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Recapitulation and Alteration in Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy

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Recapitulation and Alteration in Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy 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.
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