A study of women character-types in novels of William Faulkner

Through Faulkner's portrayals of women characters, certain value-judgements of that not-always-fairer sex are revealed; expressed implicity or explicitly, these assessments vary with his particular forms of femininity. His earliest heroines, seen in Soldier's Pay, Mosquitoes, and Sartoris, foreshadow types of womanhood later depicted by Faulkner in major novels; the women portrayed in The Sound and The Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, Sanctuary, Requiem for a Nun, and Absalom, Absalom! embody qualities he abhors or praises, and exemplify traits he deems virtues or vice. [...]