A study which concentrates on the texts of William Faulkner in the light of recent scholarship and critical theory on semiotics, reader response and deconstruction. The author looks at the treatment of women and blacks in Faulkner's fiction and examines his short stories and early poetry.

A study which concentrates on the texts of William Falkner in the light of recent scholarship and critical theory on semiotics, reader response and deconstruction. The author looks at the treatment of women and blacks in Faulkner's fiction and examines his short stories and early poetry. The book is designed to help those who wind through the labyrinth of Faulkner's sentences to understand the larger design, as Faulkner explores the interplay between society and the individual, history and now, in terms of the language in which we think, speak and tell stories.

Introduction: critical issues
Faulkner's life
Faulkner's style. Part 1 Early work: poetry
early novels to "The Sound and the Fury (1929). Part 2 The Thirties: from "As I Lay Dying" (1930) to "The Wild Palms" (1939). Part 3 The late work: from "The Hamlet" (1940) to "The Mansion" (1959). Part 4 The short stories: five collections.