William Faulkner and Mortality is the first full-length study of mortality in William Faulkner-s fiction. The book challenges earlier, influential scholarly considerations of death in Faulkner-s work that claimed that writing was his authorial method of -saying No to death-. Through close-readings of six key works - The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, "A Rose for Emily", Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, and Go Down, Moses - this book examines how Faulkner-s characters confront various experiences of human mortality, including grief, bereavement, mourning, and violence. The trauma and ambivalence caused by these experiences ultimately compel these characters to -say Yes to death-. The book makes a clear distinction between Faulkner-s quest for literary immortality through writing and the desire for death exhibited by the principal characters in the works analysed. William Faulkner and Mortality: A Fine Dead Sound offers a
