The Unvanquished

 . . . Ringo and I had been born in the same month and had both fed at the same breast and had slept together and eaten together for so long that Ringo called Granny 'Granny' just like I did, until maybe he wasn't a nigger anymore or maybe I wasn't a white boy anymore, the two of us neither, not even people any longer . . . .

from The Unvanquished (7)

Originally published in The Saturday Evening Post as a series of short stories, The Unvanquished tells the story of two boys born the same month on a Mississippi plantation in September 1849.  What makes their story compelling is that one boy is black, and the other is white.  Faulkner uses this novel to explore several issues in the Antebellum South including race, Christian morality, and Southern honor. When the novel opens in the summer of 1862, Bayard and Ringo are twelve years old playing war games in the back yard of the Sartoris house.   The Civil War had been fought mostly in Virginia, but they are soon confronted with the reality of war when they learn that Vicksburg has fallen to the Yankees. In the absence of Bayard's father, John Sartoris, who is off fighting in the war, they decide that they must defend themselves from the advancing Yankees. Briefly describe the relationship between these two boys.  Why does Faulkner choose Bayard to narrate the story? What effect does this have on the reader's perception of the story?  How would it be different if Ringo had been chosen instead?

The Lost Generation

"You are all a lost generation."

                                      - Gertrude Stein 

Gertrude Stein is said to have spoken these words to Ernest Hemingway referring to a generation of American writers who became disillusioned after World War I by a society that they believed valued material wealth, power, and puritanical mores more than human life.  Although he was unable to serve in combat as a soldier because of poor eyesight, Hemingway nonetheless enlisted and served as an ambulance driver in Italy, where he saw first hand the death and destruction of combat.  He was seriously wounded in July 1918 and spent several months in Italian hospitals before returning home in January 1919. He would later return to Europe to join Hart Crane, Sherwood Anderson,  F. Scott Fitzgerald, (among others)  who congregated in London and Paris where they lived a lifestyle free of the puritanical confines of early twentieth century American society.

Hemingway's novel, The Sun Also Rises, tells the story of Jake Barnes, an American jounalist and WWI veteran who is living in Paris with a group of expatriates who seem to be living the bohemian lifestyle Hemingway and other members of the Lost Generation had adopted after the war.  He is in love with a woman who is engaged to another man, and he spends his evenings going from one bar to another drinking heavily.  What motivates Jake?  Does he have a moral compass?  How does this character reflect the "Lost Generation"?