Ghent University Faculty of Arts and Philosophy A Comparative Study of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and Graham Swift’s Last Orders Dissertation submitted in partial Supervisor: fulfilment of the requirements for the Dr. Stef Craps degree of “Licentiaat in de Taal- en Letterkunde: Germaanse Talen” by Dorien Van Gorp. May 2007 I Acknowledgements This year, a lot of people asked me what my dissertation was about and how it was progressing. When I told them that I was comparing two novels as a result of an accusation of plagiarism, they answered me: “That sounds difficult, I wish you all the luck.” And indeed, it was not always easy. Not only the writing, but also the forcing yourself to go and sit behind your computer when your friends are doing other things and enjoying the good weather. But now that my dissertation is finished, I am proud that I have persisted and finished this piece of work as a conclusion of four interesting years of academic study. Of course, I could not have done this on my own, so there are a number of people that deserve to be mentioned here. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Stef Craps, who corrected this dissertation piece by piece, and always gave his professional opinion. He took his time to give me hints and well-founded criticism, and even provided me with the necessary documentation. Next, I would like to thank my parents, who have always supported me in everything I did. From primary school to university, they have believed in my capacities even when I was not convinced of them myself. And last, but definitely not least, I want to thank all my friends, at home as well as in Ghent, at university as well as at my student house. They always succeeded in cheering me up when things did not go the way I had planned them. In general, I can say that they were responsible for making my last year at this university a year that was not exclusively dominated by this dissertation, but which was a nice alternation of study and fun. I realize that it is impossible to thank all the people that have supported me and have showed their interest in this dissertation, but I hope I have been able to make clear my sincere appreciation. II Introduction...........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Plagiarism.............................................................................................................5 1. History...........................................................................................................................5 2. What is plagiarism?........................................................................................................7 3. Famous cases of plagiarism..........................................................................................11 Chapter 2: Formal similarities between As I Lay Dying and Last Orders..............................18 1. Multiple voices and viewpoints....................................................................................18 2. Chapter attributed to a dead person..............................................................................21 3. Chapter consisting of enumerated points......................................................................26 4. One-sentence chapter...................................................................................................27 4.1. “My mother is a fish”............................................................................................27 4.2. “Old buggers”.......................................................................................................29 5. Narrative techniques....................................................................................................31 5.1. Characters.............................................................................................................31 5.2. Time......................................................................................................................38 6. Language.....................................................................................................................44 Chapter 3: Mentality............................................................................................................48 1. Americanness...............................................................................................................48 2. Englishness..................................................................................................................55 Chapter 4: Gender................................................................................................................61 1. Representation of women.............................................................................................62 2. Names..........................................................................................................................69 3. Roles............................................................................................................................74 Chapter 5: Religion..............................................................................................................78 Chapter 6: Intertextuality.....................................................................................................99 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................109 Bibliography...........................................................................................................................I 1 Introduction The first novel I ever read by Graham Swift was his acclaimed third novel, Waterland, which also turned out to be his most complex one. Even though it was not always easy to follow the different storylines, I immediately liked Swift’s style. A couple of months later, I started reading his fourth novel, Out of this World, and from the first page onwards, I noticed that this one was of another nature than Waterland. I believe it was an enjoyable novel, but stylistically, it was an enormous step backwards. This was also the opinion of the majority of critics, who labelled Out of this World as the least successful novel Swift had ever written. However, recent reviews show that this dubious honour should now be given to his latest novel Tomorrow. So when I found out that a possible subject for a dissertation involved Swift’s Booker Prize-winning novel Last Orders, I did not need much time to reflect on the matter. The fact that it also involved a novel by another literary genius, William Faulkner, contributed to my decision. I had never read a novel by Faulkner before, so I saw this as a perfect opportunity to fill this gap. Winning the Booker Prize for Fiction, or just being nominated, is a great achievement, but for some writers it is also a source for commotion. Ask Ian McEwan, whose novel Atonement was shortlisted for this prize in 2001. When a novel receives a lot of attention, more and more people are inclined to read it. This was definitely true for McEwan’s Atonement, but not all reactions were positive. A number of critics claimed that the author had used elements from a memoir written by Lucilla Andrews without giving credit. Others believed that McEwan had simply plagiarized the work. Something similar happened to Graham Swift, who won the Booker Prize in 1996 for his sixth novel, Last Orders. Most critics and readers saw this as an acknowledgement of Swift’s status as a contemporary English writer that should have been attributed earlier in his career. When an Australian academic, John Frow, expressed in an article his belief that Graham Swift had plagiarized the novel As I Lay Dying, written by the American author William Faulkner, more and more readers started to focus on the differences between the novels. The majority of critics and writers supported Swift and stated that Frow confuses plagiarism with pastiche, a legitimate postmodern technique. Others express their doubt and remark that Swift’s rewriting of Faulkner’s novel should be seen as plain plagiarism. 2 In the following chapters, I will focus on a number of themes that are prominent in As I Lay Dying as well as Last Orders. By looking closely at these subjects, I would like to find out whether or not John Frow was right in accusing Graham Swift of plagiarism. In the first chapter, I will further elaborate on the practice of plagiarism, looking among other things at the different degrees that can be distinguished, how it can be avoided, and some famous cases in the history of politics, the academic world, and literature. Then I will introduce the comparative study of the two novels with which this dissertation is centrally concerned, namely William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and Graham Swift’s Last Orders. Both novels evolve around the same plot: to fulfil the last wish of a deceased relative/close friend. But what about other similarities? Are there important differences that should be noted? In the second chapter, I will look at the formal similarities between the novels, and especially at the multiple voices and viewpoints, three special types of chapters, and the language used by the characters. Apart from this, narrative techniques will also be scrutinized, for example whether characters are flat or round, and whether or not time follows a natural chronology. The third chapter will deal with the geography in the novels and the mentalities that go with it. William Faulkner’s novel is set in