1a. With what acknowledgment did Faulkner accept the Nobel Prize?
2a. According to the first sentence of the address, what did Faulkner attempt to do in his fiction?
3a. Why will people prevail, according to Faulkner?
4a. Identify the elements that, according to Faulkner, must be included in a story if it is not to be ephemeral and doomed.
5a. In the nuclear age, is Faulkner's assertion that "man will not merely endure: he will prevail" a realistic one? Explain your answer.
1b. What does Faulkner believe is the relationship between people's souls and writing?
2b. Why did Faulkner say that the award was "only [his] in trust"? To whom does he address his comments? What does he want to communicate to these people?
3b. What is a writer's duty?
4b. Speaking a few years after the end of World War II and the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Faulkner said, "There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up?" Do you feel that the threat of nuclear attack is as serious today as it was when Faulkner gave his address in 1950? Why, or why not? Why do you think Faulkner wanted his listeners not to live in fear but rather to remember the "old verities and truths of the heart"?
5b. Does Robert Frost's Letter to The Amherst Student on page 517 support or contradict Faulkner's views about the modern age, spirituality, and the value of literature? Explain your answer.
Aim. What do you think was Faulkner's aim in writing his Nobel Prize acceptance speech?
Alliteration. Compete the chart below. On the left, quote examples of alliteration from the speech. On the right explain what ideas are emphasized by the alliteration. One example has been done for you.
1a. Alliteration: "not made to me as a man"
1b. Explanation: Faulkner feels the Nobel Prize was not awarded to him personally, but to him as a writer.
4a. Alliteration:
What is the most memorable example of alliteration in the speech?
1. Write a paragraph explaining what you think Faulkner means when he says that "the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself." Do you agree with this statement? Why, or why not?
2. Imagine that a young writer wrote to Faulkner for advice about whether he should continue writing. Write the letter that Faulkner could have written to the young writer.
3. Write a character sketch about one of the characters in "Darl." Feel free to write about other characteristics that you think the character may possess that are not necessarily pointed out in the selection.
Colorful Adjectives.Identify all the adjectives, along with the nouns they modify, in the following sentence from Faulkner's speech:
"It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking."
Researching on the Internet. Use the Internet to locate news items about William Faulkner. One site you might find useful is http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/index.html.
