Research Paper on:
World of Willliam Faulkner

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
betray ambivalence toward each of these most important elements in his work. His portrayals of all three, though on the surface quite unflattering and indeed derisive at times, still shows  much love, even longing in the midst of his harshest and most brutal exposure. of their deepest secrets and most profound contradictions and weaknesses. He seems both attracted and repelled,  even by the women to whom he is most attracted. And though his revulsion and derision for the racial system that defined and ruled the South of his experience stands  out starkly in his work, his longing for that system and fear of what might replace it comes through strongly at times. His ambivalence is certainly easy to see in  his treatment of women, both in his works and in his personal life. His stories are peopled with two distinct kinds of women: the weak, fragile woman who is trampled  upon by the men in her life and is ultimately ruined by them, and the fiercely independent, hard-charging woman who knows what she wants but in the end doesnt get  it because she represents a threat to the male-dominated Southern society and therefore scares away those she wants most (Lahey 517). Neither frail "lost" women like Miss Reba in "Sanctuary"  nor hard-chargers like Charlotte Rittenmeyer in ""The Wild Palms" seem to win Faulkners full approval, though they all, like all his characters and situations, do manage to elicit a measure  of sympathy. (Lahey 518). Of course, that "sympathy" would be a relative term, particularly with 21st century sensibilities. When the evil temptress and tease Temple Drake in "Sanctuary" finally goes  too far in tormenting Popeye, he lashes out in impotent-and, we are given to understand, fully justified-rage and rapes her through a different means. The underlying message-that some women, maybe