From "Difference" To "Hybridity": Identity Crisis And Reconstruction In Go Down, Moses

As a Nobel Prize winner, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and one of the greatestAmerican novelists of the20th century, William Faulkner has presented the world ahistorical panorama of American South. As one of his best novels written in hisgreatest period of creation, Go Down, Moses reflects his concern about race andslavery.Since the publication of Go Down, Moses in1942, study on this novel has gonethrough several stages. The initial attentions were mainly focused on its form andpattern; the study on Go Down, Moses has become multidimensional in subsequentperiods from cultural study, eco-criticism to archetypal criticism, etc. In China, whenlarge numbers of Faulkner’s novels were translated into Chinese in1990s, study onWilliam Faulkner and his works got heated and reached a height. Go Down, Moseshas been discussed by Chinese scholars with great concerns over its racial issue. Tostudy William Faulkner, one can not slide over racial issue in his works, which hascaught attention of the world.This thesis discusses identity crisis of three representative characters in GoDown, Moses, Sam Fathers, Lucas Beauchamp and Isaac McCaslin. It analyzes thecause of their identity crisis and how they reconstruct their identity with Stuart Hall’stheory of cultural identity.It analyzes the characters’ racial identity respectively and finds out that they areover obsessed with their oneness and difference. They experience ultra feelings andemotions such as confusion, desperation, misery, anger, etc. that are signs of identitycrisis. It concludes that slavery system is the root of their identity crisis. Although thesystem was abolished in1865, the impact of slavery keeps on lingering throughoutthe whole America, and it is especially prominent in South America. The trauma caused by slavery leads to their identity crisis.It also discusses the reconstruction of identity. Through opening up conversationbetween difference and hybridity, the characters begin to accept their difference, andattempt to seek a hybrid identity in order to go on living. Although they are differentin racial identity, they accept their difference and try to construct a hybrid identity.The influence of slavery is great even100years after the abolishment of slavery;the impact can not be dispelled. But with the steps of modernization and socialtransformation, identity goes on changing with those transformations. Thus, thosewho have experienced trauma of slavery have to achieve a hybrid identity, combingoneness with difference, so as to have peace with the past and live up to the future.