CONTRAPUNTAL ~ELATIONSHIPS IN - SELECTED STaRIES-OF FAULKNER - ABSTRACT Th1s thesis examines n1ne of Faulkner's short stories ta show the contrapuntal relationsh1ps existing between them,. and to suggest how th1s contrapuntal techn1que glves a new d1mension and a clearer perspect1ve to each of the stories. To this end, the thes1s traces the theme of man's confrontation w1th the human c0ndition, and his response to the world of experience after he has left the innocent security of childhood. The thesis ls d1vlded lnto three sections, each of which anproaches three stories from a similar perspective. In the first section, d1s- cussion centers on three storles which are concerned w1th an innocent chlld being brought face to face with the Rdult world of reality. The second section focuses on three stories whose central characters suffer in thls w0rld of experlence, and who are morally destroyed by lt. In the thlrd section the emnhasls ls on three stories in whlch the main characters, d~s~lte thelr sufferlng, ~amentarlly win a thln margln of victory by preservlng thelr ~oral lnte~rlty in their struggle wlth this world. By reviewing the contra- puntal relRtlon between the child's approach to the harsh reality of the human condition and man's two possible resnonses to lt, the thesls attempts t~ show that added depth ls gi7en to each story. As well as enrlchln~ an indivldual st'Jry, lt can also be seen that the use .')f +;he contraountal technique creates a set of reverb~ra~ln~ l1nks wh1ch 5i ves progress ~0n an1 'ln1 ty not ')nly ~o th<:'s~ stories ~ut to the c011ectlon as a \fhol~. CONTRAFUNTAL RELATIONSHIPS IN SELECTED STORIES OF FAULKNER by M1chael A. Kenneally A thesis subm1tted ta the Faculty of Gradu~te Studies and Research in partial fulf1lment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. McG1ll Un1versity, Montreal. July 1971. l TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTROOOCTION. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • l SECTION ONE. "Barn Burn1ng" "Uncle W11ly" "A Justice" 16 SECTION TWO. -, "Dry September" "That Evening Star" "Go Id en Land" 48 SECTION THREE. "The Tall Men" "Red Leaves" "Death Drag" 8 5 CONCLUSION. • • . • • . • . • . • • • • . • • • • • 116 FOOTNOTES. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 121 BIBLIOGRAPHY ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• , 123 INTRODUCTION Faulkner's crltlcs are ln total agreement that the short story form was partlcularly sulted to his unique klnd of gen1us. and that he wrote, perhaps, a half-dozen of what may be consldered great short stories. Malcolm Cowley. an editor and frequent correspondent of Faulkner, does not conslder h1m pr1mar1ly a novellst, but bel1eves, rather, that "he 1s most effect1ve 1n deallng w1th the total sltuat10n that 1s always present in his m1nd as a pattern of the South, or else in shorter units that can be conceived and written in a s1ngle burst of creat1ve effort. wl Michael Millgate believes that wFaulkner is perhaps more consistently at h1s best in the short stories than he 18 in the novels, and in h1s moet successful stories we find an intensity of effect. al11ed with directness of style and firmness of themat1c treatment, which pute them indisputably among his greatest achieverrents. w2 Gl~en ttis recognition of his mastery of the short story form one would expect tnet more critical attention would have been paid te the stories of Faulkner. But, 2 outs1de of a handfu1 of stor1es wh1ch have been repeated1y antho1og1zed and exam1ned, the major1ty of the stor1es have rece1ved practlca11y no attention. Of the more than fort y stories wh1ch appeared ln Co11ected Storles 1n 1950 only a few have rece1ved serlous treatment. Others have been examlned only becanse they shed some llght on the rest of Faulkner's work. Storles llke ·Wash· and ·There Was a Queen· have been examlned ln the llght of the various changes and modlflcatlons they went through before they became an 1ntegral part of Absalom, Absalom: and Sartorls. Frequent use ls made of such storles 1n arr1v1ng at a fuller understandlng of charRcter mot1v1at1on or ln trac1ng FaulkDer's changlng use of h1s material. Such storles as "The Bear,· ·Old Man," and ·Spotted Horses· are usually treated as short novels, or as lntegral parts of Go Down, Moses, The Wild Palms, and The Ham1et. Perhaps the only reason that such storles as those 1n The Unvangulshed and Go Down, Moses have recelved due crlt1cal attention 1s because they hav~ be~n collected and pub1lshed as novels. But, the greRter majorlty of Faulkner's stories have received only cursory treatment and, generally, have been 19nored as :3 un1que and lndependent creations. Th1s essay does not hope to rectify this situation, but it will begln to look more c1ose1y at some of Fau1kner's stories which deserve attentton and exam1nat1on. Because of the nature of thi~ essay on1y a limited number of stories w111 be examined in deta1l. These will be taken exc1us1vely from the 1950 edltlon of Col1ected Storles, wh1ch Faulkner went to painstaklng care ln arranglng and compi11ng. It ls 1mportant not to th1nk of th1s volume as mere1y an aggregate of 1nd1v1dua1 stories. Instead, we shoulè respect Fau1kner's arrangement of these stories, and see each of them as an lntegra1 part of a total organ1zat1on. Whl1e he was se1ectlng and preparlna thls co11ect1on Faulkner wrote a 1etter to ~a1co1m Cowley whlch, l belleve, ls essentla1 for a complete appreclatlon of what he was attemptln~ to do. Speaklng of a retum a1r tr1p from a vlslt to Cowley, Faulkner wrotel It wasn't too dul1 because l spent the t1me thlnk1ng about the co11ect1on of storles, the wh1ch the more l th1nk about, the better l 11ke. The only book foreward lever remembered was one l reaà wher. l was about slxteen l suppose, in one of Slenckewlcz (maybe that's not even spe11ed rl~ht). which, 4 l don't even rememberl Pan M1chael or what, not the actual words e1therl sQmethlng 11ke 'Th1s book wr1tten •• , ~aulkner's punctuat1og? travail (he may even have sa1d agony and sacr1fice) for the upl1ftlng of men's hearts.' Wh1ch l bel1eve ls the one worthwh1le purpose of any book and SQ even to a collection of short stor1es, form, 1ntegrat1on, 1s as 1mportant as to a novel - an ent1ty of 1ts own, s1ngle, set for one ~1tch, contrapuntal 1n 1ntegrat1on, toward one end, one f1nale,3 Th1s statement 1s 1mportant ln understand1ng Faulkner's prlnc1ple of organ1zat1on 1n the Collected Stor1~s. AlI the st0r1es 1n th1s volume had been publ1shed before, but some of them had not been collected prev1ously. The real importance of thls publ1cat1on 1s Faulkner's select10n and organ1zat1on of the storles 1nto s1x d1fferently t1tled sect1ons. Consequently, Faulkner emphas1ses the 1mportance of see1ng h1s stor1es as part of an 1ntegrated whole. The first sect1on, t1tled "The Country," 1s a group of stor1es that ls concerned w1th the Ind1an, farmer, and poor wh1te 1nhabltants of northern Mlss1:s1ppi. 1he second section, -The Village,- establlshes the sense of Jefferson as a place and communlty, and explores d1fferent aspects of 11fe there. The th1rd ~d fourth sections have a un1ty of sett1n~ and tone which seems self-explanatory as a basls of organlzation. The 5 former, -The W1lderness,- cons1sts of four storles about Ind1ans, whl1e "The W~stel~d" consists of flve stor1es which deal wlth Wor1d War I. The fifth sect1on, "The Mlddle Ground," ls a more heterog~neous collpction of e1even stories with var10us subjccts An~ settlngs. But, on c10ser examinatlon, lt may be sepn that most of the stor1es are concerned wlth themes of defeat and dls1l1uslon, wlth the dlsruptlon of 11fe pnd the 10ss of a sense ef ldentlty. The flna1 sect1on, "Beyon~,­ appears to conslst of two groups of thrpp· stor1es - one dea1lng with the world of the supernp.tur~l, the othpr w1th a moment of revelat10n or trAnscendencp of the fam111er. Although we c~n see thRt Faulkner uses topogra~h1ca1 consideratlons, at 1east in the supprflcl~l 1evel of org~lzatlon of the stories, and p.lthough a worthwh11e study of the stories could be m~de froID this polnt of vlew, the essay wll1 ex~1ne se1~cted storles from thls coll~ctlon ln the llght of sppclflc themes thAt recur thrcughout the book. This approach cqn be justlfl~d in terms of Faulkner's bellef thAt p collection of stor1ps should have -form and lntegration,- no less thAD a nove1, and should have "an ent1ty of lts own, sln~1e, spt for 6 one p1 tch, contrnpunt~.l 1n 1ntegrat ion, toward one end, one f1nale." Thematic motifs of the whole collpct1on of stor1es will be exam1ned as they mRn1fest thems~lves in the stor1es under d1scuss1on. The essay w1ll be d1v1ded 1nto three sections, each of wh1ch 1s concerned w1th a ~articular kind of story. The f1rst type of story 1s concerned wlth R ch11d's observat1on of the adult world of experience, which AS yet he does not unèerstand. From h1s vAntage ~olnt of 1nnocence the youth exper1ences some cruc1al pvent ln hls development wh1ch he ls unable to ass1m1late fully bec"use of hls IFlck of knowledge of the real1ty of the adult worlè. In Most of the storles concerned wlth th1s theme the narrator is the child h1msplf. The reAder, from his ~ersp~ctive, 1s more full, aware of the contrast between the unspolled world of the ch1ld and the cruel l'1orld that ex1sts beyond the capacit1es of his vision. -Sam Burn1ng,· ·Shingl~s For The Lord," ·Two Soldiers," -Oncle Willy," "Th~t Will Be Fine," "A Just1cp ," and "My Gran~mother Millard" are aIl typical examples of th1s kind of story. For the purn0S~S of thls essay, however, consif.eration will be givpn to three stories that appear part1cular1y central te this theme.