My long Yoknapedia entry will use the keywords “adultery” and “infidelity” (these terms are near-synonymous, so I will use them both in my entry, even though they are not fully interchangeable – the former refers to extramarital affairs, and the latter refers to cheating in any sort of relationship, marital or not) to examine the role this sexual deviance plays in the downfalls of patriarchal figureheads and the destructions of their families. Often in the books we have read this semester, the downfall of the patriarch happens after an infidelity has challenged their masculinity, whiteness, and/or moral authority. Because there is not a lot of research on this topic in Faulkner specifically, my sources will largely be peripherally related texts that I will tie to this topic through the questions of gender, miscegenation, incest, queerness, virginity, and the changing moral values of the post-Civil War South that arise from the discussion of infidelity and adultery, and these deviances’ roles in the downfalls of the patriarchs.

Focusing on the Margins: “Light in August” and Social Change, Abdul-Razzak Al-Barhow, The Southern Literary Journal, vol. 2 no. 2 p. 52-72, 2010

This article discusses the town’s perception of Hightower after his wife’s death, emphasizing that her death is “blamed on Hightower’s assumed relationship to his black female cook” (55). Hightower’s case is fascinating, as the town blames his white wife’s adultery on his presumed interracial adultery. The townspeople view the latter as something far more immoral, and this perception is the main cause of his fall from prominence in Jefferson.

“Light in August”: The Calvinism of William Faulkner, Alwyn Berland, Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 8 no. 2, p. 159-170, 1962

In this text, Berland discusses Catholic morals and the ways in which they inform the sexual politics of LIA, noting that Joe Christmas’s “black blood” only becomes important when sex is important, too. This analysis provides a useful window into the particular role that race and miscegenation play in the chain reactions to the infidelities of LIA, GDM, and AA!.

“Absalom, Absalom!” and the Snopes Trilogy: Southern Patriarchy in Revision, Corinne Dale, The Mississippi Quarterly vol. 45 no. 3, p. 323-337, 1992

This article discusses Sutpen (and Snopes, but my entry won’t be covering him, since we did not read the Snopes trilogy this semester) as a capitalist patriarch whose victims are his own family members. It goes into detail on Sutpen’s role in the domestic sphere, arguing that his repudiation of Eulalia corrupts her maternity (at least in Quentin and Shreve’s imaginations), transforming her into a cold woman hellbent on vengeance.

Games of Property: Law, Race, Gender, and Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses, Thadious M. Davis, 2003

This book relates the conflicts of Go Down, Moses to certain Supreme Court cases, including the 1859 case Alfred, a Slave v. State in which Alfred, a man enslaved on a Mississippi plantation, killed an overseer for raping Alfred’s wife, Charlotte. Omitting any arguments of sexual assault, the Court ruled that “adultery with a slave wife is no defense to a charge of murder” (118). It is notable that Charlotte’s assault was legally classified as adultery because of her race and enslavement status. This source will provide useful historical context for the perceptions of adultery in Go Down, Moses as well of the other novels in this entry.

PRIMARY SOURCE: Light in August, William Faulkner, 1932

Jefferson’s perceptions of Gail Hightower in the wake of his wife’s affair and subsequent death will be the heart of my analysis of infidelity and adultery in this book. That said, I will also touch on the perceptions of Joe Christmas, whose ambiguous racial background puts his sexual affairs under a specific, deadly scrutiny.

PRIMARY SOURCE: Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner, 1936

For this book, I will discuss the ways in which Sutpen’s many affairs and abandonments bastardize (so to speak) the traditional family values that had long upheld the Southern moral code. I will also discuss the Henry-Judith-Charles Bon love triangle, and Bon’s dubious claim that his engagement to Judith is not adultery because his first wife is not white.

PRIMARY SOURCE: Go Down, Moses, William Faulkner, 1941

My ideas for GDM will become more fully-baked as we read the rest of the text, but the centrality of family and the conflicts of “The Fire and the Hearth” will certainly provide rich fodder for this discussion.

The Family-Centered Nature of Faulkner’s World, Arthur F. Kinney, College Literature vol. 16 no. 1, p. 83-102, 1989

Focusing particularly on Sutpen, Kinney discusses the sociological centrality of the family in American life, and the specific emphasis on these values in the South, and the ways in which sexual infidelities challenge the dyadic nuclear model. The author uses Sutpen as a case study of a patriarch who wanted a son and got too many (by way of adultery and abandonment), and discusses the “long and involved story of the McCaslin-Edmonds-Beauchamp family” (97) as a “sequel” of sorts to Sutpen’s story.

Adultery in the United States: Close Encounters of the Sixth (or Seventh) Kind, Edited by Philip E. Lampe, 1987

A review of this sociology book says that one chapter examines the role of adultery in American literature, paying particular attention to Southern novelists, including Faulkner specifically. This book has been hard to find online, but I got the last used copy of it on Amazon and should have it by next week. I’m hoping this chapter will explicitly relate to the infidelities in the books we have covered this semester – but if not, I’m confident it will nonetheless provide useful information.

“Other Souths”: Expressions of Gay Identity in Absalom, Absalom!, Matthew R. Vaughn, The Mississippi Quarterly vol. 60 no. 3, p. 519-528, 2007

Vaughn’s text examines the nuances of the Henry-Judith-Bon love triangle in AA!. It would be remiss to discuss the infidelities of AA! without analyzing this love triangle and the issues of incest, miscegenation, queer identity, and virginity that the dynamics between these three characters bring to light.

New Essays on Go Down, Moses, Edited by Linda Wagner-Martin, 1996

This book (specifically the introduction, though I am trying to get my hands on a hard copy so that I can look through all of the essays) discusses the centrality of responsibility in sexual affairs and family life, citing “Edmonds’ self-gratifying affair with an unnamed mulatto, who is one of his own cousins” (6) and arguing that he abandons his lover and their child in order to stay in the good graces of the white male community. Responsibility is certainly a key issue in the adulteries of these books, and this analysis ties that issue to the racial and patriarchal dynamics that shape the characters’ choices.