The Research Of The Time In Faulkner's Novels

William Faulkner is the famous novelist of south America. The novels of William Faulkner rank among the most important books of the 20th century. There have been so many research on Faulkner's works, there also have been some study on the topic of "time". The most famous paper on this topic is 《:The Sound and the Fury》 written by Sartre. In Faulkner's works, "time" is the important element. This paper tends to make a farther study of topic of "time " .The first part of the paper has had retrospection on the research of "time" in the history. There have been two different theories about time: circulative time and linear time. In the works of modernism novelists, the "mental time" has been a more important and genuine clue of the works than the "physical time".The second part of the paper analyzed the description of time in the Faulkner's novels, and found out the skills used by him. The paper pointed out that Faulkner utilized the way to interrupt the time abruptly and the method to deform the time, which made the time in Faulkner's novels "reversed". The intention of these skills is to uncover the reality of the stream of consciousness and to visualize the souls of dramatis personae.In the third part ,the paper give the reasons why Faulkner used those skills to make the time "reversed". There are five aspects : Faulkner 's aesthetic psychology; the attention on present; the expression of anxiety caused by modern times ; Faulkner's attitude to words ; the purpose to express the complexity of the world.What Faulkner wanted to tell us indeed was that the roots of unfortunate was not the "time", but the attitude to the "time". The intention of the author was not to extol a reminiscent mood of the old South America, but to hope the person in reality to throw over the burden, come back from the recollection, and to find a real life.