Distortion and Madness—the Comparison of the Personality Formation Elements of Emily and Miss Minnie Cooper

Abstract

William Faulkner, as a representative of modern American literature, using his rich imagination and his life experience, creates a world Yorkshire. His numerous works not only win the Nobel Prize in Literature for Faulkner, but also become the research hot spots for his work. In order to understand and study William Faulkner's works deeply, the domestic and foreign scholars take a variety of research strategies. The criteria to judge the shaping skill for a character is that the personalities of them are remembered by readers. But the character's personality formation is closely related to his world. So, what factors would influence the formation of characters? Given by writer or shaped by his world? These are the important questions for us.

This paper is based on two short novels A Rose for Emily and Dry September of William Faulkner. After analyzing the two novels in detail and comparing the information we get, we make a conclusion about the elements that influence the personality of characters. At fist this part introduces the background and the aim. The second one reviews the researches. Then we analyze the details of the two novels, and compare the effects of factors on the two girls’ personality, which can be divided into personal factors, family environment factors and emotional factors. But social cultural factors, especially residents play roles to limit them and finally make them have distorted psychology and crazy behaviors.

Key words: comparison, personality of characters, influence elements for personality