| William Faulkner, as one of the greatest writers in America literature,was also one of the most celebrated modernistic classical writers in the west. In1949, Faulkner was awarded the Noble Prize in literature "for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel". Faulkner was a productive writer and created19long novels and almost hundreds of short stories in his whole life. Almost all the settings of his works were set in the Yoknapatawpha county where Faulkner took his hometown as the prototype of his created world. As a giant in realm of American literature, Faulkner’s works attracted much attention of the world.Researches on his long novels comprised most of the studies on Faulkner’s criticism while his short stories were not given sufficient attention. In fact, in his writing of short stories, Faulkner exhibited the same marvelous talents in the plot organization, characterization and setting in long novel. There is no denying that Faulkner’s short stories are important supplemented part in his literary creation where his short stories excelled in theirs artistic achievements in no degree less than his other works.This thesis selects among Faulkner’s numerous works four short stories, A Rose for Emily, Dry September, That Evening Sun, There Was a Queen as the object of the study and sets out to analyze the aesthetic features displayed in them, with a focus on their modernistic features. In the first chapter, the thesis gives a brief introduction to Faulkner and his works. The chapter is constituted by four parts. The part one gives an introduction to his life experience and his status in the history of literature as the laureate of Noble Prize in literature. The part two and three introduces his main works and gives a brief summary of the four short stories which will be investigated. The last part is about the thesis, the layout of the paper.Chapter two is constituted by three parts. The part one and two gives an overview on the studies of Faulkner’s short stories at home and abroad. Afterwards the thesis offers the theoretical background of modernism for study.Chapter three is the main part of the thesis that it sets out to analyze the aesthetic features exhibited in Faulkner’s four short stories focusing on four aspects of techniques:the narrative structure, narrative point of view, symbolism and the themes. In part one, the thesis analyzes two famous short stories Dry September and A Rose for Emily by looking into their nonlinear order in narrative and the use of juxtaposition in arrangement of structures in order to present the innovation of narrative techniques of Faulkner. Then in part two, the thesis focuses on the employment of multiple-point of view in A Rose for Emily and of child’s point of view in That Evening Sun to reveal the modernist features of Faulkner’s short stories in the use of point of view. Then in part three, the paper analyzes Faulkner’s use of symbol by taking a look at his description of characters, details and landscapes. Lastly in part four, the paper focuses on one of the major themes in Faulkner’s short stories-the alienation of characters-and traces back to the source of the alienation of female and male in Faulkner’s works.The last chapter is the conclusion part. The thesis concludes the innovation of Faulkner’s writing skills and achievement of Faulkner’s short stories in literature.At last, the thesis lists the limitation and the suggestions for the further study.Above all, his works offer a realistic presentation of society in American south. Taking a unique perspective, Faulkner depicted various individuals going through social changes at the time, In his works, he showed the genuine concern for the protagonists in their anguished condition. His innovative experimental writings contained in them modernistic features and marked a break away from the traditional literary convention. In a unique perspective, they enriched the connotations of the works and strengthened the artistic appeals of the stories. |
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