of historical or sociological accuracy, and they have been praised and condemned for their realism, their sociological and historical authenticity (1984). Either way, it is made clear that their realism, social and historical authenticity is the criteria that have weighed in the criticism of Faulkner.  This paper analyses a short story in the light of a unifying narrative pattern Encounter, Termination and Initiation Proper.