As I’m focusing on Faulkner’s game of moving the chess parts or his narrators, this article seems ideal to my paper.The narrators AA and TSAF are likened to ghosts whose lives and actions are inconsequential to the way the world functions. Both Rosa and Quentin are filled with rage toward the system which remains deaf to their plaints. The fact that they slowly waste away from emotional turmoil prior to their deaths is proof positive of the incompatibility between compassion and southern codes. My intention is to highlight what was mentioned in the articles as ‘The fact the Faulkner erased the dominance of any one perspective. Rosa’s personal story challenges Sutpen’s design, the patriarchal family, and men’s ways of seeing.’ The interweaving of narratives and its analysis in the article will add to my paper which attempts to understand the game-like aspect of Faulkner’s reading/ writing. 

 2. Barker, Deborah E., and Ivo Kamps. “Much ado about nothing: language and desire in ‘The Sound and the Fury.’ (Special Issue: William Faulkner).” The Mississippi Quarterly, vol. 46, no. 3, 1993, p. 373+. Academic OneFile.

In her attempt to interpret the ‘much ado’ in Faulkner’s novel ‘The Sound and the Fury’, Barker refers to Faulkner’s own words and his explanation of his narrative process in this peculiar novel. Faulkner says: “And I tried first to tell [the story] with one brother, and that wasn’t enough. That was Section One. I tried with another brother, and that wasn’t enough. That was Section Two. I tried the third brother, because Caddy was still too beautiful and too moving to reduce her to telling what was going on, that it would be more passionate to see her through somebody else’s eyes, I thought. And that failed and I tried myself — the fourth section — to tell what happened, and I still failed . . .(23) The brothers’ narrative (including Faulkner’s “own” fourth) make up the failed linguistic effort to mediate between author and what is to the author still “too beautiful and too moving.” In a very real sense, therefore, the Caddy we know from the novel is a mere shadow of the “real” Caddy; she is what language and desire chase endlessly but fruitlessly. No number of additional sections could have produced the real Caddy, could have made desire overcome absence, or could have made signifier become one with referent.” It is this aspect of trying to portray the real character of one of his major people in his Yoknopedia that I’m pursuing. The reader is forced to play chess his way and gather the pieces thrown on the chess board by other characters to acknowledge the ‘real’ Caddy.

3. Custer, Harriet Howell . “Rational and the Intuitive : A Thematic Juxtaposition in the Fiction of William Faulkner.” Drake University ,December 1974.

In his thesis, Custer explains the juxtaposition present between the characters of Faulkner’s novels. Although some seem rational and others seem intuitive, he views them as “  Whereas the rational characters attempt to manipulate experience, the intuitive characters flow with experience; they act in accordance with necessity rather than with design. Characters such as Lena Grove (Light in August), the woman of Old Man, Aleck Sander (Intruder in the Dust), Mollie Beauchamp (“Go Down, Moses”), and the Eula Varner of The Hamlet, are close to the earth, actually and symbolically. They are, for the most part, poor people who live from the soil, and who are thus closest to the “subterranean forces” of which Barrett speaks. They seem to “sense without knowing pull (1 433), to believe without having to construct elaborate systems of evidence for substantiation of their responses to experience. On the other hand, characters such as Thomas Sutpen, Quentin Compson, and Gavin Stevens, are removed from the earth; they have either rejected or ignored the pull of the vital life force, the realm in which the more intuitive characters live, and are intent upon constructing elaborate moral and social systems according to  which they and others must live. They place the idiots, the children, the Negroes and the women in a lower stratum from that in which they exist, and tend to view their ability to “reason” as a mark of superiority. “It is the realm that most intuitive characters live that coincides with the game-like chess board which Faulkner uses in his novels under the name of Yoknopedia. The movement of the chess pieces or characters ,whether minor chess pieces who are the lower characters in his novel or the major chess pieces who are the main characters,  that will be part of the interaction referred to in my paper and which further reveal how the game permeates  Faulkner’s oeuvre.

4. Messerli, Douglas. “The problem of time in The Sound and the Fury: a critical reassessment and reinterpretation.”The Southern Literary Journal, vol. 6, no. 2, 1974, p. 19+. Academic OneFile.

Time Shifts have been the first aspect readers recognize while reading Faulkner’s novels, especially his favorite masterpiece ‘The Sound and the Fury’. Here, in his Southern journal, Douglas delves into this time problem with a critical reassessment and reinterpretation of it. I could easily find a connection between my own pursue of connection between different characters, different time and different stream of consciousness with Douglas’s view of Dilsey as “ a dynamic and positive force who through her lived future connects durational and transcendent time, it is all to no avail. The major thrust of the novel remains nihilistic. If one is to counter the arguments that Faulkner in The Sound and the Fury is an author of despair, then one must also in some way connect Dilsey’s positiveness to the other characters in the novel. There is a danger in this type of connection.” Futhermore, he moves to discuss one character’s effect on the others and here talking specifically on Dilsey which can be an example of other characters in his various novels. For him,” To say that Dilsey does not affect the other characters is not necessarily to say that Dilsey is not dynamic and positive. She may simply be Faulkner’s moral gauge by which the other characters are to be judged connection. The novel is, therefore, strangely dichotomized. At one extreme there are the Compsons whose vision of time somehow makes their lives seem suicidally determined; they are, at the very least, radically paralyzed psychically from childhood on. At the other extreme there is Dilsey who is temporally free and capable of enduring. What one seeks then, is the connection between the two.” Finding connections is obvious throughout his article and is exactly my pursue in Faulkner’s Game-Like reading and writing.

5.“William Faulkner and the Southern Writers—The Sound and theFury.” C-Span American Writers—A Journey through History. 8 Jun, 2011.http://www.americanwriters.org/writers/faulkner

Recognizing William Faulkner’s views and understanding his style is best through reading and listening to his own words. On William Faulkner on the Web , we find him presented ” As an innovative writer who is known for his experimental writing style with meticulous evaluation of the utterance, diction and cadence and scrupulous attention to the details of characters’ utterance and state of minds. He experimented intelligently with switching different perspectives and voices, including those of children, the outcast, the insane and the illiterate. Moreover, he is talented at the arrangement of narrative chronology, sometimes by breaking the time frame and re-combining it with whole new aspect. His rich and brilliant baroque writing style is developed in the extremely long sentences embedding with complex subordinate parts.” The narrative chronology and its arrangement is one of the major aspects in his game-like world , a world which moves different pieces with different perspectives and voices to arrive to the final destination of checkmate for one side and victory for the other. The others here range between outcasts, insane and oppressed; however, through breaking and reuniting the time frame of his novels they are rendered a wholeness which they’ve never dreamed of in real life. All in all, this is mentioned on the web which refers to ” William Faulkner created a plenary imaginative scene, Yoknapatawpha County, which became story settings in numerous novels and the landscape in which those depicted families live and have great interconnection with each other.” In my final paper, I aim at highlighting this interconnection, the fine thread that connects the chess players on the chess board and urges them to complete the game. The readers are immediately engaged in the game with their constant attempt to put the pieces together of this puzzling yet intriguing game.

Many of Faulkner’s characters experience a crisis due to their inability to accept the impossibility of their ideals. In my paper, I will focus on two ideals that are paramount within the culture of Yoknapatawpha County: virginity and whiteness. Faulkner’s intended meaning is that to idealize these things is to make them a false quantity or a negative state. As Jason Compson puts it, the idealist view creates an “inability to endure in order to be precious, to exist, and so must depend upon its loss, absence, to have existed at all” (AA! 76). Using Hunter OneSearch to survey Hunter’s databases and the CUNY library system, I looked for articles and books which focused on Faulkner’s treatment of virginity and white/black identity. I also used “false quantity,” “negative state,” “idealism,” and “the Other” as keywords. That initial research led to a few relevant articles, but more importantly it gave me access to an online version of William Faulkner: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism Since 1988 by John E. Bassett. Bassett categorizes the bibliography which enables the researcher to browse through the most relevant sections such as “Studies of Individual Novels” and “Topical Studies.” Based on suggestions from Professor Allred about focus Faulkner works, I combed through the sources on The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, As I Lay Dying, and Absalom, Absalom! The topical section highlighted Faulkner criticism on sexuality, feminism, race, social energy, identity, etc. I located a few useful articles online and found others at the Hunter library. Once there, I found numerous books centered on Faulkner’s treatment of race and women. The majority of my research comes from browsing the Faulkner sections of the library stacks. As I write my paper, I plan to supplement my argument with research on Zotero and also evidence from As I Lay Dying, which I have yet to read.

Bassett, John E. William Faulkner: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism Since 1988. Blue Ridge Summit, US: Scarecrow Press, 2009. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 22 April 2017.

This annotated bibliography of Faulkner criticism covers a wealth of articles and books. Bassett breaks the text into five categories: “Books on Faulkner,” “Studies of Individual Novels,” “Studies of Short Stories, Poetry, and Miscellaneous Prose,” “Topical Studies,” and “Other Materials.” He has sub-sections within those such as “Commentaries Covering Several Works.” This organization makes this a very valuable resource which led to useful criticism, but also helped to shape the direction of my argument.

Clarke, Deborah. Robbing The Mother: Women in Faulkner. Jackson: U of Mississippi, 2012. Print.

This text explores Faulkner’s lens on motherhood and femininity in two of his texts, Sanctuary and The Hamlet. Clarke draws clear distinctions between these novels and our class texts, which illuminates Faulkner’s many approaches to these topics in his work. Clarke provides close readings of many Faulkner characters – their perceived identities, their true natures— and analyzes the ways in which their feminine qualities motivate their development. Virginity is integral to the female identity, specifically how men perceive female identity. Ultimately, there are two roles in which women can be cast – maternal and sexual. This text discovers the implications of the women’s participation in or rejection of these roles. Their action is dependent on the retention or loss of their virginity. Clarke’s reading of Faulkner characters and how gender expectations impact them will help inform my argument about virginity as a negative state.

Godden, Richard. Fictions of Labor: William Faulkner and the South’s Long Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print.

Godden provides an inner voice for the mysterious, reticent Colonel Sutpen of Absalom, Absalom! Taking into consideration historical research and the narrative structure (the “story” has been passed down through generations with embellishments), Godden examines Sutpen’s motivations and development. He points a spotlight on the moment in childhood when he is turned away by the black butler and argues that is the unconscious impetus for Sutpen’s design. Godden points out the unspoken tension of the “master” role in the plantocracy. The dominance of the master is weakened by his dependence on slave labor. Sutpen is the character who most embodies and exhibits that friction in Faulkner’s works. His actions, unique within Yoknapatawhpa County, are his acknowledgement of the false quantity that is the white master.

Jenkins, Lee. Faulkner and Black-White Relations: A Psychoanalytic Approach. New York: Columbia UP, 1981. Print.

Just as the subheading indicates, Jenkins provides in-depth psychoanalysis of Faulkner’s characters. He addresses each book independently, but the index is extensive and can help connect the virginity and race topics across multiple texts. The index even provides direction for “deflated idealism” and how these moments reveal Faulkner’s commentary on the inappropriate idealism of his characters.

Page, Sally R. Faulkner’s Women: Characterization and Meaning. Deland, FL: Everett/Edwards, 1972. Print.

This book covers a variety of lenses through which we can look at Faulkner’s treatment of women, including romantic ideals, motherhood, sexuality, female principles, etc. Page’s thoughts on Rosa Coldfield illuminate the discussion of the idealism of virginity. Certainly, Rosa idealizes her virginity in the context of its inevitable loss. She romanticizes her future, but is destroyed when her fantasy does not come to fruition. Rosa’s enduring virginity results in a “death-in-life” existence of hatred and decay” (107-108). Page also unpacks Quentin’s crisis over Caddy’s virginity which stems from his ignorance of her humanity. Caddy’s virginity represents an inner purity and Quentin perceives its loss as a loss of her goodness.

Peavy, Charles D. Go Slow Now: Faulkner and the Race Question. Eugene Or: n.p., 1971. Print.

Throughout this text, Peavy explores Faulkner’s relationship with race and his treatment of the topic in his works. The book moves through a variety of themes which are relevant to my research. “Slavery: The Primal Curse” connects historical implications of slavery to its impact on Faulkner’s writing. Peavy also focuses on miscegenation, which is the positive to the negative state of whiteness. Joe Christmas and Sutpen are closely analyzed through this lens.

Peters, Erskine. William Faulkner, the Yoknapatawpha World and Black Being. Darby, PA: Norwood Editions, 1984. Print.

Peters focuses on the symbolism of mulatto characters in Yoknapatawpha. This will help me to explain the hysteria and fear that can accompany an idealism of whiteness. Specifically, it is a fear of “defilement of a presumed European or white purity” (113).  A really interesting observation that white men who love their white children, but not their black children, associate their love with race and not with paternity. “Their relationship to him is determined by a superficial factor rather than by their essence” (114).

My process began with a combinatory revelation between multiple primary Faulkner texts, particularly The Unvanquished and Light in August, and a text I read last semester, Rifkin’s When Did the Indians Become Straight?, which introduced me in a formal way to alternate kinship formations within a particular time period. I have a feeling that if it weren’t for the Rifkin text, I would not have the framework to articulate my interest in the elastic, fluid domestic realms that are heavily sprinkled throughout Faulkner’s novels. Although I have only recently begun Go Down, Moses, I anticipate that as an addition to this bibliography in light of a domestic sphere that is not heteronormative, and as a furthering of Uncle Buddy and Uncle Buck’s relationship. I was very appreciate of the Zotero sources, and found Kodat’s article to speak eloquently on a queer Faulkner project as a whole. Exploring the online CUNY Libraries for works on kinship, one of my main keywords, along with domesticity, elasticity, and conjugal couplings, among others, led me to Callahan’s work which focuses on kinship forms, race relations, and changing social worlds. I expect that this list will grow as I continue through the process, and look forward to discovering additional angles, for instance one that is more focused on historical southern transformations and the changing family.

1. Mark Rifkin When Did the Indians Become Straight?

This text will frame my examination of the notion of compulsory conjugal coupling and homemaking and nuclear family norms. Rifkin turns to more elastic notions of kinship making, and explores alternate modes of kinship in terms of American Indians, and the larger theories and ideologies described here will be examined regarding Faulkner’s elastic familial settings.

2.  Catherine Gunther Kodat “Making Camp: Go Down, Moses.” American Literary History

I am interested in Kodat’s meditations on queer elements in Faulkner’s novels and stories, as well as in current Faulkner theory. Kodat notes a fluidity in Faulkner’s texts regarding sexuality, which I think contributes to the elastic notions of domesticity. Kodak writes, “The unmistakable sympathetic expressions of homoeroticism in Faulkner’s texts, however partial or fraught, may arise from the author’s own experience of sexual desire as fluid, unruly, and unsettling; they may arise from no experience whatsoever, being rather signs of a strongly empathic creative imagi- nation; or they may arise from both at once, and without apology” (1003). The designation of sexuality in Faulkner’s work and regarding him as a person seems to hinge on an unapologetic fluidity, which Kodat expounds upon here especially regarding her analysis of Percival Brownlee.

3. Cynthia Callahan Kin of Another Kind: Transracial Adoption in American Literature

Callahan’s work will continue to inform this realm specifically regarding migration patterns that are tied to alternative kinship forms. I am interested in exploring situations in which transitioning social climates, from wars and other instances of social unrest, influence kinship formations and provide opportunity for greater flexibility and fluidity in domestic spheres. Callahan focuses on Joe Christmas greatly in this text, and his complicated domestic relationship with Joanna Burden  is central to my examination.

4. Laura Doyle “The Body against Itself in Faulkner’s Phenomenology of Race”

Doyle unpacks Joe Christmas and his incessant strife with his internalized racial grapplings, and expounds upon how Joanna Burden sheds a more liberatory light on Joe Christmas’ racial identity. This essay speaks to the movements going on socially and internally with these characters, particularly Christmas, and I would argue that this movement attributes to a certain elasticity in their inward and outward realms, such as in their domestic spheres.

5. William Faulkner The Unvanquished

This text incited my interest in alternative domestic realms, as I was taken by Uncle Buck and Uncle Buddy and the fluidity that Faulkner operates within when describing these characters, in particular. His comparisons of Uncle Buck to various females piqued my interest early on because he did so with great ease: it was the nonchalant way in which Faulkner made these comparisons that made me realize how fluid Faulkner really can be regarding descriptions of gender, sexuality, and home life.

6. William Faulkner Light in August

In addition to Uncle Buck and Uncle Buddy, whose relationship is of great focus in my exploration, I will be focusing greatly on Joe Christmas and Joanna Burden’s relationship and the gender switching they employ easily during their tumultuous relationship on the Burden property. The social and political circumstances that have influenced Christmas and Burden respective circumstances and places in the south are noteworthy, and affect their relationship together: their individual and combined.

Hamblin, Robert W. “Faulkner and Hollywood:.” Faulkner and Film (2014): 3-25. Ebrary. 23 Apr. 2017.

Hamblin’s argument is that Hollywood is one of the greatest influences on Faulkner. His time in Hollywood surpassed his time in the military, Paris, New Orleans, etc. Hamblin argues that Faulkner was a skilled screenwriter and just like his novels, he dabbled in creating non-linear Faulknerian films (that got shelved), and in return his novels turned more cinematic and linear (and more readable) because of his screenwriting ability.

Kawin, Bruce F. “A Faulkner Filmography.” Film Quarterly 30.4 (1977): 12-21. JSTOR. 22 Apr. 2017.

Kawin’s argument links up with Hamblin’s that the idea of Faulkner’s Hollywood work as “low brow” or something separate from Faulkner’s literary works is absurd. He talks about the link between Modernist writers and film. He references modernist writers utilizing film techniques (such as the montage) and replicating that in their writing. Lastly, Kawin connects some of Faulkner’s screenplays (and contributions) to his literary work and how they are similar and different.

Mcbride, Joseph. “Hawks on Hawks.” (2013): 69-72. JSTOR. Web. 22 Apr. 2017.

Mcbride interviews Howard Hawks on working with Faulkner during his time in Hollywood (Hawks and Faulkner worked together on several projects). The interview gets at what Hawks thought Faulkner contributed to film and specifically what he contributed to certain projects.

KAWIN, BRUCE F., and HOWIE MOVSHOVITZ. “THE MONTAGE ELEMENT IN FAULKNER’S FICTION.” Selected Film Essays and Interviews, Anthem Press, LONDON; NEW YORK; DELHI, 2013, pp. 131–148, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1gxp7jc.18.

Again, Kawin talks about how Faulkner utilizes film techniques in his literature. He really hones in on the montage element that Faulkner incorporates in his work. Kawin goes on to really deconstruct the montage and how Faulkner uses these fragmented images in novels such as TSAF and AA!.

Urgo, Joseph R. “Absalom, Absalom!: The Movie.” American Literature 62.1 (1990): 56. JSTOR. Web. 21 Apr. 2017.

Urgo argues that AA! Is about the movie making industry and a “celebration of collaboration.” Urgo traces how the narrators as opposed to other works speak to each other to collaborate and build the story. Urgo goes through to cite specific role each of the character plays in the novel, for example, Quentin as the producer.

Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom! . New York: Modern Library, 1993. Print.

I would like to go through AA! And find cite parts where the montage as well as other film elements in the novel. Given that this novel was written during his “prime time” as a screenwriter in Hollywood there will be ample references to the filmmaking process.

My research process for this was difficult at first. It was hard to find a variety of sources on the topic. Coming across the Lurie piece allowed for me to focus in on some more searches that I would be able to make. The book had a lot of entry points to narrow down my argument and where I wanted to go with the paper. From there I was able to find more articles based on film techniques and Faulkner. I sifted through platforms such as: ProjectMuse, JSTOR, and Ebrary. The keywords that I used were ‘Faulkner’ and ‘Film’, ‘Hughes’, and ‘Cinema.’ I found that some of the research turned into a rabbit hole, as there were many avenues to go down. So many sources to look into, so many films that I want to write about and cite. Ultimately, it took some restraint to really narrow in what aspect of film and Faulkner I wanted to focus on.

Atkinson, Ted. “Faulkner and the Great Depression: Aesthetics, Ideology, and Cultural Politics.” Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006. Project MUSE.

Atkinson focuses on the historical context (the Great Depression) in which Faulkner wrote some of his most acclaimed works. Atkinson views Faulkner’s Depression-era novels as an ideological battleground-which was very similar to 1930s America, and explores Faulkner’s own explorations of social upheaval, fascism, and the appeal of strong leadership during troubled times. These ideas were especially important in the South post-Civil War. The war left the South in social turmoil, and fascist ideas were popular in the confused and leaderless southern society.

Spoth, Daniel. “Totalitarian Faulkner: The Nazi Interpretation Of ‘Light In August’ And ‘Absalom, Absalom!’.” The John Hopkins University Press, 2011, vol. 78, no. 1, pp. 239–257., www.jstor.org/stable/41236541.

Spoth’s article goes into depth of how the character “Percy Grimm” from LIA was, according to Faulkner, a “Fascist galahad who saved the white race by murdering Christmas.” It shows Faulkner’s awareness of Nazi and fascist idealism, but rather than openly condemning this character, he leaves that responsibility to the reader. However, when LIA began to be published in Germany in 1935, Spoth alludes to the idea that Faulkner was not happy with its increasing popularity there, and later on in his career tried to use it as a warning of the growing seeds of international fascism.

Follansbee, Jeanne A. “”Sweet Fascism in the Piney Woods”: Absalom, Absalom! as Fascist Fable.” Modernism/modernity, vol. 18 no. 1, 2011, pp. 67-94. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/mod.2011.0017

Despite American claims that fascism-like that found in Germany and Italy in the 1930s could not exist in America, signs and examples of fascism and its ideals could be found consistently throughout the country. An ‘American Hitler” could have easily been born and come to power, and almost certainly would have come from the South, where the “fascist fable” converged with the “Southern family romance” in their shared preoccupation with the cultural politics of nation-building.

Pierce, David H. “Fascism and the Negro,” The Crisis, Vol. 42, no. 4, April 1935, pp.107 and 114 (non-consecutive).

Pierce’s article illuminates what will become of the recently freed African-Americans should fascism be permitted to gain power in America. At the time of this article, Germany already considers the negro as an inferior breed of human kind, a concept of which the American South is not only familiar with and supportive of, but believed in this line of thinking throughout its history. Written in 1935, it gives a practical lens to view Faulkner’s South, both in his writing and in real life. Faulkner would have been aware of the concepts explored in this article, and it shows the social debate going on in real life during much of Faulkner’s writing.

Brinkmeyer Jr., Robert H. “The Fourth Ghost: White Southern Writers and European Fascism, 1930-1950.” Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009, ch. 1.

Brinkmeyer discusses the “ghost” lurking in the psyche of the white South-the specter of European fascism. He explores how Southern writers of the 1930s and 1940s responded to fascism, with an emphasis on the suggestion that the racial politics of Nazi Germany had a unique, yet problematic relevance and similarity to the South and its segregated social system. Brinkmeyer considers the works of a wide array of authors-including Faulkner-and argues that by engaging their works in contemporary debates about totalitarianism and democracy, these writers were forced to reconfigure their understanding of the South and themselves as Southerners.  

Faulkner, William. Light In August: The Corrected Text, ed. Noel Polk. New York: Vintage, 1990. Print.

Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom!: The Corrected Text, ed. Noel Polk. New York: Vintage, 1990. Print.

I started my search with Zotero and quickly found Atkinson’s book and Follansbee’s article. From Follansbee’s works cited list I found Pierce and Brinkmeyer’s articles, both of which are amazing sources, as they discuss ideas and connections clearly related to Faulkner and fascism. After this I went to JSTOR, Project Muse, and Cuny+, and found Spoth’s article on JSTOR. I found references to an article by Scott Romine titled, “The Narrative Forms of Southern Community,” but was unable to find/access it, I could only find multiple references to it. After this I found very little else that could be useful for my topic, which leads me to the thought that perhaps this is a topic which has not been discussed very much. Atkinson’s work kept being referred to, and there are many reviews of it. However, after looking at quite a few of said reviews they did not seem like they would be helpful to my topic. I will continue to keep looking as I work on my final project, but am satisfied with what I have found so far.

My essay will attempt to understand the semiotic construction of identity in LIA. Faulkner’s novel proposes a radical account for the way in which individuals signify (or fail to) within the ideological structure of society. I believe that in the end, his text reveals the ambivalence of identity, lending is formation to an imagined projection that is determined by the weight of historical and social signification rather than some ontological essence. I have selected two types of sources for this purpose. Theoretical sources dealing with psychoanalysis and sociology to help provide a structure for the ways that identity formation operates, and then critical sources that more closely dissect the text of LIA. 

Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and the State.” Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Translated by Ben Brewster, Monthly Review Press, 2001, pp. 85-126.

Althusser’s essay reexamines classic Marxist analyses of the processes of subjectification. Specifically, he complicates notions of how an individual becomes a subject within society by including ideological factors within his theoretical review. Specifically, he argues that the act of “interpellation” creates subjectivity by placing the individual within the imaginary relations that institutions (concrete or abstract) bring to social psychology. Subjectivity, according to Althusser, is already and always a function of ideological discourse establishing the parameters for what a subject may perceive to be true.

Bleikasten, Andre. “Fathers in Faulkner and Light in August.”  Modern Critical Interpretations: William Faulkner’s Light in August. Edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House Publishers, 1988, pp. 43-55.

The symbolic figure of “the father” goes beyond simple familial dramas and oedipal narratives for Bleiksten. The father is at once an aspirational and prohibitive construct that is internalized not only individually, but also socially. The symbolic father (or phallus) may be seen as the organizing mandate that prescribes or prohibits the way that culture, and therefore personal identification, may be structured. It is against this prohibitive voice that many of the characters in LIA  audit their own cohesion within the greater social whole.

Clarke, Deborah. “Gender, Race, and Language in Light in August.” American Literature. Vol. 61, no. 3, October, 1989, pp. 398-413. 

As a countervailing force against suppressive masculinity, Clarke argues that feminine discourse resists and sublimates patriarchal language in LIA. The racialized feminine fails to signify in a patriarchal discourse, and thereby limits incorporation into its violent and repressive system. It is an excellent exegesis on the ways in which race and gender operate within Faulkner’s text.

Forter, Greg. “Trauma and the Politics of Literary Form.” Narrative. Vol. 15, no. 3, October, 2007, pp. 259-285.

This is an overview of Freudian trauma theory, explicating the effect trauma has in individual psychological development. More than just a disturbing or distressing event, trauma may indeed impact the entirety of an individual’s image of them self. Forter than applies these theories in an analyses of Light in August and Absalom! Absalom! This essay will be crucial to my own interpretation of Joe Christmas, and subsequently, the greater Southern social psyche as Faulkner presents it in general.

Freud, Sigmund. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Translated by James Strachey, W.W. Norton and Company, 1959.

Whether it be religious, political, familial, or even labor, Freud argues that “groups” come together through processes of identification aligning with a projected ego ideal, or in other words, a central abstract principle with which they identify. This in turn affects the composition of the individual’s own ego, making their own self-identification a function of group psychology. As LIA is a text very concerned with the way in which individuals are incorporated or rejected by social groups, it will provide a firm theoretical backbone for my own analysis.

Godden, Richard. Williiam Faulkner: An Economy of Complex Words. Princeton University Press, 2007. 

A Marxist reading, Godden’s account of Faulkner’s literature writ large is that of an unconscious class struggle manifesting the racial and social tensions prevalent in Faulkner’s text. What can and cannot be spoken or thought is a function of what social-psychic structures permit. Racial conflict and stigmatization is an impulse intended to repress an unwanted history of labor and economy that undercuts the South’s idealized understanding of itself.

Kazin, Alfred. “The Stillness of Light in August.” William Faulkner: Three Decades of Criticism. Edited by Frederick J. Hoffman and Olga W. Vickery, Michigan State University Press, 1960, pp.247-277. 

Kazin’s reading of LIA is of a more traditional flavor. He views the tensions and symbolic values within the novel as a paradigm of tension between “becoming” and “being.”  While I find his analyses oversimplified and at times even problematic, he does propose certain symbolic structures that will be useful in my own reading. At the minimum, this essay will help root my own in traditional critical opinion.

Kartinger, Donald. “The Meaning of Form in Light in August.” Modern Critical Interpretations: William Faulkner’s Light in August. Edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House Publishers, 1988, pp. 9-41.

Kartinger’s essay presents an excellent breakdown of social signification in LIA. He isolates several important discourses of signification (such as race, gender), describing how they operate within the text, revealing the ideological forces by which Jefferson county incorporates (or rejects) individuals into its own system of self-identification. As understanding the ramifications of the signification of language within a social context will be crucial to the development of my argument, Kartinger’s essay will help adumbrate the signifying systems at play.

Lacan, Jacques. “The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis.” Ecrits. Translated by Bruce Fink, Heloise Fink, and Russell Grigg, W.W. Norton and Company, 1966, pp. 237-265.

Lacan argues that the unconscious functions like a system of language. That’s to say, psychology is in itself a signifatory system. The “self” is therefore but a product of a series of unconscious discourses that have been internalized from one’s environment. This conception denies an understanding of an individual as a “platonic essence,” the self being, in a sense, an imagined projection that is linguistically (signifatorily) determined. Crucially, the grounds of the argument reveal the ambivalence of identity, race, gender. The ways we signify ourselves are perhaps not determined by some essential nature, but by what the permissible linguistic iterations an environment (culture, religion, society, etc.) allows.

Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. Translated by Wade Baskin. Columbia University Press, 1959.

This is perhaps the seminal text on signification. Saussure details the way in which language, as a signifying system, is a structure that is not representative, but symbolic (metaphorical and metonymic). Language, he argues, is therefore intrinsically ambivalent, corresponding not so much as to a reality that is really there, but an abstraction based upon meaning differentially determined. My understanding of LIA is heavily dependent upon this understanding of signification,