Themes · 1939
Between grief and nothing I will take grief.
— William Faulkner ‧ The Wild Palms
Behind the line May contain spoilers.
Our reading
An editorial interpretation.
Faulkner's speaker prefers grief to feeling nothing at all. Pain here is treated as proof that something mattered, since grief means the loss was real. It's a stark choice: sorrow that hurts, or emptiness that doesn't even let you feel.
Context reviewed