Voice and Eye in Faulkner&39s Fiction [Paperback]

HUGH RUPPERSBURG is Emeritus University Professor of English at the University of Georgia. He is the literature section editor of the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

Hugh M. Ruppersburg examines the use of narrative viewpoint and structure in four representative novels by William Faulkner: Light in August, Pylon, Requiem for a Nun, and Absalom, Absalom! In his discussion of these four works he refers frequently, and often at length, to Faulkner's other novels and stories, so that the book offers a comprehensive examination of the narrative principle that underlie Faulkner's literary achievement.

Ruppersburg shows how the Nobel Prize-winning novelist employed a number of elements to guarantee the impersonality of his fiction--how he built his novels primarily around the speech and thoughts of his characters. The absence of a judgmental authorial or narrational voice, says Ruppersburg, compels the reader to reach his own judgment concerning the behavior of these characters as well as the meaning and value of the fiction.

By fusing a number of individual perspectives into a composite perspective, Faulkner

Ruppersburg examines the use of narrative viewpoint and structure in four representative novels by William Faulkner: Light in August, Pylon, Requiem for a Nun, and Absalom, Absalom! The absence of a judgmental voice, says Ruppersburg, compels the reader to reach his own judgment concerning the behavior of his characters.