Names across the Color Line. William Faulkner's Short Fiction 1931-1942.

Masiero argues that the interplay of proper names and appellations, definite descriptions and demonstratives provides a perfect stage to illuminate the dynamic drawing of communal boundaries and group belonging in William Faulkner’s fictional South. Focusing on short stories Faulkner wrote between 1931 and 1942, Masiero’s onomastic analyses explore and elucidate Faulkner’s Southern stance: his involvement in pivotal social and moral issues, his perception of class conflicts and racial hierarchies, his thoughts on racially inflected negotiations of identities, his recognition of the strictures imposed on the definition of the Southern self (both black and white), his immersion in and dependence on those very ideologies and vocabularies of the racial difference he stigmatizes. (Pubblicazione luglio 2012)