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In two of his novels, "The Sound and the Fury" (1929) and "As I Lay Dying" (1930), William Faulkner depicts the modern cultural decrease of two southern families in a very similar way. This overt display of "cultural failure" seems to parallel some of Sigmund Freud´s findings in four of his so-called "cultural writings," namely "Totem and Taboo" (1912-13), "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego" (1921), "The Future of an Illusion (1927), and "Civilization and Its Discontents" (1930). Can we speak of a possible influence by the great Viennese thinker on the writer from the American South? And do they share any common views on the apparent depraved state of this postbellum modern society?

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Alexandrù Bruttin was born and educated in Switzerland. He studied German, musicology, and English at the University of Lausanne (Bachelor), and graduated in English and German literature at the University of Basel (Master).

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