Revaluing The Southern Tradition, Revaluing Its People: Bayard's Initiation To Adulthood In William Faulkner's Bildungsroman The Unvanquished

It is rather late in his life that William Faulkner (1897-1962) made great literary achievements. Not until 1929, the year that saw the publication of The Sound and Fury, Faulkner began to write his major works. In the following decade he proved to be a prolific writer, writing at the rate of about two books per year, most of which are now regarded as classics. In 1950 he was rewarded with Novel Prize for Literature. William Faulkner is believed to be one of the most discussed American writers in the world. But the existing researches in China are basically focused on a few of his full-length novels, among which The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, As I lay Dying and Sanctuary receive most attentions. Notice given to other stories is mainly concentrated on two works, The Bear and A Rose for Emily. The Unvanquished, published in 1938, is somehow neglected. One major reason for its relative obscurity is that for a long time it has been dismissed as a series of conventional southern Civil War stories, and therefore it receives little recognition as a serious work and as a novel. But it is hardly justifiable to say that it lacks literary merits. Rather, it has its unique significance and value for literary study.First, The Unvanquished is the starting point of the Yoknapatawpha series. Most of Faulkner's major novels are centered upon the theme of the downfall of the Southern aristocracy represented by the Sartoris family, but the only one book dedicated to the state of the antebellum and postwar aristocrats is The Unvanquished, which has not only complemented the historical origin of Yoknapatawpha, but also linked the several prominent families that are dealt with in other books through the description of the rise and fall of the Sartoris family. Second, The Unvanquished expounds the inadequacy of the Southern tradition through the Bayard's experiences, setting the historical background for the painful struggle of the later generations on the issue of cultural heritage. In this sense, Bayard's questioning of the Southern tradition foreshadows the bewilderment and rebellion of the future generations in the face of history and tradition.The paper treats The Unvanquished from the point of view of a literary genre, Bildungsroman. The advantage of this perspective not only lies in its newness but also in the fact that from it the Southern legend and tradition can be easily related as well as the southern aristocratic heritage viewed by the later generations both as a glory once cherished and as a heavy burden hard to shake off. Also, the changing point of view which the hero, Bayard, holds for the Southern society, which results from his intellectual development as he transits from boyhood to manhood, mirrors the inadequacy and defects of the Southern tradition and its embarrassing place where it finds itself too rotten to be embraced and yet too dear to be rejected.Bayard's initiation into adulthood is in essence the process of revaluing the Southern tradition during the Civil War and the Reconstruction. Through his association with people around him, including John Sartoris, Granny, Aunt Jenny, Drusilla, Ringo and Loosh, he comes to understand the Southern tradition into which he has been brought up, not as what it is supposed to be but as a compromised version on his own terms. By the time he makes the crucial decision for himself not to avenge his father, he has completed revaluing familial, gender and racial aspects of the Southern tradition and managed to live with them conscientiously, and thus set himself up as a man he wants to be.The first chapter discusses chief features and course of development of Bildungsroman, and points out that by its standards, the novel in question belongs to the very genre. Originated in Germany, Bildungsroman was introduced to Britain and flourished in the Victorian era. In the United Stated, Bildungsroman started a little later. From Melville in the middle of the 19^th century to Salinger in the middle of the 20^th century, Bildungsroman grows gradually into maturity. The "initiation" theme of Bildungsroman found empathy in the nation at a time when it still strived to seek its national identity, and the genre went into popularity. According to the theory of Bildungsroman, people the hero associates with, no matter they are guides who gives advice or villains trying to mislead, are indispensable element to his transference to adulthood.The second chapter analyzes the process in which Bayard's changing attitude from conviction to doubt towards tradition by examining the Southern honor represented by Colonel John Sartoris and Granny Millard, and how it fails to retain its antebellum glory in the havoc wrought by the War. The youngster's naivete and traditional teaching render the Southern honor as glamorous as the bloody violence is obscure behind it As Bayard sees more and more of the devastation the War brings to the South and the defeat they thus suffer, he begins to perceive the inconsistency of the much exclaimed virtues like honesty and the absurdity and blindness of the Southern aristocratic arrogance. The Southern honor in the wake of the War, as he understands, is but an illusion. The Southern honor is confronted with serious doubt, and at least under the circumstance of the time, its position is embarrassing. From admiration to criticism, Bayard steps out the first-and also the utmost-step of initiation.The third chapter touches another respect of the Southern tradition, the Southern Womanhood. At this respect, Bayard is greatly influenced by Aunt Jenny and Drusilla Hawk, who stand as two types of Southern woman, the traditional and the untraditional. Jenny shows patience and care in a ladylike manner and in every way manifests the very meaning of being a proper woman. But in the last crucial moment she sides with Bayard disregarding the public outcry against Bayard's decision. In risking everyone's condemnation she shows Bayard that there are still sympathizers out there and tradition can be flexible. Drusilla deliberately unsexes herself and restlessly seeks violence as a man does. More emphasis is given to the latter for the reason that it is the unconventionality that really sheds lights on Bayard's rebellious step in the end that marks his entry into adulthood. The echo Drusilla makes on Bayard really lies in the conflict between tradition and individuality, and only after a fierce fight does the former concedes to the latter.The last chapter is dedicated to the issue of race where "good Nigger" and "bad Nigger" seems the only standard by which slaves are labeled, and in the mythology of white mastery blacks are invariably inferior. On the one hand, Ringo, who is brought up together with him, does not evoke anything near inferior, but is smarter instead. On the other hand, "bad nigger" Lush has his own justification for betraying his master and running away: in pursuit for equality and freedom. Bayard's experience with Ringo and Loosh proves the inadequacy of such an oversimplified notion.With reality breaking away from ideology, Bayard finds it harder and harder to reconcile his individuality with the Southern tradition he is supposed to abide by. His permanent trouble before he can be his own man is to find a compromise where conscience and tradition are at peace. A boy, confused with the traditional legacy foisted upon him, constantly adjusts himself until he locates his position both in society and in inner self, and this is also an angle from which we can read the Southern tradition at large. The protagonist's transference into maturity reflects the social problems that lay much deeper and wider under the cover of the Southern tradition and which emerge and become real problems as times change. First of all, the defeated South suffered from political suppression, and slavery was abolished, ending the plantation economy that depended on it. As capitalism and commercialism made their way for the very heart of the Southern land, the Southern aristocracy and the culture and tradition associated with it, all of which were solely relied upon plantation and slaves, lost their foundation. Under such political and economic background, the tradition was, in some sense, rendered obsolete. And it is under such social background that the protagonist makes his effort to change the tradition for his own taste. In effect, his effort does not diminish the tradition, but rather, preserves it. And his process of trying to make change marks the upheaval of the Southern tradition in a special historical time. Second, the protagonist's inner struggle mirrors the general psychology of his generation and also foretells the fact that the traditional heritage is bound to become a heavy burden for the later generations. The sense of shabbiness of the contemporary youth contrasts sharply with the glory of their forebears, and the preposterous gap between the expectations of the tradition and the utter helplessness of themselves causes a sense of displacement. In the midst of stumbles and conflict Bayard reaches maturity, but those generations that come after him end up in a failed life. Examples are to be found in Bayard Jr. in Sartoris and Quentin in The Sound and the Fury. Therefore, Bayard's pain in the process of growing is really the pain of the tradition itself in crisis, and also the pain of later generations trying to identify with the tradition in vain.