WILLIAM FAULKNER'S NOVELS OFTEN CONTAIN TEXTBOOK EXAMPLES OF ecological disturbance. References to floods, fires, deforestation, mining, and disastrous agricultural practices dot his books just as they mar the actual South. Patricia Yaeger writes, "[P]lace is never simply 'place' in southern writing, but always a site where trauma has been absorbed into the landscape" (13). In ecological terms, such trauma falls under the

category of disturbance, and these disturbances illustrate a strong connection between environmental abuse and human suffering especially in terms of racial oppression. Ecological disturbances largely involve concepts that not only speak to environmental concerns but also work within the realm of human communities. After all, ecology is the science of communities. It is reasonable to connect a science that so elegantly overlaps with human communities with Faulkner's writing, which often addresses the complexities of human interaction within a

disturbed natural world.