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William Faulkner's Mulatto: a Struggle on the Borderland

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William Faulkner's Mulatto: a Struggle on the Borderland ABSTRACT WILLIAM FAULKNER’S MULATTO: A STRUGGLE ON THE BORDERLAND My thesis explores William Faulkner’s handling of racial issues of mixed identity in his novel Light in August by using Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderland theory. Anzaldúa can explain and represent the disconnect that occurs for those that are deemed social outcasts through her theory of Borderlands, “cultural tyranny,” and mestiza consciousness. Within Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza Anzaldúa draws upon her experience of marginalization to create her own mestiza consciousness, finding empowerment in this marginalized status. In particular I research and analyze the physical and psychological effects of the borderland in regards to the life and experiences of Joe Christmas. Christmas goes from believing that he is a white member of society to realizing that he is not full white, causing him to be separated from the rest of society and placed in a state of marginalization. In trying to find acceptance, Christmas tries to embrace the identity and lifestyle of both sides of the divide only to constantly be reminded that he does not belong to either. Christmas demonstrates Faulkner’s growing awareness of the way racial division affects the individual, the South, and the nation. Unlike Anzaldúa, Faulkner sees no way for the individual of mixed race to live and thrive in society. Stephanie Ann Metzler August 2015 WILLIAM FAULKNER’S MULATTO: A STRUGGLE ON THE BORDERLAND by Stephanie Ann Metzler A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English in the College of Arts and Humanities California State University, Fresno August 2015 APPROVED For the Department of English: We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student’s graduate degree program for the awarding of the master’s degree. Stephanie Ann Metzler Thesis Author Chris Henson (Chair) English Ruth Jenkins English Lisa Weston English For the University Graduate Committee: Dean, Division of Graduate Studies AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER’S THESIS X I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship. Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me. Signature of thesis author: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My educational journey has been a long and arduous task and could not have been accomplished without the countless angels that have stepped into my life from childhood until now. There are far too many angels to name but they all have made an impact on the roads and trails I traveled to get here. To all of you, I thank you. With utmost respect and gratitude I thank Dr. Chris Henson for believing in me. Without your support and guidance I would not be where I am today, and for that, I thank you. You truly are one of my heroes. I would like to thank Dr. Ruth Jenkins and Dr. Lisa Weston for their support and direction, and every professor that I was lucky enough to meet at CSU Fresno. Again, I could not have accomplished this without you. With all my heart I thank my dearly departed mother and father, who proudly supported my educational endeavors. I love and miss you. With love and joy I thank my four sisters, Melissa, Nora, Jessica, and Nicole, for their constant support and pride in my accomplishments. Even when it seemed that I would never finish my thesis, you knew how to uplift me with your encouragement. To my long time mentors and adopted Godparents, William and Yolanda Acuña, who supported me throughout the harshest times. You always reminded me that there was more for me out there if I just kept the tenacity to succeed. Thank you. Last but not least, I would like to thank my loving husband, Dylan Flood. Without you I would not be the person I am today. In every way you have supported me, loved me, encouraged me, and pushed me to succeed. I could not have done this without you. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1: INVESTIGATING RACE IN THE WORK OF WILLIAM FAULKNER: THE HARD DIVIDE BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE .... 1 CHAPTER 2: GLORIA ANZALDÚA’S BORDERLAND THEORY: THE STRUGGLE OF DISPARITY ..................................................................... 21 CHAPTER 3: JOE CHRISTMAS: LIFE AND DEATH IN THE BORDERLAND ........................................................................................... 40 WORKS CITED ..................................................................................................... 73 CHAPTER 1: INVESTIGATING RACE IN THE WORK OF WILLIAM FAULKNER: THE HARD DIVIDE BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE Often, within and without the world of literary scholarship, William Faulkner is dismissed as overtly racist and seen as narrow-minded in his view of race and culture. In his article “Faulkner and Racism: The Great White Hope of Black Power,” Marc D. Baldwin contends: “As many critics accuse him, Faulkner may well have been a racist” (1). Along these lines, in “Faulkner and Racism,” Arthur Kinney notes of Faulkner, “Racism spreads contagiously through his works, unavoidably. Its force is often debilitating; its consequences often beyond reckoning openly. The plain recognition of racism is hardest to bear and yet most necessary to confront” (266). Undeniably, Faulkner’s novels are saturated with racism, but perhaps, as some critics note, this stems from writing in an era that embodied racist thoughts and actions. Fittingly, Baldwin explains how much of this racism originated from the society and time period in which William Faulkner was raised: Faulkner was born in the Bible belt, into segregated white society. The tenets of his strict Calvinist-directed Christian faith were strained and twisted by the racism all around him. How could the idea of all men as brothers and equal in the eyes of the Lord be reconciled with the bigoted, double-standardized, violently derogatory attitude and actions of his fellow Whites toward Blacks? They couldn’t. Thus, Faulkner labored under a horrible moral dilemma not unlike Huck Finn’s: Whose side should he take? His society’s and family’s or God’s? Faulkner often played out this 2 2 tragic dilemma through stories tortured by the Christian drama of sin, guilt and redemption. (1) Thus, William Faulkner fought an inner conflict as he was seemingly at odds with both his own white culture and black culture. On one side he was taught the Bible teachings that “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (King James Version, Matt. 19.19). He was also well versed in the principles of the Declaration of Independence that declares, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Yet, his family and white society believed in the laws of segregation and that blacks were not equal to whites. Thus, as Baldwin notes, William Faulkner was in a constant battle between what his family, society and what he perhaps was raised to believe, and what he perhaps would later read as truth. Growing up, Faulkner most likely shared many of these racist views, and finding meaning and understanding within these racial tensions was often out of his grasp. As much of his writing reflects, Faulkner himself seemed perplexed as to where he stood in this debate. Did he indeed sympathize with the black community and find fault in his own white society; or, did he, instead, see society playing out exactly as it should, thus continuing the tradition of white supremacy? In his article and response to Arthur Kinney’s article, “Faulkner and Racism: A Commentary on Arthur F. Kinney’s ‘Faulkner and Racism,’” Philip Cohen adds to this dialogue: Anyone seeking to shed light on the vexed subject of the racial convictions expressed by William Faulkner during his life and in his fiction must, I think, confront the central fact that Faulkner’s racial attitudes, like his explorations of gender and class, were often 3 3 contradictory, even violently conflicted at any given moment of his career. (109) Faulkner thus had the arduous task of working through these contrasting views, and much of his labor would be exposed, examined and worked through with the writing of his narratives. This task of untangling racist ideology, as we will soon investigate, continued to develop as time went on, and as Faulkner continued to write characters of African-American descent, their narrative plots and outcomes began to uncover this tension of race. William Faulkner lived and wrote in an era that held ongoing shifts of attitudes towards race impacted his own views of race, and has in turn allowed for a deeper conversation into the racial views of the past and the presence of racism in our own modern society. Faulkner’s contradictory stance on race is conceivably one of the reasons that countless readers and critics continue to contemplate these embedded issues of race and culture as they read a Faulkner text. In looking at the racial views of William Faulkner, it is important to probe deeper into the era in which he lived and even further back into historical factors that might have molded his concept of race. In “Faulkner and Racism,” Kinney writes, “Faulkner battled with race and racism, publicly and privately, as few other American authors have ever done or ever had to do” (278). This battle can be seen early on in his writing career and continually progressed as he dug deeper into this the ugly realities of racism in the South. Thus, long before such notions of Cultural Studies or Race Theories existed, William Faulkner, “born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897,” was a man that recognized the deeply embedded issues of race, and knew that the tensions and pressures of this system would eventually change the view and lifestyle of the South he so deeply cared for (Cowley 2).
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