Audio Clips

Which of your books would you advise someone to read first? (15 February 1957; 0:50)

Unidentified participant: Sir, what would you advise a person to read first of yours?

William Faulkner: Well, that's not a fair question to ask me because I would—I would like anyone to try the one that I love the best, which is a poor one to start on. If you are asking me to give an objective answer, I would say maybe—maybe The Unvanquished.

Did you write the stories as stories or parts of a novel? (28 April 1958; 1:20)

Irby Cauthen: Mr. Faulkner, The Unvanquished was published originally as a series of short stories, I believe, and then revised for a novel form. When you were writing those short stories, did you have the idea in mind that these would make a novel eventually, or did they just appear after they appeared in short story form to fit together so naturally that it was necessary to make a novel out of them?

William Faulkner: I saw them as a long series. I had never thought of it in—in terms of a novel, exactly. I realized that they would be too episodic to be what I considered a novel, so I thought of them as a series of stories. That when I got into the first one, I could see two more, but by the time I'd finished the first one, I saw that it was going further than that. And then when I'd finished the fourth one, I had postulated too many questions that I had to answer for my own satisfaction. So the others had to be—the other three or two, whichever it was, had to be written then.

What is your opinion of Col. Sartoris as a man? (28 April 1958; 2:17)

William Faulkner: Yes, sir.

Unidentified participant: Sir, in the earlier chapters of The Unvanquished, Colonel Sartoris is shown to be a very brave man and a very—could do all sorts of wonderful things, and then in the last chapter, he seems to be shown in a slightly different light, that he's not—not quite all these things that he appeared to be earlier. Just what is your estimation of Colonel Sartoris as a man?

William Faulkner: As a—a simple human man. In the—the first stories in that book, that was—was how this little boy saw him. Later, that little boy got older and—and had some perspective. He could see that this man who had seemed incapable of—of weakness or evil was human, too. It wasn't that the—that Sartoris changed so much, but the boy had changed, could see more than he had seen at first. The picture he had of him at first was someone that would be gone away fighting in a war, and then he'd come back for a day or two, and then be gone again, the picture that his grandmother and his aunt and the servants that remained on the place had given him of what his father was. Later, when he got older and had some perspective and could—could see that—that war is—is not all that fine and—and gallant and that the people that engage in war probably are—are harmed a little by it, too. That he got a—he knew more about people, about man, about his grand—his father as he got older. That was the reason, not that Sartoris changed, anymore than—than anyone changes by getting old, and his arteries beginning to harden, and his blood running slower. His ideas becoming a little more rigid.

Why did you make Ringo smarter than Bayard? (28 April 1958; 1:01)

William Faulkner: Yes, sir.

Unidentified participant: Why did you draw up this young Negro boy Ringo to be the smarter of the two?

William Faulkner: That was because—that's something that I think I have seen in his race. That is, not all of his race are that smart and—and that clever, but the ones that are smart and clever have never had a chance to because of the condition in which the white man wants to hold the Negro. This one, he had freedom. He had the same background, environment that the white boy had, and so he had a chance for what genius, what talent he had, to—to flower without being challenged. That won't happen with—with any Negro, just like it won't happen with any white boy, but occasionally there would be the Negro, I think, with talent and capacity to be clever if he had the chance to.

How do race and circumstance affect the two boys? (28 April 1958; 2:37)

William Faulkner: I believe you had another question, sir.

Unidentified participant: Yes, sir. I was thinking of one. In The Unvanquished up until the time—I imagine—I think the two boys were about twelve years old. You played up the fact that the white boy was one little step ahead of the colored boy at that time by having seen something that the other hadn't. Then afterwards, the colored boy took command of the situation when they started their reselling of the mules, and I was wondering if you thought that the colored person was coming into the [front], or into more power or initiative, in that day and age?

William Faulkner: Well, I can't say. I think that—that anyone, regardless of—of color—No, let me—let me start over again. I would say that the color had nothing to do with how much any individual, any human being can take advantage of—of his advantages. In this case, that—that—the Negro boy was faster on his feet than the white boy. That is because maybe the Negro boy had brought something from Africa, when he had to be pretty quick on his feet in the rain forest to stay alive. The white boy had a tradition of an aristocracy in which God had protected him. He could afford to be a little slow, though if they were put in [ . . . ] [gap in tape] [for a second], I don't think anyone could say that the Negro boy would've been faster then than the white boy. Once the white boy realized that the old, secure condition was gone, then he had to be pretty quick on his feet, too. Though my thought is that—that everybody can't handle freedom if he had it, but that anyone should have the chance, the freedom to see just how good he can be and whether he's white or black. That he won't fail because he is black. That he will fail because it was in—inherent in him not to cope with freedom. He, whether he was white or black, had no business with freedom.

What does the ruined train signify? (28 April 1958; 4:00)

William Faulkner: Yes, sir.

Unidentified participant: I'd like to know exactly what the train signified, since the white boy had—had seen the train and [the colored one hadn't]. It meant the old train out may have been ruined by the Yankees. Was that supposed to be some significant thing ruined by the white people themselves?

William Faulkner: No, only that the white boy had told the nigger boy about trains, and the nigger boy had never seen one, and he wanted to see one, too. It was just unlucky that the time the Negro boy got to see the train it—it couldn't have been running fast and fine and free. It was involved in war and destruction at that time, that the Negro boy didn't get to see the splendid, gallant train which white boy had seen in peacetime. I think there was no significance to the fact that the Negro boy had to see a—a ruined train, but only that he was unlucky in that he couldn't see that at a better time, but the fact that—that he—that's his own cleverness to cope with—with his condition, his environment, that even a train that might not have been as fine and beautiful as the one the white boy saw, but he had seen a train, too, and the Negro boy could probably have imagined what that train would look like if it hadn't been in war. The white boy might not have been able to.

Unidentified participant: Well, I was wondering if you had meant any significance concerning freedom, any—any tangible thing?

William Faulkner: No, that's the sort of symbolism which—which the reader must bring to—to any—anything he reads. I mean must. He can't help it. Because you—you read, just as you write, out of your own experience of observation, imagination and actual seeing and hearing. You bring that to what you read, and so the symbolism probably must be inherent in the work, though the writer does not necessarily need to have said, "Now, I'm going to put a little symbolism right here," because you write from the same thing you read from, is the general fund of—of our record. I mean by "our" all—all Americans, all the English-speaking people, or we'll say all Christian people, read and write from the same warehouse of—of experience, in the terms of culture. So a reader, an erudite reader, can find more symbolism than an illiterate reader can simply because the erudite bloke has read more. He has more to cast back to and say, "Oh, yes, that's what this is." The—the—the illiterate one would say, "Yes, this is true," but he sees no connection with—with anything that somebody wrote 500 years ago or that someone—some psychiatrist or psychologist has—has formulated to explain behavior, which the erudite man knows. But the symbolism I'm sure are the—the—the symbols of the symbolism are inherent in the work, if they came from the same culture as the reader and the writer.

Were there many girls in the Civil War like Drusilla? (28 April 1958; 0:42)

Frederick Gwynn: Mr. Faulkner, were there many girls in the war who went off like Drusilla, rode astride and went with the troops?

William Faulkner: Probably not. Probably she was the only one. [audience laughter] I mean, her prototype, whoever it was that I got the idea for her from, I imagine I read that somewhere, too, and just don't remember it. Just like whoever wrote about the [Iversons] don't remember where he read that.

Was there any romantic attraction between Drusilla and Bayard? (28 April 1958; 1:35)

William Faulkner: Yes, sir.

Joseph Blotner: Is there any romantic attraction between Drusilla and the boy?

William Faulkner: I don't think so. They were nearer akin in age, but I don't think so. I think certainly Drusilla would have made no effort to—to bring that out in that boy because her husband, older than she though he was, was—was—was her—her knight. He represented the best of—of the masculine to her, to be ruthless and—and—and brave and to demand—to brook no insult, to demand blood for blood, that was exactly what she would have been if she'd been a boy. And she probably never saw this boy other than someone who was close to her in age. And he had never thought of her romantically, I am quite sure, because his father had—had stamped the whole tone of that household with his, the father's, importance, that nobody would have dared tamper with his wife, for instance. And this boy, that would have—might have been the one thing he would have shot a man for, for an insult to his father's wife, not his mother necessarily, but his father's wife, because he would be preserving his father's honor.

What is the significance of the sprig of verbena? (28 April 1958; 1:58)

William Faulkner: Yes, sir.

Unidentified participant: Sir, I'd like to know what you consider the significance of the sprig of verbena from—[on young Bayard's pillow in] The Unvanquished at the end of the book.

William Faulkner: That, too—that young man was the—it signified his stepmother, who was also a young woman, who believed in the qualities which his background, his tradition had taught him to believe a man should have to be brave, to never brook an injury nor an insult. He had associated verbena with her because she had said that was part of his awareness of her, that that was the only flower she liked because that was one that smelled stronger than courage and horses. She had assumed that after his father'd been killed, he would take the pistols and go and—and kill his father's killer. He decided that there'd been enough killing, but he couldn't run, so he went unarmed and faced the man who had killed his father, and so he won the moral victory, which took courage, too, and though his stepmother couldn't condone the fact that he had not drawn blood for blood, an eye for an eye, she did realize that that took courage, too, maybe more than to have gone armed. And that was her way of saying, "This is not my—my way of solving this, but what you did was brave, too, and this is the way I'll say goodbye," so she left a sprig of verbena where he could find it. That was—took the place of the note she might have written him. She wasn't the sort to have written a note.

Does the verbena signify the tradition that Bayard rejects? (28 April 1958; 2:03)

Unidentified participant: In that—that final section of The Unvanquished, are you developing a notion of a changing and developing tradition, and that Bayard doesn't reject the whole tradition. He keeps the honor and the courage, but he rejects the—part of the old tradition, and that—that is the vendetta. And I wondered if you—that if the sprig of verbena represented the old mechanical, unchanging tradition that he was building from and rejecting partly but not altogether. I noticed that you present that sprig of verbena as having the petals stamped out as if—as if by a machine. I wondered if—if you—in your mind, that meant that this was the—the mechanical, unchanging tradition, that he was rejecting partly, [what] he was growing away from, but still keeping the—the honor and the courage.

William Faulkner: No, the verbena—the fact that sprig of verbena was alive, was—was an accolade, that the—the verbena, even though it looked like it had been stamped out by a machine and was traditional, was still alive, and there would be another one next year. And that was an accolade of—of optimism, too. That she could have left a—a note scrawled on a—a piece of paper, but that would have been dead paper and dead ink. This was—was alive, a promise of—of renewal for next year.

What are Bayard's thoughts about his father's violent death? (1 May 1958; 2:55)

William Faulkner: Yes, sir.

Unidentified participant: Sir, I'd like to ask a—a more specific question if I may. In "An Odor of Verbena" I got the impression that Bayard had been rather anticipating a violent death for his father for some time and was braced for it in certain respects. Yet he still had this thing which he was fighting all the way through the story, this "it" as he calls it, "now it can begin again." Exactly what was this feeling he had that he had to fight off before he could [ . . . ]

William Faulkner: He anticipated his father's violent death. He also knew that his father represented an obsolescence. That he did not want to participate in that obsolescence. The—the anticipation of his father's death was not the—the—the anguish and grief of the loss. It was the fact that he knew that when that happened, this demand by all his tradition, all his family, his father's new wife and his aunt would demand that he take a gun in his turn and go and shed blood to pay for shed blood. And that he was not going to do that. That's why he hated the moment when his father would meet that end, that violent end, which the boy knew his father would meet. That he would be a pariah to his tradition. That he was not going to take a gun and avenge his father's blood. And that was the "it" that he hated. He didn't dread it. He was going to accept [his fate], but that was what he meant. That even the war had not settled that. To any rational man the lost war should have settled that. Men should have said, "Well, we tried blood, and that didn't work, so let's quit it." But he knew that his father, his father's generation, would not do that. And that he—he believed that he would be the only one he knew that would—would want to accept the future. He probably didn't realize that there were a lot of other young southerners that were willing to accept the future. He thought he would be alone, a pariah to his country, his tradition, his family, his blood, everything.

Unidentified participant: But I believe that his Aunt Jenny who was of his father's generation thought it was all right.

William Faulkner: Yes'm, because as I say, women are adaptable. It's men that—that cling to the old, obsolete ways. Women are adaptable, even a woman as old as Aunt Jenny. That she was—knew that she would apostate to all the family tradition, but she was on the side of the future like the boy was.

How does Aunt Jenny feel about Bayard's choice at the end? (28 April 1958; 1:48)

Frederick Gwynn: Mr. Faulkner, toward the end of "An Odor of Verbena," she says to Bayard, "Damn you Sartorises," even though she seems to approve of his not going out and getting revenge. Is it some quality of heartlessness that she feels even in an act that she approves of?

William Faulkner: No, no, she loves these people, and they have constantly—all of her life, they have given her anguish and trouble. That she can't help but love them, and she believes in them, not in what they do, and they do these reckless, completely self-centered things that have caused nothing but anguish and grief to all their womenfolk. That's all that meant. That she's proud of this boy, but he too has done something unexpected, that when she expects them to act like human beings they act like Sartorises, then when she expects the next one to behave like a Sartoris he behaves like a simple human being, [audience laughter] and she has no—will never have any peace from them. That's all that meant.
Yes, sir.

Joseph Blotner: When the boy's aunt says, "Go upstairs until this blows over. It'll be all right," is she saying that because she just doesn't want him to get hurt?

William Faulkner: Yes, that's it. That's—that's the woman—this is the last one. And—and she knows that—that she expects him to go out and get himself shot, because he's a child compared to this man, and he wouldn't come out of a—of a duel with—with this man, and she's willing for him to be a coward just so he stays alive. She knows that he's not going to do that. But that's—that's—that's the woman. She's been his mother. She's telling him to do something that she herself probably wouldn't really want him to do.

Has Hollywood ever expressed any interest in these stories? (28 April 1958; 0:57)

Unidentified participant: Has Hollywood ever expressed any interest in these stories?

William Faulkner: Yes, they—they bought the book. [audience laughter] That is a funny story, too. [audience laughter] A producer named David Selznick bought Gone with the Wind. M-G-M wanted to make it, and he—he wouldn't let M-G-M make it. He wanted to use Gable, who was under contract to M-G-M in it, and they—they wouldn't let him have Gable, and he wouldn't let them have Gone with the Wind. So they bought my book and told him that—that if he didn't let them make Gone with the Wind, they were going to make a Gone with the Wind of their own. They had no intention of making a moving picture out of my book. [audience laughter] And so Selznick let them make the picture. [audience laughter]