| Pa Chin (1904 — ) and William Faulkner (1897 — 1962) are contemporary literati with completely different social, cultural and literary backgrounds. The former is an outstanding writer of Chinese modern literature, while the latter is a backbone writer of both modernism and the American Southern Renaissance. However, besides the great differences, we find equally great resemblances, among which the most important might be the writers' love for humanity, great concern with human environment, and assiduous exploration of humanity and human heart through examining family issues. The great differences and resemblances make the comparative study on these two writers not only feasible but also significant. Therefore, this thesis is focused on the writers' respective masterpieces, The Family and The Sound and the Fury, conducting a comparative study on the main male characters so as to detect why the two families collapse and how the males respond to it. In the meanwhile, the thesis is also aimed to investigate the interrelationships between the disintegration of families, the different fates of the male members, the two authors' ideas on artistic creation and the dissimilar social, cultural situations of China and the American South.The Family and The Sound and the Fury are set respectively in China and the American South in the first years of the twentieth century, two standard patriarchal societies, where the powerful backing of society and tradition always results in a father's absolute authority in his family, so absolute that very often he is transformed into a tyrant and his family into his small "empire" correspondingly. Master Kao is such a case, an autocratic patriarch and fiercest defender of the feudal past, who has designed bloody tragedies one after another. Compared with him, Mr. Compson in The Sound and the Fury seems far more merciful. However, the limited details offered by the novel still efficiently reveal his authority as a father and the possibility to be a tyrant. Fathers are not only torturers but also victims of the old family systems. While designing others' tragedies, they are designing their own. Whoever he is, autocratic Master Kao or "merciful" Mr. Compson, neither was born cruel and inhuman. It is the old codes and notions that have remade them "standard" patriarchs and "dependable" defenders. Throughout this remaking, both of their personalities have been twisted and oppressed so terribly that though they do have something human, only in a grotesque way or under some special circumstances can they let out some of their normal human feelings. Even worse, the fathers have been deprived of the elementary right to enjoy the family love and happiness as well as the ability to show their love. Master Kao obtains obedience but no respect or love at all, and finally he dies, lonely, despondently and puzzled. However, Mr. Compson's awareness of the evilness in the "Splendid Past" can not save him, either, for he is a man raised, civilized and absorbed by it, thus unable to throw it away,whatever happens. Even worse, this awareness and the changed reality have undermined his will and ability to re-evoke the past in the present world also. In such a case, the only alternative open to him is to nibble his life away in whisky and cynicism. Though from different countries and cultures, Master Kao and Mr. Compson have similar life experiences. Wholly controlled by old traditions, they have been transformed not only into torturers and lethal weapons, but also victims. They clearly represent the essence of the old family systems and its corresponding social systems, that is, "cannibal".In the middle of the nineteenth century, affected by internal and external causes, the old traditions began to disintegrate. At the turn of the century, both China and America were in the throes of social transitions. The old social system began to collapse, but the new had not been established yet. Involved into the powerful current of reforms in all social spheres, people were for... |
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