On the Way Up “The Hill”: Faulkner’s Poetic Beginnings as a Fiction Writer

William Faulkner’s second fictional sketch, “The Hill,” can be read like a prose poem. It constitutes a transitory moment for Faulkner, who, then a twenty-five year-old would-be writer, was still aspiring to become a poet. The sketch already contains elements foreshadowing key elements of Faulkner’s apocryphal Yoknapatawpha County. Read closely, which this paper endeavors to do, “The Hill” can be construed as an entrance gate into Faulkner’s unmistakable writing style. This paper therefore comments on the aspects that are already typically Faulknerian in “The Hill” and demonstrates how this early sketch represents a remarkable step toward further heights.