Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English Spring 5-7-2011 Sensory Coding in William Faulkner's Novels: Investigating Class, Gender, Queerness, and Race through a Non-Visual Paradigm Laura R. Davis Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Davis, Laura R., "Sensory Coding in William Faulkner's Novels: Investigating Class, Gender, Queerness, and Race through a Non-Visual Paradigm." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2011. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/70 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SENSORY CODING IN WILLIAM FAULKNER‘S NOVELS: INVESTIGATING CLASS, GENDER, QUEERNESS, AND RACE THROUGH A NON-VISUAL PARADIGM by LAURA R. DAVIS Under the Direction of Dr. Pearl McHaney ABSTRACT Although the title of William Faulkner‘s famous novel The Sound and the Fury overtly references the senses, most critics have focused on the fury rather than on the sound. However, Faulkner‘s stories, vividly and descriptively set in the U.S. South, contain not only characters and plot, but also depict a rich sensory world. To neglect the way Faulkner‘s characters employ their senses is to miss subtle but important clues regard- ing societal codes that structure hierarchies of class, gender, queerness, and race in his novels. Thus, a more complete examination of the sensory world in Faulkner‘s fiction across multiple texts seems necessary to explore how Faulkner‘s characters interpret the sensory stimuli in their fictional landscape and how their actions in this regard reveal the larger social constructs functioning in the novels. In particular, this dissertation seeks to borrow the theoretical approach known in fields such as history, anthropology, and sociology as sensory studies to examine nine Faulkner novels: Absalom, Absalom!, As I Lay Dying, Go Down, Moses, The Hamlet, If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem (The Wild Palms), Light in August, The Sound and the Fury, The Town, and The Unvanquished. Such an approach requires moving away from examining sensory stimuli as symbols that are read the same way by everyone; instead, the way Faulkner‘s charac- ters use the senses is examined as a biased act, an act that is committed and inter- preted differently depending on who is doing the sensing. Using this type of sensory studies framework can transform close readings of Faulkner‘s texts, particularly since such an approach helps us understand the way the senses are constantly interwoven with characters‘ attempts to define (and sometimes confine) the other characters. In fact, exploring the way characters actively use their senses to categorize others can re- veal a hidden discourse, one where the language of the senses illuminates belief- systems in ways that are not otherwise obvious. INDEX WORDS: William Faulkner, Sensory studies, Smell, Sound, Taste, Touch, U.S. Southern literature, Race, Class, Gender, Sexuality, Queerness SENSORY CODING IN WILLIAM FAULKNER‘S NOVELS: INVESTIGATING CLASS, GENDER, QUEERNESS, AND RACE THROUGH A NON-VISUAL PARADIGM by LAURA R. DAVIS A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2011 Copyright by Laura Renee Davis 2011 SENSORY CODING IN WILLIAM FAULKNER‘S NOVELS: INVESTIGATING CLASS, GENDER, QUEERNESS, AND RACE THROUGH A NON-VISUAL PARADIGM by LAURA R. DAVIS Committee Chair: Dr. Pearl McHaney Committee: Dr. Nancy Chase Dr. Mary Hocks Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2011 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all of the members of my dissertation committee for their time and expertise. Their questions and suggestions strengthened this dissertation im- measurably. In particular, I am grateful to my dissertation director, Pearl McHaney, whose constant encouragement and assistance motivated me throughout this process. Additionally, I am thankful for the generosity of the Clendenin family, whose establish- ment of the Clendenin Graduate Fellowship Program provided me with the financial as- sistance I needed to complete this dissertation and my degree. Finally, I am apprecia- tive of the opportunity to participate in a 2005 National Endowment of the Arts Summer Institute led by Don Doyle, which focused on William Faulkner‘s region and fiction. That enriching experience is where I first encountered the work of sensory historians and be- gan thinking about the role of the senses in Faulkner‘s work. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................... iv 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 1 2 OPTICAL ALLUSIONS: INTERROGATING VISUALLY-SATURATED THEORY……………………………………………………………………………21 3 RACE AND THE SENSES…………………………………………………….....40 4 GENDER AND THE SENSES………………………………..…………………..79 5 QUEERNESS AND THE SENSES…………………………………………….108 6 SOCIOECONOMIC CLASS AND THE SENSES……………………………..151 7 CONCLUSIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE STUDY……………….167 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………….188 1 1. INTRODUCTION “[…] maybe smell is one of my sharper senses, maybe it‟s sharper than sight. [Smell] to me is as noticeable as the ear which hears the turns of speech […].” ~ William Faulkner, Faulkner in the University 253 Although the title of William Faulkner‘s famous novel The Sound and the Fury overtly references the senses, most critics have focused on the fury rather than on the sound. This is understandable --- it is easy to be engrossed by the furious, complex na- tures of such compelling characters and the intricate events of their fictional lives. How- ever, Faulkner‘s stories, vividly and descriptively set in the U.S. South, contain not only characters and plot, but also depict a rich sensory world. To neglect the way Faulkner‘s characters employ their senses is to miss subtle but important clues regarding societal codes that structure hierarchies of class, gender, race, and sexuality in his novels. Thus, a more complete examination of the sensory world in Faulkner‘s fiction across multiple texts seems necessary to explore how Faulkner‘s characters interpret the sen- sory stimuli in their fictional landscape and how their actions in this regard reveals the larger social constructs functioning in the novels. In particular, this dissertation seeks to borrow the theoretical approach known in fields such as history, anthropology, and so- ciology as ―Sensory Studies‖ to examine nine Faulkner novels: Absalom, Absalom!, As I Lay Dying, Go Down, Moses, The Hamlet, If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem (The Wild Palms), Light in August, The Sound and the Fury, The Town, The Unvanquished. A few critics have noted already the way that Faulkner weaves the senses into his writing. Much of this criticism focuses on another Faulkner work that also alludes to 2 the senses in its title, a short story in The Unvanquished titled ―An Odor of Verbena.‖ For example, critic Robert Witt links the pervasive smell of verbena with courage; sub- sequently, Maryanne M. Gobble takes up a similar task, interpreting the smell of verbe- na as a symbol not only of courage but also, more importantly, of peace and a new era in the U.S. South. Although all of this work is valuable and adds to our understanding of Faulkner‘s texts, most of this criticism, which attempts to connect an isolated sense (such as the sense of smell) with a certain symbolic meaning, focuses on individual texts. And, the senses, in these examples, are treated in a utilitarian way. In other words, critics have tended to assert that if we can find a repeated mention of a certain scent, such as the smell of verbena, and identify what it symbolizes, we can give it meaning. Very few Faulkner critics seek to go beyond this strategy to examine multiple senses across multiple texts or to treat the use of the senses as an action, something characters do, rather than as just a passive symbol. Paul Carmignani makes one at- tempt to examine the sense of smell across multiple Faulkner texts in his ―Olfaction in Faulkner‘s Fiction‖ (1990); Terri Ruckel Smith‘s as yet unpublished doctoral dissertation, ―The Scent of the New World Novel: Translating the Olfactory Language of Faulkner and Garcia Marquez‖ (2006), is another example in this direction. However, in order to discover whether larger patterns or connections are present, an examination of the sen- sory world in Faulkner‘s fiction across multiple texts that asks how Faulkner‘s characters themselves actively use and interpret the smells in their fictional landscape is needed. Such a study can take its lead from recent developments in sensory history, a growing and respected sub-genre, which is also applicable in the fields of sociology and 3 anthropology. Rather than examining a particular use of the senses as a symbol that is read the same way by everyone, interdisciplinary sensory scholars focus more on the senses as a biased act, an act that is committed and interpreted differently depending on who is doing the sensing. Such an approach