guns and horses and his own obliteration, is his ironic reenactment of the glorious
wartime valor that he imagined for Sutpen. Like Nancy at the end of “ That Evening
Sun, ” and even Abner at the end of “ Barn Burning, ” Wash is an extreme example of
isolation imposed by social and class - based circumstances.
Isolation is also a theme in the Civil War story “ Mountain Victory. ” Written in
1931, published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1932 and later collected in Doctor
Martino and Other Stories , “ Mountain Victory ” seems a product of Faulkner ’ s early work
on the material that would become Absalom, Absalom! Set in the mountains of Ten-
nessee shortly after the end of the Civil War, the story focuses on Major Saucier
Weddell, who is traveling towards his home in Mississippi in the company of his
servant and former slave Jubal. Weddell seeks shelter for the night in the cabin of
Unionists. They are immediately suspicious of him, and one of them, a former Union
soldier, threatens to kill the visitor. The story emphasizes the regional, ethnic, social,
and cultural barriers that divide its characters. At fi rst the family takes Weddell for
a white Confederate offi cer. Then the brother Vatch thinks Weddell is black because
of his dark complexion, but Weddell explains that he is Choctaw, the son of an Indian
chief and a European mother. The lower - class poverty of the mountain family contrasts
with the wealth and social pretensions of Weddell as well as his servant, who mimics
his master. The family resents Weddell, because he was a Confederate offi cer, because
of his wealth, because of doubts about his race, because of his servant. Moreover,
Weddell comes from the Mississippi planter class, while the mountain family scrab-
bles for a living as best they can. Two members of the family, a young boy named
Hule and his sister, unnamed and about 20, are attracted to Saucier. To the girl he
strikes a dashing fi gure to which she is sexually drawn and in whom she sees a pos-
sible escape from her mountain family. The boy sees in Weddell what Sarty Snopes
saw in the white - columned house of Major De Spain in “ Barn Burning. ” He both
respects and resents Weddell, and in the end he warns the man of his brother ’ s mur-
derous intentions and even mounts Weddell ’ s horse to confuse his brother. As a result,
his brother mistakes the boy for Weddell and shoots him. James Ferguson, in his
book Faulkner ’ s Short Fiction , sees the issue of moral choice as a central theme in the
story, which he compares in this regard to “ Barn Burning. ” 10 Weddell has had ample
warning to leave the mountain before dawn, but he stays to care for Jubal, who has
passed out from drinking moonshine. Weddell knows what is about to happen to
him, but he avoids taking steps to save himself, as if he wants to be killed. The same
can be said for the boy Hule, who knows that his brother will shoot at whatever rider
sits astride Weddell ’ s horse.
As in “ Dry September, ” “ Mountain Victory ” employs shifting narrative viewpoints
to convey the different attitudes of characters in the story, moving from Jubal to
Weddell to the girl to an uninvolved narrator. Weddell ’ s social pretensions, and his
fatigue, prevent him from taking action to save himself. The fear and terror in the
story stem from the foreknowledge of the characters of what is to happen to them,
254
Hugh Ruppersburg
and from their inability or unwillingness to try to escape that fate. In a sense the story
presents a parabolic portrait of the class, regional, and racial prejudices that led to the
Civil War and that will lead to further troubles after its end. But its main emphasis
falls on Weddell, the certain extinction he knows he faces, and his unwillingness to
avoid that fate.
Although Faulkner is best known as a writer of stories like “ Mountain Victory, ”
“ Barn Burning, ” “ A Rose for Emily, ” and “ That Evening Sun ” – which address the
same subjects and materials as his best - known novels – he wrote other stories that
explore concerns decidedly less regional and more contemporary. Two closely related
stories, “ Honor ” (1930) and “ Artist at Home ” (1933), are about adultery. “ Golden
Land ” (1935) satirizes Hollywood, in the same general vein as Nathanael West in Day
of the Locust , likely refl ecting opinions Faulkner developed during his screenwriting
stints in California. The stories in the fi nal section of Collected Stories , “ Beyond, ” also
do not represent Faulkner ’ s best work, with the exception of “ Carcassonne ” (1931),
but they reach beyond Yoknapatawpha to encompass concerns with war and life in
Europe following the war. They are decidedly pessimistic, and despite the fact that
Faulkner ’ s Nobel Prize Speech in 1950 expressed confi dence that “ man will not only
endure, he will prevail, ” these stories express a more guarded attitude. That Faulkner
collected them together in the fi nal section of the volume perhaps expressed his Cold
War concerns about the future of the human race.
Two Faulkner works that did not appear in Collected Stories or Uncollected Stories
deserve consideration as short fi ction. One is the Compson Appendix written for
Malcolm Cowley ’ s The Portable Faulkner in 1946 . This retelling of the Compson story
in The Sound and the Fury stands alone from the novel as an independent and separate
work. It was not intended as an additional section of the novel (in paperback editions
of which, for several years, it was included) and instead was written as a kind of
genealogy of characters connected to the Compson family, The appendix extends the
Compson story nearly fi fteen years past the novel ’ s conclusion and meditates on the
nature of time and history. Its famous and somewhat ambiguous conclusion, “ They
endure, ” looks forward to the fi nal statement of the Nobel Prize. One other work
worth considering as a short story is “ Mississippi, ” an autobiographical essay pub-
lished in Holiday magazine in 1954 that bears a relation to the prose sections on
Mississippi history in the 1951 novel Requiem for a Nun . As several critics have noted,
there are clear fi ctional elements in this work, which blends memoir, fact, and fi ction.
Although Faulkner ’ s fi ction is often said to have become more traditional, less experi-
mental, following 1940, both these works may be regarded as innovative, experimen-
tal examples of the short story form.
Notes
1
Interview with Jean Stein vanden Heuval,
James B. Meriwether and Michael
1955, in
Lion in the Garden: Interviews
Millgate (New York: Random House,
with William Faulkner 1926
–
1962 , eds.
1968), 238.
William
Faulkner
255
2
Interview with John K. Hutchens, 1948, in
discussion, in
Gwynn and Blotner
, eds.,
Lion in the Garden 59.
Faulkner in the University 48).
3
Joseph Blotner , Faulkner: A Biography 209 – 10;
6
The full - length and preferred version of S
ar-
see also “ An Introduction to The Sound and the
toris was published in 1973 as Flags in the
Fury , ” Mississippi Quarterly 26 (Summer 1973):
Dust , the original title (New York: Random
413.
House).
4 Selected Letters of William Faulkner , ed. Joseph
7
A similar phenomenon occurs in Light in
Blotner (New York: Random House, 1977),
August when the rumor begins to spread that
284.
Joe Christmas has killed Joanna Burden.
5
In an interview with John K. Hutchens,
8
James B. Carothers, in “ Short Story Back-
Faulkner said that he did not consider “ The
ground of
Absalom, Absalom! ” in Skei , ed.,
Bear ” a short story because “ A short story is
William Faulkner ’ s Short Fiction 129 – 37, iden-
3000 words or less. Anything more is, well,
tifi es a signifi cant number of stories that con-
a piece of writing ” ( Lion in the Garden 59). In
tributed in some way to the novel. These
a class discussion at the University of Vir-
include “ The Big Shot, ” “ Mistral, ” “ Evange-
ginia, he elaborated on the same point: “ the
line, ” “ That Evening Sun, ” “ A Justice, ” and
short story is conceived in the same terms
the stories that became The Unvanquished .
that the book is. The fi rst job the craftsman
9
For a discussion of the relationship between
faces is to tell this as quickly and simply as I
these stories, see Jacques Pothier,
“
Black
can, and if he ’ s good, if he ’ s of the fi rst water,
Laughter: Poor White Short Stories Behind
like Chekhov, he can do it every time in
Absalom, Absalom! and The Hamlet , ” in Skei ,
two or three thousand words, but if he ’ s not
ed., William Faulkner ’ s Short Fiction 173 – 84.
that good, sometimes it takes him eighty 10
James Ferguson , Faulkner ’ s Short Fiction 78;
thousand words
”
(March 11, 1957, class
see also 154, 174.
References and Further Reading
Blotner , Joseph . Faulkner: A Biography . 1 vol. edn.
Ferguson , James . Faulkner ’
s Short Fiction . Knox-
New York : Random House , 1984 .
ville : University of Tennessee Press , 1991 .
Cowley , Malcolm , ed. The Portable Faulkner . New
Grimwood , Michael . Heart in Confl ict: Faulkner ’ s
York : Viking Press , 1946 .
Struggles with Vocation . Athens : University of
Faulkner , William . Collected Stories of William
Georgia Press , 1987 .
Faulkner . New York : Random House , 1950 .
Millgate , Michael . The Achievement of William
— — — . Doctor Martino and Other Stories . New
Faulkner . New York : Random House , 1966 .
York : Harrison Smith & Robert Haas , 1934 .
259 – 75 .
— — — . Knight ’ s Gambit . New York : Random
Skei , Hans . William Faulkner: The Novelist as Short
House , 1949 .
Story Writer . Oslo, Norway : Universitetsforlaget
— — — . These 13 . New York : Jonathan Cape &
As , 1985 .
Harrison Smith , 1931 .
— — — . William Faulkner: The Short Story Career.
— — — . Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner . Ed.
An Outline of Faulkner ’ s Short Story Writing from
Joseph Blotner . New York : Random House ,
1919 to 1962 . Oslo, Norway : Universitetsfor-
1979 .
laget As , 1981 .
Gwynn , Frederick L. , and Joseph L. Blotner , eds.
Skei , Hans , ed. William Faulkner
’
s Short Fiction:
Faulkner in the University: Class Conferences at the
An International Symposium . Oslo, Norway :
University of Virginia, 1957 – 58 . Charlottesville :
Solum Forlag , 1997 .
University of Virginia Press , 1959 .
17
Katherine Anne Porter
Ruth M. Alvarez
The enduring literary reputation of Katherine Anne Porter (1890 – 1980) rests upon
her brilliant short fi ction, rather than her only full - length novel. As Porter lived
through all but twenty years of the twentieth century, the record of her life and work
documents some of the most important historical events of that century. Born and
reared in rural Texas, she spent a large portion of the fi rst three decades of her life in
rapidly growing urban centers in the state – San Antonio, Houston, Corpus Christi,
Dallas, and Fort Worth. She began to work as a writer during World War I; she and
several of her women friends participated in the struggle for women ’ s right to vote;
she survived the infl uenza epidemic of 1918; she lived through Prohibition and its
repeal; she stood witness to the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti; she was in Germany
when Hitler was rising to power; and she agonized through World War II. She was
in Hollywood as the red scare that later led to blacklisting began to emerge; she lived
through the Korean War, the Army - McCarthy hearings, the Civil Rights Movement,
the assassinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy, the
rise of feminism, and the successful moon landings of American astronauts.
Porter ’ s reputation as a literary artist was established in the decade of the 1920s,
when her circle of friends and acquaintances in New York City was largely literary.
Some members of her social circle in this period, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren,
and Malcolm Cowley, are canonical fi gures in American literature. Porter ’ s growing
reputation and her distinguished friends enabled her to develop an ever - widening
circle of important friends and acquaintances over the course of her life. She encour-
aged and befriended American writers, Eudora Welty, Flannery O ’ Connor, William
Humphrey, William Goyen, and Peter Taylor, who produced signifi cant works of
literature.
Porter appeared on the American literary scene a few months after she came to
New York City in late 1919. There she met individuals who held responsible posi-
tions in publishing and began writing for periodicals whose readers constituted a
national as opposed to a local or regional audience. Armed with a contract to
Katherine Anne Porter
257
ghostwrite My Chinese Marriage , a book that was to appear serially in the national
magazine
Asia
, Porter left her job as a movie publicist in November 1920 and
traveled to Mexico in search of materials she could use to support herself as a writer
of both fi ction and non - fi ction. In Mexico, she completed My Chinese Marriage as well
as pieces that were published in newspapers and periodicals in Mexico and the United
States ( El Heraldo de Mexico , New York Call , Magazine of Mexico , Christian Science
Monitor , Freeman ).
Although she returned to the United States in late 1921 and eventually to New
York City by early 1922, it wasn �
� t until after her second trip to Mexico in Spring
1922 that Porter broke into the literary mainstream with “ Where Presidents Have
No Friends, ” published in Century Magazine (July 1922). Five months later her fi rst
piece of mature fi ction, “ Mar í a Concepci ó n, ” was published in that same magazine.
By November 1924, she was established enough as a writer to become a regular
reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune (later reviewing for New Republic , New Masses ,
and New York Evening Post ). Between July 1923 and Spring 1930, Porter published
eight more short stories (two more in Century , two in transition , and others in New
Masses , Gyroscope , Second American Caravan , and Hound & Horn ). Six of these stories
were published in her fi rst book, Flowering Judas (1930) . At the time of her death in
1980, Porter had published another four volumes of short fi ction, Flowering Judas and
Other Stories (1935) , Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels (1939) , The Leaning Tower
and Other Stories (1944) , and The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter (1965) , which
won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1965. Her full - length
novel Ship of Fools , a best - seller and the basis for a popular movie, was published in
1962. The publication of two collections of essays and occasional writings, The Days
Before and The Collected Essays and Occasional Writings of Katherine Anne Porter , came in
1952 and 1970 . The Never - Ending Wrong , the account of her participation in the pro-
tests prior to the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti, appeared in 1977.
“ Go Little Book, ” the brief introduction to Collected Stories , asks of “ the reader one
gentle favor ” : “ Please call my works by their right names: we have four that cover
every division: short stories, long stories, short novels, novels. ” This volume brought
together twenty - six of the thirty - one works of fi ction Porter had published by 1965.
It did not include her only full - length novel, Ship of Fools , nor did it include four
derivative stories she had published in 1920. 1 An additional story, “ The Spivvelton
Mystery, ” subsequently published in Ladies ’ Home Journal in August 1971, had been
written in 1930. Using the “ right names ” Porter prefers for her work, Collected Stories
includes short stories, long stories, and short novels, although she refers to these works
collectively as “ stories ” throughout the introduction. Excluding her only mystery
A Companion to the American Short Story Page 56