In “Ambuscade,” Faulkner presents us with a narrator named Bayard reflecting back on a time during the Civil War. The narrator describes how things seemed to his twelve-year old self. Readers don’t yet know anything about the narrator save for what he describes about being twelve. The older Bayard looking back on his experience complicates the accuracy of the retelling, but inserts commentary and confusion where necessary. Readers are repeatedly told through an array of comparisons that Bayard’s father was not a big man. His physical stature is measured by horse, sabre, steps, and through the lens of being twelve. But for each of these, a contradiction looms: “He was not big; it was just the things he did, that we knew he was doing, had been doing in Virginia and Tennessee, that made him seem big to us” (9). Why would Bayard make this clarification? Is this an attempt at condemning the Confederacy? Young boys look up to soldiers (through socialization or instinctual admiration, I can’t say). Bayard is saying that the things his father was doing were big and admirable to a child. But if we assume that the narrator has matured and grown before looking back on this moment, then it might be possible to claim that physically diminishing the memory of his father is a way of conflating and then deflating the confederacy and father. A problem with this reading is that the text doesn’t offer justification for Bayard to dis his own father. If anything the descriptions in “Ambuscade” point to a deep admiration of Father and a longing to appear big in spite of a small stature: “That was it: not that Father worked faster and harder than anyone else, even though you do look bigger (to twelve at least, to me and Ringo at twelve, at least) standing still and saying, ‘Do this or that’ ” (12). The order of comments in each quote about size might inform us as to Bayard’s intentions. In the two above, he opens with a comment about Father not being big and offers the appropriate perspective to negate it immediately after. It happens again when talking about Father’s voice: “he cried, not loud yet stentorian: ‘Trot! Canter! Charge!’ ” (13). While the 2017 reader from NY in me wants to see a rejection of slavery in every text about the Civil War I read, I have to be conscious about what I bring to the text. The evidence isn’t there to definitively support this reading. What we have instead is a boy who respects his father for his masculinity and gravitas in spite of his size (which doesn’t really matter as Bayard tells us with each correction)

Jason tries and tries to maintain order in the closing scene of the novel. But his methods only promote disorder. He comes into this scene hot after being robbed and humiliated by his niece. Jason’s rage caused by Quentin’s theft and the apathy of the police finds an outlet when he feels that Benjy and Luster are somehow injuring the Compson name in the public square. He sees Luster and Benjy causing a commotion in the town square and promptly berates them. He yells at them and strikes both of them in the face and head. The only one who responds positively to this violence is the horse, but Benjy continues to bellow and there is no indication from Luster that he won’t act impetuously in the future.

Benjy is one of maybe two or three characters who can sense order. He bellows when the status quo of his world is disturbed. In the closing lines, readers learn that Benjy needs to experience a carriage ride in a certain way or he will scream. Dilsey knows this, Queenie knows this (and would have marched along if Luster didn’t hit her with the switch), Jason knows this. Luster must know this, too. This “man, aged 14…was not only capable of the complete care  and security” of Benjy, “but could keep him entertained” (343). This note from the appendix tells us that when Luster seemingly acts impetuously and/or provokes Benjy, he actually has a deeper understanding of the man entrusted to his care than the readers. Faulkner transcribes an array of sounds and the emotions they connote as mere groans, bellows, and hush-Benjys. The maturity and role of entertainer he grants Luster begs readers to reconsider moments in the text where it seemed like Luster was teasing and provoking Benjy. If that’s the case, then we can trust Luster to have fun with Benjy and calm him down. The momentary excitement was caused by Benjy experiencing the ride around the square backwards, but it’s probably safe to assume the ride home wouldn’t vary that much and would give him time to calm down.

Jason’s rage and demands for order are ineffectual and result in disorder. Luster often appears to fly by the seat of his pants, but has more control of a given situation than Jason. It would be an understatement to say that Faulkner strikes a balance with these two characters because though they seem to foil each other, we know that Luster will prevail. His offbeat disorder has a future and his name will go on. Jason literally has no future, no progeny.

Quentin remembers a conversation with his father that in occasionally abstract terms addresses courage, incest, time, and improvement. The stream of consciousness mode though which the memory is written complicates the reading of this passage not merely because of the lack of dialogue punctuation, but because the reader has to decide if a given utterance is interrogative or declarative. As with most memories in this text, Faulkner throws the reader into the scene in medias res and forces the reader to fill in the blanks. This conversation is about Quentin’s incest and subsequent confession to his father before Jason even says the word. This conversation which may or may not have actually happened (the father’s diction is suspect until readers discover his career in the appendix) is Quentin’s way of coping with his incestuous affair after the fact. Whether or not he told his father and his father reacted this way is of little importance. It does not matter because readers aren’t presented with the conversation as it happened, but as an imagined retelling. The memory of the conversation belongs to Quentin to use and reuse, and if it had not happened, then he uses the mental effigy of his father as interlocutor to cope, reprimand himself, and dwell confusedly in the past.

This conversation does not offer Quentin a great opportunity to cope. His inability to effectively deal with the past keeps him in the past. But he tries to deal when he articulates the reasoning behind his actions: “it was to isolate her out of the loud world so that it would have to flee us of necessity and then the sound of it would be as though it had never happened”  (177). Quentin intended the incest to be a protective act, to keep Caddy from the loud world. The problem with Quentin’s using this dialogue as means of coping is that he is effectively silenced by the father shortly after he says this. The memory of this conversation repeats Quentin’s frustration instead of vindicating him.

Jason points out the flaws of Quentin’s reasons for incest, namely that the ideal of purity he is wrestling with is a temporary state. Quentin fixates on that one word, seemingly repeating it any chance he can get a word in while Jason monologues. The word destroys Quentin and prevents him from engaging in meaningful dialogue.

The arrangement of the text makes it appear as though Jason is finishing Quentin’s last sentence in the conversation. Even though Quentin is just repeating the word “temporary” for the last time, Jason’s response can be seen as his musings over a word he says is “the saddest word of all there is nothing else in the world its not despair until time its not even time until it was” (178). By ending the memory of the conversation on this line, Faulkner allows readers to have the same realization that Quentin had to more fully understand the character. Temporary is the saddest word to Quentin and there is no better word to understand Quentin, his life, and his fears. His life is temporary (and shorter than most), his actions do not have the lasting effect he wants.

“I been hearing about niggers all my life,” Ringo said. “I got to hear about that railroad” (91).

As the Mississippi country collapses into the anarchy of war and the first throws of White Southern decay and Black diaspora take root, several motifs begin to appear in the narrative of The Unvanquished that tell of the future tensions to come. Most notably, as the above quotation suggests, the motif of railroads and machinery comes out into stark contrast against the backdrop of the otherwise rural setting. The railroad “was the straightest thing I ever saw, running straight and empty and quiet through a long empty gash cut through the trees and the ground too” (87). Its forceful thrust of presence literally destroys the natural space it invades, cutting away organic history and leaving a seemingly empty zone into which any possible future can be projected.

Ringo’s preoccupation with the railroad, and his refusal to accept the word “niggers” suggests the racial coding the motifs begin to adopt. Ringo’s statement can be read as more than a mere topical pass, and adumbrates a desire to leave the stigmatizing power of the word, along with its history and signifying power, and a move toward undiscovered future potential. Needless to say, the railroad also presents the opportunity for transport out of the south, and symbolically, the self that is formed in that a space.

While the railroad itself seems to be the work of Southern engineers in a futile effort at war mobilization, it is nonetheless destroyed by white rebel guerrillas. The disembodied voice that inhabits the protagonist (a fourteen-year-old child), describes the futility of the destruction of the tracks,

It was like a meeting between two iron knights of the old time, not for material gain but for principle- honor denied with honor, courage denied with courage- the deed done not for the end but for the sake of the doing, put to the ultimate test and proving nothing save the finality of death, and the vanity of all endeavor (98).

Faulkner’s language here is laden with romantic imagery of knighthood and honor. It stands in direct opposition to the instrumental, goal-orientated logic of industrial capitalism. The act of sabotage, as it is conflated with the knight’s duel, appears aimless and self-referential, “the deed done not for the end but for the sake of doing.” It has no purpose other than to affirm an old code that perpetuates a notion of an identity at odds with the changing times. Such a gesture perhaps reveals the future self-defeating attitude of the white southern identity. Unwilling to adopt the Yankee modernization, but as a result, unable to move forward, stymied by its own reluctance to relinquish the outmoded notions of itself.

Bayard’s need to hear about the railroad likewise reveals the white racial perspective on these encroaching changes. “I had to hear about the railroad too; possibly it was more the need to keep even with Ringo (or even ahead of him, since I had seen the railroad when it was a railroad, which he had not…” (93). His desire to hear is not motivated by the potential opportunity the railroad offers, as it does for Ringo, but more driven by an anxiety of being left behind, to at least “keep even,” if not “even ahead of him.” For southern blacks, modernity promises a future to project form into (versus the negative space of slave history), whether good or bad it seems unclear. For southern whites, it poses an obstacle, an ambivalent growth that may threaten to disrupt and dismantle what was once considered unimpeachable.

[#2]

“Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say.” (TSAF, 180). The opening lines of Jason’s chapter clearly sets the tone for his views on women and his attitude towards his sister Caddy and niece Quentin. What Jason lacks or has missed out on in his personal life, he makes up for in how he treats or has treated the women in his life. Jason is a person who is filled with resentment and hostility and this trickles into his need to control the family, for appearances sake, as well as his need to control and set an example for his niece.

Multiple times throughout the chapter, Jason makes an effort to control the actions of his niece and it’s often through the lens of violence or coercion. For example, “I grabbed her by the arm. She dropped the cup. It broke on the floor and she jerked back, looking at me, but I held her arm.” (TSAF, 183).  Jason’s incessant need to control his niece is caused by the lack of discipline his mother provides in the house. The only way Jason thinks that his niece will behave is if he can control her via violent acts of discipline, however this repeatedly backfires on him, which causes his anger and hostility to build.

Not only does Jason use physical violence, but he verbally abuse her as well, “You can scare an old woman off, but I’ll show you who’s got a hold of you now.” (TSAF, 184). Jason’s verbal attack at his niece is not only threatening but it’s a reminder, that men are superior to women. Or that men have the ability to control the way a woman acts and behaves; that a woman’s behavior is a reflection of the male head of house. However, despite the fact that Jason is the acting male of the house, his mother still holds the power to much of the actions that take place. Jason only acts or stop when his mother intervenes,  “Then I heard Mother on the stairs. I might have known she wasn’t going to keep out of it. I let go.” (TSAF, 185). Although Lady Compson might have control in the house, Jason appears to be frustrated by the lack of discipline his mother provides for Miss Quentin. Jason’s frustration for the lack of discipline that his mother provides, fuels his own hostility towards the treatment of his niece.

Jason’s  control also contributes to his need to keep up appearances and to preserve his family’s reputation that is slowly deteriorating. For Jason, the opinions of others is important to how he defines himself as a man. If the man of the house can’t control his household, then it reflects poorly on his character; it makes him look weak and Jason wants to appear put together and in control. Due to Caddy’s actions in the past, which was the catalyst for the destruction of the Compson family, Jason’s only hope for preserving the family reputation is by preventing Quentin from making the same mistakes as her mother. Jason repeatedly reminds Quentin that he will not allow for her actions or behavior to effect the family and that he will do everything in his power to keep her from destroying what is left of the Compson name, “Everybody in this town knows what you are. But I won’t have it anymore, you hear? I don’t care what you do, myself,” I says. “But I’ve got a position in this town, and I’m not going to have any member of my family going on like a nigger wench. You hear me?” (189).  Jason has no emotional attachment to his niece. His only relationship to her is out of obligation for his own personal perseverance and his overall need to save the family name from being completely tarnished.

“That’s the trouble with nigger servants, when they’ve been with you for a long time they get so full of self importance that they’re not worth a dam. Think they run the whole family.”(207) Jason’s sense of white supremacy over African Americans is clearly voiced throughout his section. He expresses it bluntly and never changes his views till the end section. For him, anyone different in color, religion or gender is considered inferior. His remarks here with reference to Dilsey who is supposed to be a mother figure to him embodies his belief of the ultimate white supremacy. This is a result of a typical Southern upbringing with a mother blessing all his actions “You have always been my pride and joy.”(225)

The male white supremacy notion and its accompanying materialistic feature are predominant in Jason’s section. “What this country needs is white labor. Let these dam trifling niggers starve for couple of years, then they’d see what a soft thing they have.”(191) In his opinion, whites are the ones who provide niggers with food and he fails to see how African Americans contribute effectively in society. In fact, he is incapable of seeing anything good coming from anyone but a white American man. His conversation around Jews and Armenians sums it all. “A bunch of dam eastern jews” , ” It’s just the race. You’ll admit that they produce nothing.”, ” I’m an American.”, “Not many of us left.”(191)

However, it is his views around women that perplexes me the most. The famous opening lines ” Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say.”(180) I wonder if Caddy didn’t fall into incest, will Jason’s views be the same? From the lake scene, we always see him bitterly addressing women ” Just because you are fourteen, you think you’re grown up, don’t you…You think you’re something. Don’t you.”(41) ” Caddy and Jason were fighting in the mirror”(64) However, his constant contemptuous remarks assures the reader of his fixed stance “Like I say you can’t do anything with a woman like that, if she’s got it in her. If it’s in her blood, you can’t do anything with her. The only thing you can do is get rid of her, let her go on and live with her own sort.”(232) His section even ends with the same line “Like I say once a bitch always a bitch.”(263)

Moreover, Jason in The Sound and the Fury is often times connected with Macbeth in Shakepeare ‘s famous play Macbeth :

[Macbeth:] To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (Macbeth, Act V, Scene v)

However, can we consider Jason a reflection of Macbeth in the Sound and the Fury ? Is he the ” poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more”? True, he could release his fury at the end hitting Luster and Queenie and driving them back, but he had lost his life, his dreams, his hopes and is to be heard no more. Yes, he can be considered a less bloody reflection of Macbeth, yet he defies Shakespeare’s line of ” signifying nothing” for he carries the burden of the Southern failure in proving the male white supremacy. Only the materialistic aspect remains ” I don’t want to make a killing; save that to suck in the smart gamblers with. I just want an even chance to get my money back.”(264)

The family silver at the heart of the first half of The Unvanquished is chiefly characterized by its movement – it is buried under a tree, unburied, carried upstairs, carried downstairs, hauled away by mule, hauled back again, reburied, dug up, and in the end finally multiplies from one into ten chests of silver. In this process of movement and proliferation, the silver represents something larger about what the South stands for: what at first seemed to be representative of a sentimental, individual family history is revealed to be representative of wealth on a much larger scale, built on a foundation of slavery and violence.

At the beginning of the novel, the silver represents family history, of a sort; both valuable but also of some sentimental value. There is perhaps nothing more evocative of family history than silver, and the Sartoris family silver includes knives and forks and a table service. The family ate with the silver knives and forks instead of “the kitchen knives and forks” (14); it was this that separated them from the men and women working in the kitchen. That these were once in regular use by the family is suggestive of how close the past can be – that the same implements that the family once ate with are now nearly all that remains of this history, especially as the family faces the Yankee army. In the face of the incoming obliteration, it is the silver that could, even after houses are burned down and men killed, connect the family back to this history. (It seems that in Faulkner, even if the family still has relevance and money at the time of writing, we are always looking back at it through the lens of its future irrelevance.) Granny’s attempt to save the silver becomes a useless but still admirable indication of her willingness to fight for this family history, and to save the family from penury.

But of course, at the heart of this wealth is the fact that, like so much wealth, it is built on the foundation of violence and slavery. When Loosh walks away with the silver to freedom, the following exchange reveals the corruption at the heart of this wealth, a corruption that until now has been chiefly elided by the excitement of the movement-driven plot. Loosh says:

“I going. I done been freed; God’s own angel proclamated me free and gonter general me to Jordan. I dont belong to John Sartoris now; I belongs to me and God.”

“But the silver belongs to John Sartoris,” Granny said. “Who are you to give it away?”

“You ax me that?” Loosh said. “Where John Sartoris? Whyn’t he come and ax me that? Let God ax John Sartoris who the man name that give me to him. Let the man that buried me in the black dark ax that of the man what dug me free.” (75)

Until now, the silver’s movement has been rather exciting, and the reader has been placed in a position to cheer for Granny getting away from the Yankees with it. But here, Loosh abruptly repositions the ownership of the silver as just as valid as John Sartoris’ ownership of him.

And the meaninglessness of the family history, and of the the sentimentalism that might have marginally redeemed Granny’s attachment to the silver, is similarly revealed to be illegitimate when, with a letter, Granny becomes responsible for ten trunks of silver, which are described in exactly the same terms as the original: Granny describes “The chest of silver tied with hemp rope” (109); the General’s letter describes: “Ten (10) chests tied with hemp rope and containing silver.” The trunk was never opened; the silver itself is an abstraction. In its proliferation, though, it begins to hint at the scale of the wealth of the south. A thousand trunks of silver can’t really be comprehended. From one to ten, though: the mind can begin to grasp the scale of the wealth of the south.

That Granny accepts this commission further shows that this silver is no longer about any particular family; the trunks are essentially interchangeable. The important thing is the wealth itself, and the history of enslavement that this silver represents is emphasized by its being accompanied by 110 slaves. The General’s letter describes: “Ten (10) chests tried with hemp rope and containing silver. One hundred ten (110) mules captured loose near Philadelphia in Mississippi. One hundred 110 (110) negroes of both sexes belonging to and having strayed from the same locality” (112). The silver is purely about wealth built by agriculture (the mules) and slavery, in which the men and women who labor for it are listed after both the silver and the mules. Granny herself had listed “The chest of silver tied with hemp rope. The rope was new. Two darkies, Loosh and Philadelphy. The mules, Old Hundred and Tinney” (109). Here, at least, Loosh and Philadelphy are listed before the mules, but they still come after the silver (and they are described and named in exactly the same terms as the mules – essentially as equals).

While the silver at the beginning of the novel seems almost incidental to the plot – a sort of McGuffin – it is revealed to be practically central to it. And there is a problem of the reader’s sympathies in regards to its ownership: the default position, certainly at the beginning, is essentially pro-Granny. There seems to be no great reason that the Yankees should have it either. The silver, then, becomes a metaphor for both the wealth and history of the south, as well as the dilemma of its future: the men and women whose actual labor purchased the silver will receive nothing for it.

All quotes are from the Vintage edition.

In the early chapters of The Unvanquished, there seems to be a high value placed on dreams among multiple characters that serves as a tangible means of direction in the real. Characters not only speak of their dreams with graveness, but they act on their dreams during the waking hours, and often subject those around them to acting on them, as well. I think there is a connection between the authority the dreams have over the characters to the shifting authority dynamics brought about by the war that our characters engage with daily. The first time dreams are mentioned in the text is during a serious exchange between Ringo and Bayard regarding information on the current war movements, and John Sartoris’ whereabouts:

“‘You talking about Loosh. Who tole us to watch him?’

‘Nobody. I just know.’

‘Bayard, did you dream hit?’

‘Yes. Last night. It was Father and Louvinia. Father said to watch Loosh, because he knows'” (20). We learn in this exchange that Ringo takes dreams very seriously: Bayard did not tell Ringo at first that this information came to him via a dream, but, rather, Ringo made this jump himself, correctly. That Ringo begins his question with an authoritative, “Bayard,” gives it all the more gravity. Before hatching their plan to indeed watch Loosh closely, as the dream suggested, Ringo explicitly states why he honors dreams so highly: “‘Then hit’s so,’ he said. ‘If somebody tole you, hit could be a lie. But if you dremp hit, hit cant be a lie case aint nobody there to tole hit to you. So we got to watch him'” (21). Ringo’s rationale maintains confidence in information delivered via dreams, as he seems to views it as a medium that transcends individual perspective or gain (without, seemingly, considering external influences that affect the subconscious psyche in dreams), as opposed to the unreliability of information given via another person. This first discussion of dreams comes at a minor climactic time where Bayard’s father is coming and going from the home unexpectedly, and the boys are left to figure out for themselves what really is going on. At an arguably larger climactic moment, we experience again the authority of dream information; this time, via Granny, and this time, affecting physically more characters than just Bayard and Ringo. As the Sartoris household is preparing to depart for Tennessee, Granny exercises her matriarchal authority that is fueled be a dream she has about the safeness of their trunk of silver, which is presently buried in the backyard. She insists that it be carried in the night before their departure, much to the chagrin of the others:

‘I wish you’d tell me why you got to dig hit up tonight.’

Granny looked at her. ‘I had a dream about it last night.’

‘Oh,’ Louvinia said” (39). The finality of both Louvinia and Granny’s statements here is telling, regarding the dream’s authority; Granny does not have to further explain what the dream was about to convince anyone (although Granny does detail the dream shortly after), and Louvinia does not push her for a further explanation: the dream holds enough clout on its own to function as a powerful decision making tool at this momentous pre-departure point for the household. Although moving the trunk so many times in such a short period of time may seem impractical, I would argue that the dream’s visionary “guidance” is welcomed at this time, because of the high levels of stress that the war incites in each household member, and in the nation at large.