The Archetypal Pattern Of William Faulkner's Wilderness-Journey Novels

As is pointed out by Sacvan Bercovitch, American literature has always shown an intense concern for the dual focus of 'America' and 'American' identity. On one hand, it regards America as 'the country of tomorrow'; on the other hand, it expresses the perpetual puzzle and anxiety over the definition of 'an American'. This concern originated in the earliest settlers' sense of the 'chosen people' and 'mission' when they started their journey to the New Continent wilderness. In a deeper sense, since national ideal and identity is the eternal care of all times and all nations, this dual-focus concern is not unique to American literature. Instead, it can be found in literatures of all nations. As human society gets more modernized and globalized, the anxiety and concern over identity embodied in literary creation and criticism also becomes more intense and obvious. This dissertation is a case study. It attempts to probe into William Faulkner's wilderness-journey novels in light of Christian culture and myth and archetypal critical theories. It is expected that the study will help reveal the time-honored cultural and psychological inheritance of the American nation and shed some light on the essence of the dual focus of 'America' and 'American' identity, which, in turn, may provide enlightenment in the examination of the world literature as well as literatures of different nations, especially literatures in the global context.The first four chapters study respectively the basic components of setting, character, narrative structure, and images which serve as hallmarks of the wilderness journey. Starting with Faulkner's wilderness experiences, Chapter One surveys the setting in his works and finds that there are three types of setting—primitive wilderness, mixed wilderness and metropolitan civilization—which correspond with the three man-related worlds in the Bible and are thus the displacement of the heaven (or Eden), the purgatory (or wilderness) and the hell. Chapter Two focuses on the characters and holds that three types of characters are foregrounded. The Edenic characters, being primitive and pure, are the symbols of Adam and Eve before their fall and thus the support and carriers of the Edenic dream. Meanwhile, the anti-Edenic characters, driven simply by their so-called beliefs, designs or purposes, go against the old virtues of mankind and are destructive of the Edenic dream. In between, there are various scapegoats who, with their respective efforts, shoulder the guilt on behalf of their races, classes or families. In this way, they represent a special force that eases tension and recovers order. Chapter Three discusses images that enjoy a high frequency and embody great thematic significance in the novels as well as foretell the results of the protagonists' journeys. They function either as a help, or an obstacle, or a way of communication when the protagonists travel in the wilderness. From the standpoint of the contract concerned, Chapter Four explores the narrative structures of Faulkner's wilderness-journey novels and reveals three types: the U type that expresses the theme of 'regenerative fall', the 'broken U' that highlights the theme of 'the fall of the big house', and the 'reverse U' that illustrates the Sisyphus destiny of modern man. These variations of the U structure are obviously the displacement of that in the Bible.Based on the above interpretations, the fifth chapter proposes that, on the whole, Faulkner's application of biblical archetypes can be explained in terms of a tripartite pattern, in which the column consisting of the mixed wilderness, the scapegoats, the communicative images and the reverse U structure type mediates between two opposing columns. It is over this mediating column that Faulkner shows his deepest concern while the other two serves as mirrors to reflect the limitedness, relativity and tragicness of the living conditions of post-Edennic mankind. In the meantime, this middle position is suggestive of the continuity of history so that characters are enabled to experience the past, the present and the future in a symbolic sense, and it also links up the inside with the outside, which allows the characters, while maintaining their identity of being natives of the American South, to become members among the American people and the human kind. Therefore, the mediating column can be regarded as the general description of every one of Faulkner's wilderness-journey novels, in which lies the one same story about not only the American South, but also the United States and the whole mankind.It is then concluded that, as a modern writer who has inherited both the Christian culture and the tradition of American wilderness literature, William Faulkner, by setting up the tripartite pattern, has turned his wilderness-journey novels into responses to the identity quest in American literature. On one hand, Faulkner's gray representations of the past and the present have subverted the ideal of the United States as the 'country of tomorrow' and 'savior of the world'. On the other hand, as if being John the Baptist of modern society, Faulkner has given out his call in the spiritual wilderness, calling upon his countrymen to renew their ideas and broaden their vision, so as to return to the big family of mankind. All Americans, whether Southerners or Northerners, whether whites, blacks or reds, are primarily members of the human family. This is Faulkner's profound insight into and explanation of the essence of American identity, which shows the writer's global sense in the pre-global time.