History, Fiction, Autobiography: William Faulkner's 'Mississippi'. Issue 4 (2nd October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Buzacott, Lucy
• Is Part Of: Life writing. Volume 16:Issue 4(2019)
• Page Start: 553
• Page End: 566
• Publication Date: 2019-10-02
• Subjects: Memory -- American literature -- William Faulkner -- autobiography; Biography as a literary form -- Periodicals; Autobiography -- Periodicals; 809.93592
• DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2019.1633248
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1448-4528

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This essay considers issues of history and memory, and autobiography and fiction in William Faulkner's 'Mississippi' and considers Faulkner's position as a writer and historian of the South. It interrogates the moments in which Faulkner's representation of his family, his history and his memory slips between the personal and the historical or collective. It further argues that Faulkner's experience of memory and race as a white Southerner complicates his representation of his family, his identity and particularly, his relationship with his family's black domestic or Mammy, Caroline Barr, revealing his implication in Southern mythmaking in his fictional and autobiographical writing.