Taking Faulkner's subjects into account, you'd think that he was knee deep in the Civil War as a front row spectator to one of American society's darkest times. However, he was actually born in 1897, over 30 years after the abolition of slavery, so where did he get all of these stories about slavery in the South? Even though slavery had been terminated in 1865, memories from that time were still pretty fresh, and frankly everyone was still pretty grumpy about the whole ordeal. Faulkner was born in Mississippi, so he experienced the effects of the Civil War and abolition in the South firsthand. His experience of the post-slavery South had a major impact on his writing.

Faulkner doesn't hold back when describing the brutality of Southern society pre-Civil War. We're talking rape, incest, and murder here, folks. This story can be daunting for a high school kid, but it can also be rewarding as it paints a vivid portrait of a very specific time in American history.