The Race Question in Faulkner’s Cold War Discourses and Intruder in the Dust

This essay reconstructs and compares three Faulknerian discourses on racial politics—his public pronouncements, and the respective views of Gavin and Chick in Intruder in the Dust . It asks whether they match, and if not, which offers the best answer to the race question of Faulkner’s time. I seek to present a comprehensive understanding of Intruder and its authorial-sociohistorical context, offering a new reading of Faulkner’s interview with Howe, arguing against the reading of Intruder as seeking to expand the circle of moral concern, highlighting the importance of Chick’s mother, and sketching a line of thought regarding modernization and homogeneity.