Patriotism and Individualism: William Faulkner’s Conception of Being a True American in “The Tall Men” Anonymous College

William Faulkner was born in 1897 in Mississippi to Murry Cuthbert and Maud Butler Faulkner. At a young age, William learned to be self-reliant by fending for himself. This experience in his childhood thus is believed to have significantly influenced him to write “The Tall Men” which he published in 1941. The short story “The Tall Men” follows the story of the McCallum's family that disobeys the government order to register with the draft board. When the investigator, Mr. Pearson, visits the family with a warrant of arrest for the two sons accused of disobeying the order, the father, Buddy, together with the deputy marshal, dismiss the investigator’s warrant but the Buddy later agrees to send the two sons (Anse and Lucius)––one of whom is injured––to enlist. By resisting the government’s oppressive order and agreeing to send his sons to enlist, McCallum exhibits the traditional American values of civil disobedience to unjust treatment by the government and patriotism to the country, especially during war. “The Tall Men” by William Faulkner uses the characters of the deputy marshal, government investigator, the McCallum family to express two different viewpoints of a true American.

On the one hand, Faulkner suggests that a true...