Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 2000 Memory, Time and Identity in the Novels of William Faulkner and Marcel Proust. John Stephen Larose Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Larose, John Stephen, "Memory, Time and Identity in the Novels of William Faulkner and Marcel Proust." (2000). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 7206. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/7206 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. 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Higher quality 6" x 9 ' black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. MEMORY, TIME AND IDENTITY IN THE NOVELS OF WILLIAM FAULKNER AND MARCEL PROUST A Dissertation Submitted to the graduate faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of French and Italian by John Stephen LaRose BA., Louisiana State University, 1988 M A., Louisiana State University, 1992 May 2000 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number. 9979270 UMI___ _____ tgi UMI Microform 9979270 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. far Denise ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowl edgments I would like to thank my dissertation director. Dr. Jeff Humphries for his support, encouragement, and helpful suggestions. I would also like to thank the other members of my committe, Dr. Nathaniel Wing, Dr. John Lowe, and Dr. Greg Stone, for their suggestions and criticisms. Thanks to my parents for all of their support and patience throughout all of my academic career. Without them I could never have made it this far. Thanks also to Carla Criner, for her friendship, sympathy and encouragement in difficult times, and to Connie Simpson for invaluable administrative support. Thanks also to Denise Plauche for her friendship, encouragement, patience, brow-beatings and for believing. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents Acknowledgments.................................................................................................................ill Abstract ...................................................................................................................................vi Introduction: Identity Crises.............................................................................................. 1 Self and Nation............................................................................................ I Being and T im e.............................................................................................2 Chapter 1: An Exhausted Subject? The Postage Stamp and the Cup of Tea .............8 Linguistics and the Subject .........................................................................10 The Subject of the Novel .......................................................................... 13 The Subject of Psychoanalysis...................................................................17 Narrative as Actions................................................................................... 18 Chapter 2: Being and Nothingness in A la recherche du temps perdu ................. 24 Memory and Oblivion...............................................................................33 Chapter 3: Identity and Consciousness in the Novels of William Faulkner..........................................................40 French Readings of Faulkner through Proust ......................................... 44 “Perfidious Arabesques” .............................................................................49 Benjy Compson’s Involuntary Memory................................................... 51 Quentin Compson: Temporal Consciousness ......................................... 57 Involuntary Memory and the Olfactory..................................................63 Existentialist Faulkner ................................................................................66 Time and Memory in Absalom. Absalom?............................................... 66 Voice, Voices..............................................................................................70 Chapter 4: The Social Kaleidoscope ............................................................................. 87 The Pastoral Tradicion .............................................................................. 92 Pastoral Proust ............................................................................................93 Fractured Narrative.................................................................................... 99 Social Fluidity in Faulkner..................................................................... 110 The Proper Name ................................................................................... 111 The Precariousness o f H istory............................................................... 117 Chapter 5: The Role of Art: Mise en abyme in Proust and Faulkner .................. 121 Faulkner’s Self-reflective T e x t................................................................. 125 Storytelling in Absalom. Absalom!........................................................ 126 Being and Art: The Death of Bergotte .................................................. 129 Voice, Interweaving, Intertextuality...................................................... 132 The French Architect .............................................................................. 135 Conclusion: The Identity Crisis of Literary Studies............................................... 138 The Figure of the A utho r ........................................................................ 142 Language and C haos ............................................................................... 145 The Thread of Association ...................................................................... 153 iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Scaling Effects..........................................................................................160 Reconcexcualizacion ............................................................................... 164 Complexity is a Value............................................................................ 166 Bibliography.................................................................................................................... 168 V ita.................................................................................................................................... 172 v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract This dissertation is a comparative study of first person narrative in Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance ofThinps Past), and selected novels of William Faulkner, primarily those in which the character of Quentin Compson appears: The Sound and the Fury and Absalom. Absalom? This comparison is based upon the assumption that the attempts to represent the patterns of thought, memory, or consciousness in these novels is symptomatic of many twentieth-century