Tag Archives: Faulkner

Faulkner and the fantastic

Posted on by
Reply

After delving into the mind of Faulkner in two of his texts, I’ve come to realize the manner in which he embraces fantasy. Characters in their youth who go on massive escapades through bizarre situations serve as a driving vehicle for his narrative delivery and more often than not, vignettes are told through the lens of one who is discovering Faulkner’s world, a world rooted in reality where any number of variables might interfere in the character’s objectives.

In TSAF, Quentin Jr. and her mother prove emblematic in their sense of escaping from the confines of what is socially acceptable and cause supposed “societal degradation” because of it. With regard to these female voyagers, Faulkner seems to imply that though they are flawed in ways that are taboo and inconceivable, their incentive to explore foreign, deviant horizons is a natural byproduct of their societal circumstances and by comparison to the oppressive Jason whose worldview is so narrow, we ought to admire them as the free souls that they possess.

Coincidentally, “freedom” from the bounds of society serves as an intricate theme in our latest novel, The Unvanquished, and though said freedom leads to quite the muck and mire, it also sets the stage for a fantastic voyage of two faux-brothers and their family unit. The traumatic catalyst of Bayard and Ringo shooting down a Yankee soldier leads to exodus from the houses and encounters with the unfathomable in the forms of riding alongside exotic frontier soldiers (one of whom is Bayard’s father), escorting a railroad’s worth of fleeing and even accidentally “forgetting” Granny in a wagon on the trails. At one point, Bayard has a revelation: “There is a limit to what a child can accept… And I was still a child at that moment when Father’s and my horses came over the hill and seemed to cease galloping and to float” (Faulkner 66). The scene is painted in such a way as to capture the awe of a child at beholding the remarkable nature of an unforgettable moment and in many respects, Faulkner capitalizes on this sense of boyish ambition to experience the world.

Ringo serves as an interesting specimen from which to consider Faulkner’s association with the fantastic. Ringo is a boy who is assimilated into the Sartoris family despite his opposite skin color, a concept beyond profound for its time. As the books develops, Ringo takes on a more assuming role striking bargains with rival Yankees and leading the front lines of the battlefield alongside Colonel Sartoris (67 – 68). The extent to which Ringo has availed himself of the societal standards attributed to blacks is remarkable and elevate him to a status far greater than the stereotypical nature attributed to Jim and Huck in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Ringo is Bayard’s equal, at least to the point where they consider each other family.

Faulkner is attributed with “spinning tales with more verisimilitude than veracity” (Porter 1) and so far, TSAF and The Unvanquished have shown this to hold weight. Although Faulkner’s stretches of the imagination in these novels often venture off into the unfathomable,  his use of historically relevant landmarks and time frames in his home state of Mississippi only aids in generating unforgettable moments within his character’s escapades thereby allowing him to comment on an array of themes centered around the human condition.

Women in Faulkner

Posted on by
Reply

Absalom Absalom! begins differently, compared to his other three novels, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Light in August, as the readers are quickly given a narration as to how the downfall of a family came to be.  Coldfield’s story of Sutpen, can easily be Ms. Burden, from LIA, or Hightower’s story, a story related to the Civil War that involves slavery and isolation. I found it quite interesting that Faulkner would situate a story prior to Quentin’s travel to Harvard and death. As told in The Sound in the Fury, the interpretation that Quentin’s death was primarily due to Caddy’s actions may be false. Absalom Absalom! Travels before the birth of Quentin, to a period that may explain why the once Aristocratic Compson family lost their wealth and reputation. The usage of “ghosts”, involvement of Mr. Compson, the non-present father figure in TSAF, and a female’s voice, may explain why Quentin was so heavily affected by Caddy’s actions and with his conversations with his father. Though Coldfield tells Quentin her stories due to his Ivy League education, “So maybe you will enter the literary profession as so many Southern gentlemen and gentlewomen too are doing now and maybe some day you will remember this and write about it…” My interpretation of Miss Rosa Coldfield’s reasoning as to why she chose Quentin to tell her story is similar to Ms. Burden’s forcefulness and want to control Christmas’s life and future in LIA. Miss Rosa Coldfield expects Quentin to join the literary profession, get married, own a house, and publish stories in magazines, yet she knows nothing about Quentin. Mr. Compson states, “Do you want to know the reason why she chose you… It’s because she will need someone to go with her- a man, a gentleman, yet one still young enough to do what she wants, do it the way she wants it done…” It seems Faulkner expresses each female in his novels as a demanding, emasculatory, and dominant figure in comparison to males that are easily manipulated and insecure with their own identity and inability to grasp control of their desires and futures.  Also, the analogy of ghosts to ladies “Years ago we in the South made our women into ladies. Then the war came and made the ladies into ghosts.”(AA!) , may implicitly tune into the ability of  women playing drastic roles in males without their presence being significant such as the lack of Addie’s presence in AILD, yet memories of her still allowed her to play a significant role in her son’s life through animal magnetism, a fish and a horse. However, due to Quentin’s naïveness, “Quentin thought, long ago when she was a girl—of young and indomitable unregret, of indictment of blind circumstance and savage event; but not now; only the lonely thwarted old female flesh embattled for forty-three years in the old insult; the old unforgiving outraged and betrayed by the final and complete affront which was sutpen’s death…”, in comparison to Mr. Compson’s belief of Miss Coldfield’s intentions, this leaves a question as to why did Faulkner decide Quentin be told this story instead of Quentin’s father or perhaps to another person who is more aware of Sutpen’s identity. By reading TSAF, LIA, and AILD, we are able to have a better grasp on how women, men, and the setting /town play a role into each person’s life through manipulation and interpretations.

Similarities between the Compson and the Bundren Family

Posted on by
1

As I Lay Dying has many analogous ideas and themes to The Sound and The Fury. Many of the contrasting ideas and themes are metaphoric representations of the protagonist through different objects, time unable to move forward, and similar character roles each family member play. In As I Lay Dying there are various accounts of human- animal interconnections that relate Addie to a fish and a horse. Similar to The Sound and the Fury, Caddie is symbolized to Benjy as fire, a caddie in golf, and a slipper. Faulkner uses these projections to symbolize that Caddie and Addie are always internally present within their family despite Addie’s death and Caddie’s lack of presence.  On pages 53, 67, and 84, Vardaman’s narrative focuses on the dead fish to embody Addie’s existence. Vardaman’s paranoia arises as he becomes unable to articulate and differentiate Addie’s existence from the fish’s existence and concludes someone killed Addie while she has been dead in her bed for ten days (54). Through Vardaman’s narrative, Addie is able to remain present in society only if the fish is devoured by each family member thus each family member will embody a part of Addie’s spirit (66-67), an example of animal magnetism;  “A magnetic charm or appeal” (Merriam Webster) towards the perseverance of Addie’s existence.   Furthermore, instead of an embodiment as a fish, Jewel perceives his mother as a horse. On pages 135-136, Jewel purchases a horse with his own money saved from “cleaning up forty acres of new ground Quick laid out last spring,” he also tells Anse the horse will never eat anything that belongs to him which shows Jewel’s separation in the family as well as his affection for the horse. By comparing his mother to a horse, we come to the realization Jewel isn’t cruel or mean hearted as Cora perceives him to be (21), instead he’s misperceived.

“Without stopping it overends and rears again, pauses, then crashes slowly forward and through the curtain. This time Jewel is riding upon it, clinging to it, until it crashes down and flings him forward and clear and Mack leaps forward into a thin smell of scorching meat and slaps at the widening crimson-edged holes that bloom like flowers in his undershirt” (222).

The movement of the river rushing the casket downstream compares to a wild horse attempting to thrust Jewel off it. From the beginning of the novel it is clear Jewel treats his horse with tough love, caring for it through derogatory movements (13), but for Jewel to risk his life to safe the casket would emphasis his care for his mother is a mere reflection for his care of his horse. Thus, for Jewel to state his mother is a horse only further indicates his feelings towards his mother is more personable and more profound which leads to the question if Jewel is not able to perceive his mother as a horse would he have rescued his mother from the river?

Time unable to progress forward is made clear from each family member’s inability to cope with Addie’s death. After Addie’s death each family member develops onset of problems: existence for Darl, sexuality for Dewey Dell, and the parallels of reality for Vardaman and Jewel. This exemplifies Addie’s death only hinders each family member’s ability to progress in life.  On page 146, “It is as though the space between us were time; an irrevocable quality. It is as though time, no longer running straight before us in a diminishing line, now runs parallel between us like a looping string, the distance being the doubling accretion of the thread and not the interval between,” implicitly draws upon the burden of Addie’s death as an entropic effect not only on her children but on time as well. The idea that separation of Addie and her children is not a spatial factor but a temporal factor implies Addie’s death disrupted the continuous rhythm of time moving forward, instead, time is now hindered and doubling backwards into the past. A disastrous foreshadowing for the Bundren family once Addie died. This is very much contrasts to Quentin’s narrative in The Sound and the Fury; his constant battle to irrevocably attempt to escape time and his past leads him to commit suicide since the progression of time and the memories from the past are inescapable.

Lastly, from Addie’s narrative it is clear Jewel is the “black sheep” of the family due to an erroneous affair Addie has with Whitfield. Addie favors Jewel and firmly believes Jewel will be her salvation saving her from water and fire (168), similarly to Mrs. Compson with Jason in The Sound and the Fury, she believes Jason will rescue her from the downfall of the family’s name as she constantly reminds him he is a Bascomb and not a Compson. Dewey Dell relates to Caddy as they both are impregnated out of wedlock and is at a threshold between womanhood, Benjy and Darl would relate to one another due to their observant personas but Darl is able to comprehend what he sees, every character but Anse would relate to Quentin due to them repressing time and their inability to cope with their past, and finally, Anse and Mr. Compson are both not present/ active father figures in the story since Mr. Compson’s most indicative role in The Sound and The Fury is to leave Quentin at a threshold between time and the meaning of life in comparison to Anse who sells Jewel’s horse