DOCSLIB.ORG

Recapitulation and Alteration in Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

Eastern Illinois University The Keep Masters Theses Student Theses & Publications 1975 Recapitulation and Alteration in Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy Elizabeth Anne Shapland Eastern Illinois University This research is a product of the graduate program in English at Eastern Illinois University. Find out more about the program. Recommended Citation Shapland, Elizabeth Anne, "Recapitulation and Alteration in Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy" (1975). Masters Theses. 3533. https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/3533 This is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Theses & Publications at The Keep. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of The Keep. For more information, please contact [email protected]. r RECAPITULATION AND ALTERATION IN FAULKNER 'S SNOPES TRILOGY (TITLE) BY ELIZABETH ANNE SHAPLAND THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL, EASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY CHARLESTON, ILLINOIS 197.5 YEAR I HEREBY RECOMMEND THIS THESIS BE ACCEPTED AS FULFILLING THIS PART OF THE GRADUATE DEGREE CITED ABOVE l,1'11S O..��DATEr ! I I --- --------------- ------------ _______J PAPER CERTIFICATE #2 TO: Graduate Degree Candidates who have written formal theses. SUBJECT: Permission to reproduce theses. • The University Library is receiving a number of requests from other institutions asking permission to reproduce dissertations for inclusion in their library holdings. Although no copyright laws are involved, we feel that professional courtesy demands that permission be obtained from the author before we allow theses to be copied. Please sign one of the following statements: Booth Library of Eastern Illinois University has my permission to lend my thesis to a reputable college or university for the purpose of copying it for inclusion in that institution's library or research holdings. I respectfully request Boo th Library of Eastern Illinois University not allow my thesis be reproduced because Date Author pdm Nearly all of William Faul kner 's novels include des- criptions of characters and events which have previo usly appeared in hi s novels and short stories. The recurrenc e of this material is the result of Faulkner' s effort to create a fictional county complete wi th at least six generations of citizens . In writing hi s Yoknapatawpha fiction, Faul kner created not just the stori es of the present , but also those of the many decades of the past ; he gave the county its own folklore and memories. In his works , as in life , the good stories are told and retold many times, and contemporary characters comment on each other and remember past genera- tions of local folk. Al so as in life, the memories are no t static but change with each retelling , reflecting the inter­ ests and often the opinions of the present narrator. For the author, the already-created stories become a "part of the given" as Steven Marcus describes it , 1 as equally valid a potential source for future stories as any other experi­ enc e or imagination. An author may wi sh to re-use a small detail or incorporate an entire short story into a novel , wi th or without changes; Faul kner ran the whole gamut in hi s re-use of material . lsteven Marcus , "Snopes Revi sited, " in William Faulkner: Three Decades of Criticism, eds . Frederick J. Hoffman and Olga W. Vickery ( New York : Harcourt , Brace & World, Inc., 1963), p. J88. 1 2 T:-.:::: re-use of mat erial is both technique and theme, fo r Faulk�9r wanted to create a mythol ogy , ongoi ng and al ive wi�� the ;�ople of the co unty , as important as and frequent - ly indisti�gui shable fro m the hi story of the county . Many cri-:ics ha7e sp oken of Faul kner 's work in general as follow- ing the pa�t ern o f anci ent my thol ogi es and literature in whi ch variations result from the vari ety of narrators and fro m the 2 passage of time. Dorothy Tuck notes that the stories may lose accuracy in terms of fact but gain ac c uracy in "p sycho ­ lo gical reali ty,"3 a statement whi ch evokes Faul kner 's own no te to The Mansi on , in which he attributed discrepanc ies amo ng hi s joo ks to hi s getting to know the charact ers better the more he writes and lives with them . Joseph J. Arpad con­ cludes that the sub ject of Faul kner 's Snopes Trilogy is legend and the life th.at creates the legend , and that the trilo gy can be defi ned as a legendary novel , with the legend of Fl em Snopes of central importanc e along wi th the legend­ maki ng process .4 As Arpad' s article on the Snopes Trilogy indicates, Trilogy , The Haml et ( 9 0) , the books of Faul kner's Snop es 1 4 2 His Edward M. Hol mes , Faul kner 's Twi ce-T ol d Tales: - Re- use of �i s Material (T he Hague: Mouton &--CO:- , 1966) , P: 98; Marcus,-p.-"28'8; Do rothy Tuc k, Crowell's Handboo k of Faul kner , advi sory ed. Lewi s Leary (New Yo rk: Thomas Y. Cro well Com­ pany, 1964) , p. 87. JTuc k, p. 87 . 4Jo seph J . Arpad , "William Faul kner 's Legendary No vels: The Snopes Tri logy," Missi ssippi Quarterly 22 (Summer 1969): 215, 219 . 3 The Town (1957), and The Mansi on (1959), are similar to hi s ot her novel s in the re-use of material. In fact, many pre­ viousl y published short stories have been reworked for inclu­ 5 si on in these works . But being a trilogy , these books par­ take of anot her special ki nd of re-use of material more appropriately termed recapitulation. This term refers to the more specific retelling of stories and details about charac ters whi ch oc curs wi thin the trilogy as a whole, help­ ing to tie the books together, but also to make eac h under­ standable by itsel f: sp ecifically, the recapitulation in The Town of events that oc curred in The Haml et , and in The Mansi on of ev ents from both The Town and The Haml et , as well as recapitulation in each book of information previously pre­ sented wi thin that book . 6 Studies of Faulkner 's writing of the trilogy suggest that he did not make a consc i ous effort to retell detail s from the earlier books in order to make the sec ond and third books readable alone , but , instead , the re- capitulation was as natural a part of his writing as any ot her retelling. Thus the separation of this type of re­ telling from other repeated details stemming from Faulkner's 5Holmes in Faul kner's Twic e-Told Tal es explores in detail the differenc es between the short stories "Spotted Horses ," "The Hound ," "Barn Burni ng," "Li zards in Jamshyd's Courtyard ," "Fool about a Horse, " "C entaur in Brass, " "Mul e in the Yard ," "T he Wai fs, " and "By The People" and the simi­ lar sec tions in the Snopes Trilogy. His examination of the changed rhet ori c, diction, and tone generated by di fferent narrators and contexts is extremely interesting. 6An appendix followi ng lists al l of this insi de rec apitulation and the original sourc es wi thin the trilogy . 4 other wo rks is so mewhat artificial . Yet this distinction may suggest itself to a reader who has read only the trilogy and is not familiar wi th the whol e of Faulkner 's Yoknapa­ tawpha series . Such a reader might well find a passing reference to Bayard Sartoris, or Ike Mc caslin, or some other Yo knapatawp ha character more co nfus ing and unnatural than the more integrated insi de recapitulation.? An important aspect of all of Faul kner 's re-use of mat er ial is the al teration which occurs in the subsequent ap pearance of the material . The fact that there is al most always at least minor al terat i on--that it is not just di ­ rect repetition--i s one of the major justifications cr itics offer for Faul kner 's use of this wri ting techni que. Faul kner showed in hi s fiction, especially in a work like Absalom, Absalom!, that point of view is usually the most important determi ner of a story , more important than the 'fac ts' of the matter. With four different narrators , the novel will present fo ur different , yet basi cally similar , stories; this is where re-use of material comes into the work. Faul kner's co nvi ction of the separatenes s and vali dity of each narrator's story is reveal ed in hi s description of the writing of The Sound and the� whi ch has its separate narrators because, each time, he was try ing to wri te the st ory and fel t he had fai led , so he began agai n from a different viewpoi nt. ?peter Swi ggart , The Art of Faul kner 's Novel s (Austin, Texas : University of Texas, 1962) , P. 196. Swiggart fi nds the co unty references di stracting . 5 Finally, the sto ri es together manage to tell the story he initially envi si oned , but eac h alone remai ns inade quate. 8 Faul kner's comments at the Universi ty of Virginia on hi s use of multiple narrators in The Town present a philosophy which can be applied to many of hi s other works al so : It [t he tec hni qu� was used deliberately to look at the objec t from three points of view.
Recommended publications
  • An Annotated Bibliography of William Faulkner, 1967-1970

    An Annotated Bibliography of William Faulkner, 1967-1970

    Studies in English Volume 12 Article 3 1971 An Annotated Bibliography of William Faulkner, 1967-1970 James Barlow Lloyd University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/ms_studies_eng Part of the American Literature Commons Recommended Citation Lloyd, James Barlow (1971) "An Annotated Bibliography of William Faulkner, 1967-1970," Studies in English: Vol. 12 , Article 3. Available at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/ms_studies_eng/vol12/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in English by an authorized editor of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Lloyd: Faulkner Bibliography An Annotated Bibliography of William Faulkner, 1967—1970 by James Barlow Lloyd This annotated bibliography of books and articles published about William Faulkner and his works between January, 1967, and the summer of 1970 supplements such existing secondary bibliog­ raphies as Maurice Beebe’s checklists in the Autumn 1956 and Spring 1967 issues of Modern Fiction Studies; Linton R. Massey’s William Faulkner: “Man Working” 1919-1962: A Catalogue of the William Faulkner Collection of the University of Virginia (Charlottesville: Bibliographic Society of the University of Virginia, 1968); and O. B. Emerson’s unpublished doctoral dissertation, “William Faulkner’s Literary Reputation in America” (Vanderbilt University, 1962). The present bibliography begins where Beebe’s latest checklist leaves off, but no precise termination date can be established since publica­ tion dates for periodicals vary widely, and it has seemed more useful to cover all possible material than to set an arbitrary cutoff date.
  • William Faulkner, the Hamlet

    William Faulkner, the Hamlet

    William Faulkner, The Hamlet First published in 1940 BOOK ONE Flem CHAPTER ONE Frenchman's Bend was a section of rich river-bottom country lying twenty miles southeast of Jefferson. Hill-cradled and remote, definite yet without boundaries, straddling into two counties and owning allegiance to neither, it had been the original grant and site of a tremendous pre-Civil War plantation, the ruins of which--the gutted shell of an enormous house with its fallen stables and slave quarters and overgrown gardens and brick terraces and promenades--were still known as the Old Frenchman's place, although the original boundaries now existed only on old faded records in the Chancery Clerk's office in the county courthouse in Jefferson, and even some of the once- fertile fields had long since reverted to the cane-and-cypress jungle from which their first master had hewed them. He had quite possibly been a foreigner, though not necessarily French, since to the people who had come after him and had almost obliterated all trace of his sojourn, anyone speaking the tongue with a foreign flavor or whose appearance or even occupation was strange, would have been a Frenchman regardless of what nationality he might affirm, just as to their more urban coevals (if he had elected to settle in Jefferson itself, say) he would have been called a Dutchman. But now nobody knew what he had actually been, not even Will Varner, who was sixty years old and now owned a good deal of his original grant, including the site of his ruined mansion.
  • Imagery and the Making of the Hamlet: of Snopeses and Cows Jacques Pothier

    Imagery and the Making of the Hamlet: of Snopeses and Cows Jacques Pothier

    Imagery and the Making of The Hamlet: Of Snopeses and Cows Jacques Pothier To cite this version: Jacques Pothier. Imagery and the Making of The Hamlet: Of Snopeses and Cows. Rosella Mamoli Zorzi; Pia Masiero Marcolin. William Faulkner in Venice, Marsilio, 2000, 978-8831776264. hal- 02490988 HAL Id: hal-02490988 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02490988 Submitted on 25 Feb 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Imagery and the Making of The Hamlet: Of Snopeses and Cows Jacques Pothier Université Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines In 1962 at West Point Faulkner makes a rare comment on his process of writing. He is answering the question of a student about how he "goes about writing": "The stories with me begin with an anecdote or a sentence or an expression, and I’ll start from there and sometimes I write the thing backwards — I myself don’t know where any story is going. I write — I’m dealing simply with people who suddenly have got up and have gotten into motion — men and women who are moving, who are involved in the universal
  • Finding Aid for the Faulkner Periodicals Collection (MUM00161)

    Finding Aid for the Faulkner Periodicals Collection (MUM00161)

    University of Mississippi eGrove Archives & Special Collections: Finding Aids Library November 2020 Finding Aid for the Faulkner Periodicals Collection (MUM00161) Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/finding_aids Recommended Citation Faulkner Periodicals Collection, Archives and Special Collections, J.D. Williams Library, The University of Mississippi This Finding Aid is brought to you for free and open access by the Library at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Archives & Special Collections: Finding Aids by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Finding Aid for the Faulkner Periodicals Collection (MUM00161) Questions? Contact us! The Faulkner Periodicals Collection is open for research. Finding Aid for the Faulkner Periodicals Collection Table of Contents Descriptive Summary Administrative Information Subject Terms Collection History Scope and Content Note User Information Related Material Arrangement Container List Descriptive Summary Title: Faulkner Periodicals Collection Dates: 1930-1997 Collector: Wynn, Douglas C. ; Wynn, Leila Clark ; University of Mississippi. Dept. of Archives and Special Collections Physical Extent: 27 full Hollinger boxes ; 6 half boxes ; 1 oversize box ; 22 cartons (35.85 linear feet) Repository: University of Mississippi. Department of Archives and Special Collections. University, MS 38677, USA Identification: MUM00161 Language of Material: English Abstract: Collection of magazine and newspaper articles written by or concerning William Faulkner and University of Mississippi Yearbooks referencing Faulkner. Administrative Information Processing Information Collections processed by Archives and Special Collections staff. Series III-IV, Periodicals by Faulkner and Periodicals about Faulkner, originally processed by Jill Applebee and Amanda Strickland, August-September 1999. Multiple collections combined into single finding aid and encoded by Jason Kovari, August 2009.
  • Gay Faulkner: Uncovering a Homosexual Presence in Yoknapatawpha and Beyond

    Gay Faulkner: Uncovering a Homosexual Presence in Yoknapatawpha and Beyond

    University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 1-1-2013 Gay Faulkner: Uncovering a Homosexual Presence in Yoknapatawpha and Beyond Phillip Andrew Gordon University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the American Literature Commons Recommended Citation Gordon, Phillip Andrew, "Gay Faulkner: Uncovering a Homosexual Presence in Yoknapatawpha and Beyond" (2013). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1391. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1391 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. GAY FAULKNER: UNCOVERING A HOMOSEXUAL PRESENCE IN YOKNAPATAWPHA AND BEYOND A dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English The University of Mississippi by PHILLIP ANDREW GORDON June 2013 Copyright Phillip Andrew Gordon 2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT This dissertation is a biographical study of William Faulkner (1897-1962) as his life coincided with a particular moment in LGBT history when the words homosexual and queer were undergoing profound changes and when our contemporary understanding of gay identity was becoming a widespread and recognizable epistemology. The connections forged in this study--based on archival research from Joseph Blotner’s extensive biographical notes--reveal a version of Faulkner distinctly not anxious about homosexuality and, in fact, often quite comfortable with gay men and living in gay environments (New Orleans, New York). From these connections, I reassess Faulkner’s pre-marriage writings (1918-1929) for their prolific reference to homosexual themes.
  • THE SOUND and the FURY by William Faulkner

    THE SOUND and the FURY by William Faulkner

    THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner THE AUTHOR William Faulkner (1897-1962) was born in New Albany, Mississippi, and later moved to Oxford, Mississippi, where he lived for most of his life. The town and the surrounding countryside became the model for his fictitious Yoknapatawpha County, the setting for most of his fiction. Faulkner never finished high school, but with the outbreak of World War I sought to enlist in the Air Force. He was rejected because of his height (5'6"), but succeeded in joining the Royal Air Force of Canada by lying about much of his background. The war ended before his training was completed, however, though this did not stop him from purchasing a lieutenant’s uniform and telling a variety of tales about his wartime adventures after he returned home to Oxford. After the war, he enrolled at the University of Mississippi, where he began writing for the campus newspaper. He dropped out during his sophomore year, and began writing on his own while working odd jobs to support himself. In 1925, he moved to New Orleans to write for a literary magazine, and published his first novel, Soldiers’ Pay , the following year. After the failure of his second novel, he took the advice of playwright Sherwood Anderson and turned to writing about the country he knew best. This third novel, Sartoris , was finally published in 1929, but only after being rejected by several publishers and drastically edited by the one who finally accepted it. Fed up with the publishing business, Faulkner decided to write a novel purely for his own enjoyment.
  • Painting the Negative Space: How Faulkner Silhouettes the Living Ghost of Flem Snopes Jessica Fanczi

    Painting the Negative Space: How Faulkner Silhouettes the Living Ghost of Flem Snopes Jessica Fanczi

    University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate National Collegiate Honors Council Research & Creative Activity 2018 Painting the Negative Space: How Faulkner Silhouettes the Living Ghost of Flem Snopes Jessica Fanczi Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/ureca Part of the Educational Methods Commons, Gifted Education Commons, and the Higher Education Commons This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the National Collegiate Honors Council at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research & Creative Activity by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity 2018 Edition Painting the Negative Space: How Faulkner Silhouettes the Living Ghost of Flem Snopes Jessica Fanczi Reinhardt University Like porch lights, mosquito bites, and last-minute glasses of sweet tea, ghost stories are an experience innate to the South after dark. Whether or not a person believes them, these tales have the ability to characterize houses, streets, even entire cities. For the citizens of Frenchman’s Bend in William Faulkner’s The Hamlet, convoluted stories of Antebellum and Civil War ghosts permeate the area. Distracted by the buried men of the past, the people of Frenchman’s Bend fail to realize that they themselves are living in one of the most sprawling, epic ghost stories ever to unfold in Mississippi: the story of the rise of Flem Snopes. As Snopes, a veritable living ghost, wreaks havoc on the town with his invisible, untraceable hands, Faulkner offers his readers a valuable truth: sometimes, the only way to see a ghost is to observe its effect on others.
  • 'Villiam Faulkner: the Importance of Love

    'Villiam Faulkner: the Importance of Love

    Lawrence Edward Bowli.ng 'VILLIAM FAULKNER: THE IMPORTANCE OF LOVE S1l\CE WJLLIAM FAULK i\iER has been generally considered the greatest American novel­ ist of the twentieth century and since love has always been the most universal subject in literature, we may very appropriately ask: what contribution did Faulkner make to the most universal of literary subjects? If asked to name Faulkner's greatest love story, most readers would probably think first of The Wild Palm.1. As originally published, this book contains two sep­ arate stories. The story of Charlotte Rittenmeyer and Harry Wilbourne may be said to deal more with sex th:m with love, and the story of the tall co nvict ends with the hero's refusing to accept any responsibility for either love or sex. Do these bets imply that Faulkner chose to ignore or to flout the m uM uni· versa I of liter:1.ry subjects) Faulkner 's own explicit answer to this question is con­ tained in "The Stockholm Address'', delivered on the occasion of his accepting the Nobel Prize in liter:nure for 1950. The writer today, Faulkner stated, must leave ·'no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart. the old universal truths lacking which :1ny srory is ephemeral and doomed-love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice." Not only is love here listed first among the universal truths; it is repeated and amplified in three of the other five terms, ''pity" :lncl ·'compassion" <~nd "s:1crifice". which are merely different as.
  • Robert Yeates - “Sutpen’S Hundred” - Apr

    Robert Yeates - “Sutpen’S Hundred” - Apr

    Robert Yeates - “Sutpen’s Hundred” - Apr. 28, 2014 - 1 Sutpen’s Hundred and the Violence of the Grand Design Several critics note that the construction of architectural forms is a process laced with violence, that structures then contain dormant violence, and that they will ultimately meet with a violent end. Terry Smith writes that “from at least some of its beginnings … architecture has had various degrees and kinds of violence built, as it were, into it. All building does violence to the natural order,” and anticipates “obsolescence, dilapidation, or replacement—in short, its own destruction” (6). Bernard Tschumi asserts that the violence of architecture is fundamental and unavoidable, and that it originates from surrounding events, as “architecture is linked to events in the same way that the guard is linked to the prisoner, the police to the criminal, the doctor to the patient, order to chaos” (123). Lewis Mumford, in his The City in History (1961), writes that all living, built environments will end in the “Necropolis,” “a common graveyard of dust and bones” and “fire scorched ruins” (53). This trajectory of violence features prominently in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! in the manifestation of Thomas Sutpen’s grand design, the plantation house of Sutpen’s Hundred. Moreover, this trajectory goes on to bear profound significance to both the execution of Sutpen’s personal ambition, and to the history of the South. Sutpen’s mansion functions as metaphor for these parallel arcs in its violent rendering on the virgin land of Yoknapatawpha, its participation in slavery, and the violent demise brought about by the ghosts that dwell within its ruined walls.
  • My Intention Is Not to Draw, As John Cullen Delightfully Does in Old Times in the Faulkner Country, Any Parallels Between Real People and Faulkner's Characters

    My Intention Is Not to Draw, As John Cullen Delightfully Does in Old Times in the Faulkner Country, Any Parallels Between Real People and Faulkner's Characters

    THE BACKGROUND OF SNOPESISM IN MISSISSIPPI POLITICS WARREN G. FRENCH My intention is not to draw, as John Cullen delightfully does in Old Times in the Faulkner Country, any parallels between real people and Faulkner's characters. Nor do I intend to derive a picture of Mississippi at the turn-of the century from clues in The Hamlet. Rather I wish to con­ front the historical record of the period with Faulkner's portrayal in the novel of human beings dramatizing their values through their actions. This confrontation shows, I believe, how "Snopesism"—however it may also re­ flect universal patterns of behavior—arose from conditions that existed in a particular place at a particular time. To support the validity of this effort, I call upon Faulkner himself, who said during his visit to Japan, "In my country, an artist is nothing. Nobody pays attention to him. ... In my country, instead of asking the artist what makes children commit suicide, they goto the Chairman of Gen­ eral Motors and ask him. That is true. If you make a million dollars, you know all the answers.'1 But this cynical outburst can only mean that Faulk­ ner did not believe that we might do better to ask the artist. He also said during these talks at Nagano that he loved his country enough "to want to cure its faults" by shaming and criticizing it. He felt that the writer "should not be just a 'recorder' of man—he should give man some reason to believe that man can be better than he is.
  • THE RACIAL HYBRIDITY of THOMAS SUTPEN by WILLIAM

    THE RACIAL HYBRIDITY of THOMAS SUTPEN by WILLIAM

    “OF HAVING BEEN COLORED”: THE RACIAL HYBRIDITY OF THOMAS SUTPEN by WILLIAM WELDON CUNNINGHAM, IV DR. YOLANDA MANORA, COMMITTEE CHAIR DR. TRUDIER HARRIS DR. JOHN GIGGIE A THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of English in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2012 Copyright William Weldon Cunningham, IV 2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT This thesis will reveal the potential for racial hybridity in Thomas Sutpen from William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!. Using critical theory concerning the presence of mixed-race individuals in 19th and early 20th century America, I will demonstrate that Sutpen falls in the category of the literary trope of the tragic mulatto. I will begin with a thorough review of the criticism concerning race in Absalom, while demonstrating the drastic hole left in many critic’s dealings with Thomas Sutpen. I will then provide a close reading of various key passages that call into question Sutpen’s race and place him within the framework of the socially marginalized African American of the American South. Next, I will demonstrate that Sutpen fits into the mold of many figures that exist solely within the African American Folkloric tradition. By demonstrating the arc of the novel as Sutpen’s drive towards self-actualization, I will demonstrate how he takes on the role of both the trickster and badman figure. Finally, I will discuss Absalom in terms of narrative theory and demonstrate that the subjectivity by which Sutpen is portrayed reflects a racialized reading of Julia Kristeva’s symbolic and semiotic.
  • ANALYSIS Absalom, Absalom! (1936) William Faulkner (1897-1962)

    ANALYSIS Absalom, Absalom! (1936) William Faulkner (1897-1962)

    ANALYSIS Absalom, Absalom! (1936) William Faulkner (1897-1962) “In Absalom, Absalom!, although apparently with great difficulty, as if he were wrestling with the Snopes world all the while, Mr. Faulkner finally achieves the presentation of a kind of ‘glamorous fatality’ for the Sartoris world—embodied in Thomas Sutpen and his house. The book is really a summary of the whole career of the tradition—its rise, its fatal defects, its opponents, its decline, and its destruction. The action is of heroic proportions. The figures are larger than life; but, as Mr. T. S. Eliot has suggested of Tourneur’s characters, they are all distorted to scale, so that the whole action has a self-subsistent reality. And the book ends with a ritualistic purgation of the doomed house, by fire, which is as nearly a genuine tragic scene as anything in modern fiction. For the first time, Mr. Faulkner makes explicit here the contrast between traditional (Sartoris) man and modern (Snopes) man, dissociated into a sequence of animal functions, lacking in unity under essential morality…. [It was Quentin’s effort] to transform his own family’s doom into the proportions of the world of Sutpen and Sartoris—that led to this death. But it is significant that it should be Quentin through whose understanding the story of Sutpen is told, and that it should be Quentin who watches the final destruction of Sutpen’s house. For Sutpen’s tradition was defective, but it was not formalized as Quentin’s was; and his story approaches tragedy.” George Marion O’Donnell “Faulkner’s Mythology” The Kenyon Review I.3 (1939) “The story of Thomas Sutpen and the intricate patterns of other lives involved with his are narrated through Quentin Compson, the grandson of Sutpen’s befriender, General Compson.