Abstract
Coming out of Faulkner's "dark years," after his period of "authentic originality and greatness" (Minter 192-93), Intruder in the Dust has attracted relatively little critical attention since its publication. When critics do discuss the novel at length, their approach has often drawn upon the general conception that "Faulkner failed to give it the intensity and resonance we associate with his finest work" such as The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom! (Minter 212). Accordingly, most of this scholarship has treated Intruder in the Dust as a kind of political novel and thus focused on Faulkner's personal attitude toward contemporary Southern race relations and how this attitude manifests in his narrative. Unlike the "work of authentic originality and greatness" from his prolific years, the novel's philosophical investigation of race itself has suffered critical disregard.