Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1974 William Faulkner: the Calvinistic Sensibility. Mary Dell Fletcher Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Fletcher, Mary Dell, "William Faulkner: the Calvinistic Sensibility." (1974). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 2662. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/2662 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 material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. 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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 75-1923 FLETCHER, Mary Dell, 1923- WILLIAM FAULKNER: THE CALVINISTIC SENSIBILITY. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1974 Language and Literature, modern Xerox University Microfilms,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 © 1974 MARY DELL FLETCHER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. WILLIAM FAULKNER: THE CALVINISTIC SENSIBILITY 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 English by Mary Dell Fletcher B. A«, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, 1961 M. A., Northwestern State University of Louisiana, 1965 August 9, 1974 ACKNOWLEDGMENT This dissertation owes much to other people for personal and professional aid and encouragement. My big­ gest debt, of course, is to the scholars whose ideas provided a basis of understanding that enabled me to make a small contribution to Faulknerian scholarship. Most significant is my debt to my dissertation director Professor Otis B. Wheeler, whose lectures on Calvinism as a shaping force in American literature motivated this work. Profes­ sor Wheeler gave generously of his time not only in discussing Faulkner and Calvinism with me but also in reading my manuscripts and suggesting changes, changes which resulted in more precise diction and thus in clarification of ideas. I am also indebted to Professor Cleanth Brooks on whose criticism I relied heavily. His explications, both in his published works and in his personal comments to me, illuminated much obscurity in Faulkner’s fiction. I owe a special debt of gratitude to my husband, William P. Fletcher, and to my daughter, Janet Fletcher Dyson, not only for performing such chores as proof­ reading and xeroxing but also for their patience and ii iii understanding that made it possible for me to give this project my undivided attention for long periods of time. My daughter's interest in Faulkner enabled me to use her as a sounding board for many of my ideas. I am also indebted to my close friends and fellow English teachers Joan Boston and Mary Jeanne Doherty, who spent hours proofreading. Finally, to my typist, Sara Waskom, I am grateful for both her excellent services and her patience in doing revisions. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page INTRODUCTION .................................... 1 I. The Sound and the Fury ................. 15 II. Sanctuary.................................. 90 III. Light in August........................... 1 lp6 CONCLUSION...................................... 218 LIST OF WORKS CITED.............................. 231 VITA ............................................ 236 iv ABSTRACT William Faulkner’s vision is essentially religious: men struggle constantly, wrestling with the forces of good and evil, to assert their will. When he referred in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech to conflicts of the human heart, Faulkner was speaking primarily of the struggle between evil and good, a struggle which becomes in many of his characters a flesh-spirit battle. Although the con­ flicts that Faulkner portrays are so powerful, so elemental, that they assume universal significance, his fiction is structured largely in terms of the Christian interpretation of history. This interpretation, strongly modified by Calvinist Protestantism, provides Faulkner with a concept of man’s nature and condition which he does not completely accept, but which, nevertheless, shapes his artistic vision and infuses his writings with both vitality and gloom. The influence of Calvinism on Faulkner is not to be found, however, in a literal application of Calvinistic dogma, but rather in images, allusions, and analogues that show moral attitudes persisting long after beliefs are gone. The concept of original sin pervades the entire body of Faulkner's works. Although there are no systematic references to the Fall, his entire vision suggests that v man is fallen, that his spiritual condition is a result of original sin. Isolated, these "hints" are perhaps not too meaningful, but taken in totality, they form a pattern that shows Calvinistic tensions in both Faulkner and his characters. Many of his characters exhibit traits so extreme that they seem to function allegorically as pure evil or innocence. Others undergo an initiation which is analogous to the Fall. His most fully developed women characters when viewed through the eyes of the male seem to spring from Eve: they do not fall into evil but rather are born with an affinity for it. In both theme and technique Faulkner demonstrates an emotional commitment to the paradigm of the Fall as a way of representing the human sense of isolation and alienation. Ideas suggesting Faulkner’s connection with Calvinism are contained in varying degrees and in diverse expression throughout his major fiction. Some works like Go Down Moses are shaped entirely by the idea of man’s fallen nature which manifests itself in Anglo-Saxon rapacity and exploitation of Negroes. Other works such as Absalom, Absalom! are concerned not only with the doom man has brought on himself but also with the excesses of secularized Calvinism. In nearly all of the works the characters are polarized--the artificial and rigid representing man’s negative aspects and the natural representing, if not the ideal, at least a more harmonious relationship with nature. This study is centered on the three major novels that best exemplify Faulkner's relationship to secularized Calvinism: The Sound and the Fury, Sanctuary, and Light in August. Both the concept of woman as the instrument of man’s fall and man's impoverished view of nature are secular mani­ festations of the theological tenet of original sin. The doctrine of Predestination also finds unique expression. The idea of "election" is embodied in a belief in white supremacy, an inflexibility in morals, and in an almost fanatical emphasis on respectability. Another aspect of this doctrine is dramatized in characters who, believing themselves to be damned by the curse of the past, exhibit a fatalistic attitude. INTRODUCTION Despite considerable differences in interpretation and assessment, readers of William Faulkner agree at least that his major works, though carefully set in particular times and places and populated with characters whose surface lives are hardly out of the ordinary, depict struggles and con­ flicts, so elemental and powerful as to assume universal significance. As portrayed in these works, men struggle con­ stantly to assert their will, wrestling with forces of good and evil, and in the process are made to confront their true condition. Faulkner's vision is essentially