When William Faulkner received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950, America was yet reeling from the horrors of two World Wars, one which killed thousands of men with gas, one which killed thousands with the atomic bomb. As a consequence, there was a disillusion and a great fear of man's ultimate destruction. Faulkner alludes to these feelings of Americans in the opening of his speech. At the same time, however, he abjures the "next writer" to remember the true mission of this artist. He must reteach himself, he must remind himself that the true mission of the writer is to tell universal truths; he cannot be afraid to write of "love and honor, pity and pride, and compassion and sacrifice."
Expressing his faith in the endurance of man, Faulkner exhorts the writer to not simply record the end of man, but to remind his fellow men "of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past." The voice of the writer, Faulkner contends, must be the "prop," the "pillar" that helps men "endure and prevail," the same goal which he himself has striven to achieve.