Hair. William Faulkner Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Hair. William Faulkner - Essay ExampleHis detachment from the events narrated allows him to be a compassionate and sensitive commentator, whose views we timbre we can trust, even though Faulkner misleads us at the end. He seems to understand rubbers attachment to the little girl, and even treats her premature sexual adventures with sympathy rather than disgust record dont pay any attention to systems, let alone women paying any attention to them I say she couldnt help herself. It wasnt her fault (133-4).The story is in triad parts, the second explaining the first by retreating in time, and the third bringing round the dnouement. Hawkshaw is presented as an isolated figure in a community, which the critic Joseph reed identifies as being a key motif in Faulkner stories. Faulkner without a group is without a point of reference essential for his most effective memoir (Reed, 20). The group varies from story to story it can be a family, or a particular social grouping, or, as in H air, a whole town. Hawkshaw is quietly kind to the girl, and is so self-effacing that when he insists that Ill tend to her, Maxey tells the narrator that was the first time he ever heard him speak positive about anything (132). The girls growth is captured with fine economy. She walks fast like little girls do, and then makes friends at school and passes not looking toward the window at all (132), so that Hawkshaws devotion to her is already under threat. Soon she got grown fast (133) and she is hitching up the regular simple gingham and such dresses that a thirteen-year-old child ought to wear (134). Hawkshaw has assumption her presents, including the doll which he never told anyone about (133), but it seems to be clear to everyone that his interest in her is not unhealthy. It is appreciated that there is a genuine jockey in his attitude, which is respected by the others. When the men talk of how she has gone to the bad, it was while Hawkshaw was not there (134), and when Maxey does voice his crude suspicions - Any old part that will fool with a childly girl, hes pretty bad - Matts comment is a reprimand the reason is a moral one, he thinks she is too young to receive jewelry from anybody that aint kin to her (136).Part II fills in Hawkshaws past, and lets us a little way into his true thinking, showing that his interest in the girl must be serious, heartfelt and deeply human. He had married the Starnes daughter, showing a real devotion to her and her welfare, learning barbering and going off to work in Birmingham, Rode part of the way in wagons and walked the rest, coming back each summer to see the girl (138). He spent all his savings on her fathers funeral, and then started saving again for the marriage. He acted out of mature devotion. The narrator cannot convey Hawkshaws grief when she dies. We only have the immensely touching detail of the picture and the shut away of hair, which both got lost, the hair and the picture, in the mail somehow (139). He devotes himself then to serving her memory in the only way he can, by paying off the mortgage on the parents house and returning every April, as on a pilgrimage, to clean it The April vacation is utterly essential to him, like a religious observance. At previous employers he had given up his job