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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.

Faulkner is also famous for his short stories collected into two volumes:

“Knight’s Gambit”

“Collected Stories”

Their theme is decline & deterioration o South. Here we meet the same heroes or allusions to the characters & events of earlier novels. Every book is interrelated. “The Bear” is a perfect example of Faulkner’s style.
It illustrates his concerns. Faulkner had a reputation of a writer for intellectuals.

Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953)

He laid the foundation forAmerican drama. He comes form actor’s family, education was not systematic, he did different odd jobs – gold digger in
Gonduras, sailor, journalist, etc. This enriched him with knowledge of life firsthand. He developed interest for drama when he treated his tuberculosis in sanatorium. He read Ibsen. Then after he took a course in theory of drama in Harvard. 1914 is his literary debut “Thirst & Other One-Act
Plays”. From 1919 O’Neill collaborated with Provincetown players company.
They staged his first works, & with this company his success is associated.
He worked with them up to 1924. The plays of this period:

“The Emperor Jones”

“The Hairy Ape”

“All God’s Chillun Got Wings” (chillun = children)

These plays voiced his protest against racism & exploitation. His plays differed from typical Broadway production. They are very experimental. On the one hand, they are realistic dramas, showing the life of people who never before were the subject of writers’ interest. On the other hand, his plays exhibit his search for the adequate form to treat this topic.
Traditional realism is combined with the elements of expressionist drama, touch of Ibsen’s influence; innovative approach to the use of the elements of classical drama & biblical motives. [Ibsen introduced the drama of ideas, where not the events were important but ideas that were discussed & disclosed by these events. He is very close to Chekhov]

“The Hairy Ape” is a story of a young proletariat Robert Smith whom everybody calls Jank. He was offended by a daughter of a certain man of property & so he is expressed his …to such a degree that he was put to jail where he absorbed certain socialistic ideas. But when he is released he tries to find his “братьев по духу” he is taken for provocateur. He is very much shocked and baffled so he goes to the zoo where he lets an ape out of the cage. Eventually this ape kills him & he dies in the ape’s cage.

His remarks to the play are very important & he pays great attention to the setting. First scene shows the worker’s dwelling. It must remind a cage by O’Neill. Then the scene shifts to a stove-hall is shown. There must be a flame: the fire symbolizes the hell of capitalists exploitation. The next scene shows the fashionable hotel – the paradise of the rich. The last scene is also an ape cage. It finishes the cycle.

The naturalistic symbolism conveys the idea of inhumanity of exploiters, shifts the accents from the conditions, turning man to a beast to the biological characteristics.

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